Network Attached Storage (NAS) attaches to a network via the network's own cabling system and protocol. These products are assigned IP addresses and thus become potential file storage for any client user on the network. In effect, they are file servers that do not require the licenses associated with bringing another full server online. Besides the obvious savings associated with this, NAS products offer advantages in expansion and fault tolerance that make them a popular tactic in storage deployment.
With NAS, expanding your storage capacity is as simple as adding a new NAS unit. There is no hard limit to the capacity you can add, it is more a matter of how much traffic your network can handle. Higher functioning and feature rich NAS servers function as gateways to hard disk arrays. These arrays can be modified to the scale of your expanding network needs. Scalability is important in the dynamic network environment where data generation grows exponentially.
NAS products add some fault tolerance to a network. If a server goes down any data that server holds, or that is directly attached to it, is no longer available to the network. Adding NAS units ensures that data is still available to the network in this situation. Adding multiple NAS units can help ensure that there is no single point of failure that can stop work on the network entirely. Additional units can even be used as backup devices either as full replications of other units or as incremental or snapshot updates to full tape backups. Can NAS products satisfy your storage needs?
PC Mall Storage Specialists can help you find the solution that fits your needs. Call 1-888-525-3282 or submit the questionnaire above to receive an email response from your PC Mall Storage Specialist.