
	Home > Ask the Storage Technology Experts > Questions & Answers > NAS vs. DAS

Ask The Storage Expert: Questions & Answers

EMAIL THIS

NAS vs. DAS

EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: Randy Kerns

		Pose a Question

		Other Storage Categories

		Meet all Storage Experts
		Become an Expert for this site

Digg This!

StumbleUpon

Del.icio.us

QUESTION POSED ON: 14 June 2006
I have a small customer that is looking for around 1 terabyte (TB) of storage to be added to their network. I was looking at using a HP DL380 with a MSA30 and 300 gigabyte (GB) disks. The other option was to use the DL380 storage server (NAS head) with the same MSA30 and drives. What are the performance benefits of network attached storage (NAS) vs. direct attached storage (DAS) in the configuration above?

BROWSE BY TAG

Network attached storage hardware and architecture, Data Storage Basics, Network attached storage, NAS hardware, NAS (network attached storage), Advanced Data Storage, Advanced network attached storage, NAS hardware and architecture, VIEW ALL TAGS

Digg This!

StumbleUpon

Del.icio.us

RELATED CONTENT

	Network attached storage hardware and architecture
	NAS appliance purchase considerations
	NAS appliance specifications
	Upstart tops NAS vendors
	How do NAS appliances and NAS heads play into file virtualization?
	Creating NAS partitions
	SAN vs. NAS: A diagram of the differences
	NAS for file storage: Pros and cons
	What is NAS gateway?
	Is NAS right for our needs?
	SAN and NAS (heads), together at last

NAS hardware

Overland Snap Server NAS watches over Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC exhibits

LSI dives into multiprotocol storage with ONStor acquisition

HP resizes its ExDS9100 scale-out NAS system; finds market broader than original Web 2.0 target

Storage Decisions Chicago 2009 Session Downloads

Sun claims open storage traction; will Oracle approve?

ONStor embraces ZFS, goes multiprotocol

EMC adds file-level single instancing, Flash to Celerra

Scale-out NAS poised for growth

Special Report: Direct-attached storage

Storage Decisions San Francisco 2008 Session Downloads

NAS hardware Research

NAS hardware and architecture

Choosing a low-end NAS product

How SMBs can select a NAS system

NICs in NAS systems

NAS appliance vs. homegrown file server

SAN and NAS (heads), together at last

RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS

Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary

direct-attached storage (SearchStorage.com)

NAS accelerator (SearchStorage.com)

Network File System (SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com)

network-attached storage (SearchStorage.com)

unified storage (SearchStorage.com)

RELATED RESOURCES

2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems

Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts

Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary

In reality, you're doing remote file serving over the network either way.

One is with a standard server operating as a file server and the other is a NAS device with the Windows Storage Server (WSS) software installed on it. The WSS based NAS device is the better choice for administration, reliability and potentially better performance. Performance depends on what you're doing, so you may or may not see a benefit. WSS has an optimized NFS implementation now.

Go with the NAS device -- the reliability and administrative ease and potential performance benefit make it worth it.

Do you know…

Whether to use a NAS appliance or a homegrown file server?

Search and Browse the Expert Answer Center
Search and browse more than 25,000 question and answer pairs from more than 250 TechTarget industry experts.

Browse our Expert Advice
Operating Systems IT Management Networking Database	Security Servers and Storage Applications and Development Career Center

Search for Data Management Tools

View this month\\'s issue and subscribe today.

Apply online for free conference admission.

SEARCH :

Site Index

TechTarget provides technology professionals with the information they need to perform their jobs - from developing strategy, to making cost-effective purchase decisions and managing their organizations' technology projects - with its network of technology-specific websites, events and online magazines.


TechTarget Corporate Web Site \| Media Kits \| Site Map All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2000 - 2009, TechTarget \| Read our Privacy Policy