| Network-attached Storage |
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Information AboutNetwork-attached Storage |
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Network-attached storage (commonly abbreviated to '''NAS''') systems are generally computing-storage devices that can be accessed over a Computer Network (usually TCP/IP ), rather than directly being connected to the computer (via a Computer Bus such as SCSI ). This enables multiple computers to share the same storage space at once, which minimizes overhead by centrally managing Hard Disk s. NAS systems usually contain one or more hard disks, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID arrays. The protocol used with NAS is a file based protocol such as NFS or Microsoft's Common Internet File System (CIFS). In reality, there is a miniature Operating System on the device such as DART on EMC 's Celerra devices or Data ONTAP on NetApp NAS devices. A Storage Area Network (SAN) is very similar, except it uses a block-based protocol and generally runs over an independent, specialized storage network. NAS devices become logical File System storage for a Local Area Network . Thus the performance of NAS devices depends heavily on cached memory (the equivalent of RAM ) and network interface overhead (the speed of the router and Network Card s). The benefit is that the device can become a giant neighborhood hard drive for a whole building. The disadvantage is that any constrictions in the local network will slow down the resulting access time. NAS was developed to address problems with Direct Attached Storage , which included the effort required to administer and maintain "server farms", and the lack of scalability, reliability, availability, and performance. They can deliver significant ease of use, provide heterogeneous data sharing and enable organizations to automate and simplify their data management. In addition, the price of NAS appliances has plummeted in recent years, offering flexible network based storage to the home consumer for little more than the cost of a regular USB or Firewire external hard disk. NAS APPLICATIONS NAS allows multiple server access through a file-based protocol. This allows administrators to implement simple and low cost load-balancing and fault-tolerant systems. For example:
NAS VENDORS NAS was pioneered by Auspex , based on the success of File Server s from Novell , IBM , and Microsoft . The widespread success of NAS was due to the introduction of the Network Appliance Filer , and NAS market share in Enterprise Storage is increasing due to low Total Cost Of Ownership compared to Fibre Channel SANs . In recent years, emerging companies like Coraid , ONStor , ALLNET USA and BlueArc have combined the ease of management of NAS with the performance and scalability of SANs . NAS FOR SOHO (SMALL OFFICE/HOME OFFICE) NAS are becoming popular for Home and Small Business use. Today, you can buy simple NAS-solutions like the popular Linksys NSLU-2 . Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS is a newcomer, but offers a rich feature set including RAID-5 and the ability to add the drives yourself. These small-footprint appliances excel at low-power, low-noise, and low-cost. For people who have old computers they do not use anymore, there are some free NAS servers to download from the internet, like FreeNas , NASLite or Openfiler . They are easy to configure via Webinterface and run on even the slowest computers. SEE ALSO
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