NAS: How does a client access files?

NAS: How does a client access files?

How does network attached storage (NAS) appear to machines accessing files from it? Is it visible like mounted volumes or shared folders?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    When you register for SearchStorage.com, you’ll also receive targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers. Our goal is to keep you informed on the hottest topics, the latest news and the biggest challenges you face as a storage professional today.

    Rich Castagna, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchStorage.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchStorage.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

A NAS device is really a remote file system that can be communicated with using a protocol such as NFS or CIFS. A local file access is "redirected" to the remote file system (NAS) by using the access protocol, TCP (sometimes UDP) and IP over Ethernet.

The client that is accessing the NAS has to mount the remote file system or establish a share. The file structures in the mounted file system will then be used like a local file system.

Do you know…

How to establish NAS checkpoints for NFS and CIFS systems?

This was first published in July 2006