The Ultimate Beginner Guide to Enterprise Storage

The massive amounts of data generated daily make it possible for business entities to deliver seamless consumer experiences, hence giving them a competitive edge. This has, in turn, spurred the demand for better storage solutions, giving rise to innovative enterprise storage approaches such as a SAN. If you’re new to the data landscape and are looking for the ideal storage solution for your entity’s data, take a look at the basics of enterprise storage.

What Exactly is Enterprise Storage?

This is a centralized storage system for business data. It offers users’ collective data management, protection and sharing functions through connections to multiple computer systems.

In layman language, enterprise storage is a data storage system with features that enable enterprises to save and retrieve data seamlessly through different computer systems. An ideal enterprise storage system handles hundreds of terabytes of data and a large number of users without excessive cabling or other subsystems.

Types of Enterprise Storage

About half a century ago, enterprises handling vast volumes of data had no option but to rely on directly attached storage. Also known as DAS, this system not only offered limited space but also relied on excessive cabling. Fast forward to today’s evolving data landscape; enterprises now have various repository options, the most popular ones being SAN and NAS. Described herein is all you need to know about these systems.

SAN

A Storage Area Network, commonly referred to as a SAN, is a high-speed network of storage devices designed to handle massive data transfers and bulk data storage. It connects large pools of storage devices through fiber channels or Ethernet cables so users can access data in a way that appears to be locally attached.

Thanks to such technology, a SAN moves storage from the common user network and consolidates it into one place where it’s accessible via any application. This, in turn, reduces cabling, increases space and cuts on storage costs, making it a popular option among most businesses in need of enterprise storage.

NAS

Known as Network Attached Storage, NAS refers to intelligent file storage that resides on the LAN. It enables multiple device users to retrieve data from a centralized disk capacity if they have the right credentials. In other words, a NAS set-up works more like a cloud – only that eliminates the need for a third party.

Differences Between SAN and NAS

SAN and NAS are often confused, but they have notable differences. The main difference, however, is that a NAS unit usually includes a single dedicated hardware device. It also runs on TCP/IP networks, mostly ethernet connections. SANs, on the other hand, is a high-speed network of storage devices which runs on fiber channel networks or Ethernet cables.

This means that a NAS unit is directly interconnected to an Ethernet network through a cable and can use multiple protocols including HTTP and NFS, to connect with servers. On the other hand, servers on SAN use the SCSI protocol to communicate with the disk drive devices.

Another critical difference between the two systems also lies in their data processing architecture. SAN processes block-level data while NAS processes file-based data. This makes SANs better suited for enterprises that generate high-speed traffic.

Trends Shaping Enterprise Storage

From the DAS era to SAN and NAS eras, the future of enterprise storage solutions looks even brighter thanks to the innovative solutions shown below.

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

The proliferation of TCI/IP technologies has seen SAN developers bundle up the traditional SAN components into the IP-based approach used by NAS. This has, in turn, given rise to a high speed and high capacity software-defined approach to storage management.

NVMe Devices

Another trend that is slowly taking over mainstream enterprise storage is the use of NVMe over fabrics. This storage system was developed to speed up data transfer between servers and SSD through the PCIe bus. It thus makes everything faster and more price competitive.

Final Thoughts

For your business to be at par with the competitive digital business scope, you need to make the most out of your business and industry data. You can only do so if you have the right data storage solutions. Fortunately, we offer a diverse selection of modern enterprise storage solutions.

We’ll tailor whichever solution you need to fit your business, making it possible for you to maximize the countless opportunities your data presents. Contact us at RAID Inc. today and unlock a world of growth opportunities for your business.