| Technology |
Pros |
Potential Cons |
IP SAN
IP/iSCSI Storage Area Network |
- Broad compatibility
- Utilize existing network infrastructure
- Lower cost and TCO
- Data security
- Provisioning provided to applications
- No downtime for upgrades or maintenance
- Clustered architecture allows you to “pay as you go” and
add additional capacity easily
- Uses standardized technology so no additional skillsets needed
|
- Performance not as good as Fibre SAN (yet)
- Not designed for video and/or graphics streaming
- An already clogged LAN can become further clogged by additional network
traffic, affecting backup performance
|
Fibre SAN
Fibre Storage Area Network |
- Best performance (2 Gbps with 4 Gbps coming soon)
- High scalability
- Pool shared storage resources
- Ability to add additional capacity at will
|
- Expensive purchase price
- Requires additional skills to install and manage
- Interconnects limited to 10 km
- Interoperability issues between vendors
|
NAS
Network Attached Storage |
- Easy to install and manage
- Less complex than SAN technology
- Allows you to share files and capacity throughout multiple operating
systems and file systems
- Allows you to purchase storage separate from other computing resources
|
- Performance, not as good as SAN
- As NAS filer capacity fills up, it becomes a bottleneck and single
point of failure
- No database support, just file transfers
|
DAS
Direct Attached Storage |
- Suited for extremely small or legacy hardware and operations
- Storage capabilities usually embedded into server technology, requiring
no installation
|
- Inefficient provisioning
- Adding storage means adding servers
- Require downtime to add capacity
- Can't share storage resources
|
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