Network Attached Storage (NAS)

In recent years, many organisations have examined the role of the humble file server in their IT infrastructure and come to an interesting set of conclusions:

  • Downtime has become very expensive - More and more staff depend upon access to files in order to work effectively, or even work at all.
  • Total cost of ownership (TCO) is very high - Many times higher than the (often low) purchase price of the hardware, due to the level of management and maintenance required.
  • File servers are proliferating - In the absence of a strategic direction for file servers, rapidly growing data volumes lead to file servers multiplying throughout the organisation.
Network Attached Storage

Network Attached Storage - Note that a pair of clustered file servers is shown, even though file servers today are rarely clustered. For comparison purposes, a clustered pair of file servers is required to deliver a similar level of availability to that offered by an enterprise-class NAS array.

Advantages

  • Similar or lower purchase cost - When compared to a clustered pair of file servers with several hundred GB of storage and supporting several hundred users.
  • Quick and simply to deploy - NAS devices are renowned for their ease of deployment: even enterprise-class units can usually be commissioned in only a few hours. Compare that to the amount of time and effort required to deploy a pair of clustered file servers.
  • Immune to viruses - The NAS arrays runs a simple micro kernel in place of the complex, general purpose operating system used on file servers. As a result, it's unaffected by viruses - though they may still be stored on the NAS from there to infect other servers and workstations.
  • Almost completely hacker-proof - See above point
  • Higher availability - A fully redundant architecture virtually eliminates both downtime and data loss from same. For enterprise-class NAS, capacity and software upgrades can both be completed with no downtime.
  • Much lower cost of ownership - NAS arrays can be easily managed using a web browser, in minimal time with very little training required. Cutting the major cost of file servers - management - reduces the TCO dramatically.

Disadvantages

  • Requires some additional thought for backup and disaster recovery.
  • The use of such appliances has an impact upon DR and must be factored into DR plans appropriately.

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