Network Storage Comparison: DAS, NAS, And SAN
Enterprise Storage Forum, Tuesday, July 18,2023
In basic terms, network storage is any means of storing data that makes it available to clients over a network. The changing ways we use data and the exponential increase in the volume we collect and process have driven new ways to store and manage that data more effectively, and in practice, network storage now encompasses a wide range of technologies.
This article is an introduction to the main types of network storage, both traditional and emerging.
What is Network Storage?
In the days of mainframes, data was stored physically separate from the actual computer processing units but was only accessible through them. As PC-based servers became more commonplace, storage moved to internal drives built inside the PC itself, or to directly connected external drives. As the need to store increasing volumes of data and make it more immediately accessible grew, network storage came along as a better alternative.
Network storage refers to any type of storage that is connected to a network that lets users save and access their data. There are multiple types of network storage-here's a look at the most common.