Re: Data Purging Strategy

> In response to a post on data purging Tim Gorman wrote "some on SAN-based
> disk, some on NAS-based storage".
>
> Can someone please explain the differences between these technologies
> please.
>
> My understanding that a SAN is a group of disks which are available on a
> network and are not 'owned' by a server and have no direct cables into a
> server.
> I also understood NAS to be network based disk (duh!)

Please correct, clarify, or comment as needed; I don't recall ever having seen a formal definition for either acronym:

• SAN (storage area network): storage-arrays connected by dedicated high-speed interconnects (i.e. SCSI, SSA, FC-AL, etc) managed by a dedicated server, including switches and routers to provide storage for one or multiple storage clients (i.e. what we tend to call "servers")...
• NAS (network-attached storage): storage that is hosted by (i.e. mounted on) a dedicated, special-purpose server and made available to network clients via IP protocols like NFS, Samba, etc across general-purpose IP networks. For NAS, think "dedicated NFS server" or "dedicated file server" or the like and you've got the idea...

There are so many technologies mixed into SANs that I find it difficult to generalize. It is probably more appropriate to define NAS first and then say "SANs are everything else" in networked storage, but I thought I'd try it the hard way...

Further generalizing:

• SANs are capable of faster and more sustainable I/O throughput rates, but more complex and more expensive
• NAS are economical, easy to administer, and easy to implement, but provide lower sustained I/O throughput rates

For this reason, I don't see the question as an "either-or" proposition (i.e. either all SAN or all NAS). They are each point-solutions along a continuum, as illustrated in the "strategy" in my previous reply. Data passes through a life-cycle, just like anything else. Requirements for storage and retrieval can change during that life-cycle...

... "continuum" ...... there's a high-class word I've been itching to use ..... has the potential to become as hoity-toity and annoying as "paradigm" and "juxtaposition", though... :-)

>
> Thanks
>
>
> John
>
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Author: Tim Gorman
  INET: Tim_at_SageLogix.com

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