SAN, NAS and DAS: Smart businesses are taking a closer look at how they store data, and how effectively they can access that stored data, to help make sure their storage networking is as efficient as possible. Asking and answering several important questions can help ensure your company has the appropriate solution in place. More on SAN storage area network, direct attached storage and network attached storage servers and solutions.

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by Howard Baldwin, illustration by Stephen Lyons. iQ Magazine

Set up your network so that you stop wasting time, capacity, and money.

Summary
Smart businesses are taking a closer look at how they store data, and how effectively they can access that stored data, to help make sure their storage networking is as efficient as possible. Asking and answering several important questions can help ensure your company has the appropriate solution in place.

Those who see data storage as a perfunctory part of the network haven't been paying attention. Having a storage infrastructure that satisfies external business demands, such as 24-hour availability and compliance with government regulations, as well as internal needs, such as cost control, fast access, and scalability, requires that you design and operate your storage as a highly efficient unit.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) may see that it's time to make the move from traditional data storage to centralized storage networking; this article outlines issues to consider in your assessment.

Dedicated or Consolidated?
Traditional network storage dedicates a server for each application. Although inefficient, this direct-attached storage (DAS) method has persisted in many SMBs due to the declining prices for storage devices. But DAS is more expensive than it appears:

• Capital Expenses: To ensure adequate room for data in a DAS infrastructure, IT usually has to purchase disk drives with a capacity of double the usable storage space. Repeating this behavior on every server "storage island" means half the total purchased capacity sits unused.
• Maintenance Costs: IT staff must deploy and administer scheduled backups on every server; periodically monitor, upgrade, and service the servers; and recover from disasters that affect some or all of them.
• Downtime: SMBs rarely deploy high-availability redundant paths to DAS servers, and the costs of server downtime—whether caused by a planned backup or unplanned system failure—are lost productivity and, often, lost revenue.