Question #4

A SAN is a good solution for all BUT the following:

a. database operations
b. file-sharing
c. application migration
d. voice or video transmission

The correct answer is:
b. file-sharing servers

File-sharing -- especially sharing large files -- are better suited for NAS than SAN. Network-attached storage (NAS) is hard disk storage that is set up with its own network address rather than being attached to the department computer that is serving applications to a network's workstation users. By removing storage access and its management from the department server, both application programming and files can be served faster because they are not competing for the same processor resources. The network-attached storage device is attached to a local area network (typically, an Ethernet network) and assigned an IP address. File requests are mapped by the main server to the NAS file server.

Network-attached storage consists of hard disk storage, including multi-disk RAID systems, and software for configuring and mapping file locations to the network-attached device. Network-attached storage can be a step toward and included as part of a more sophisticated storage system known as a storage area network (SAN).

For more on SAN and NAS, see also:

  • Implementing NAS in a SAN environment
  • Backup options to consider when implementing a SAN/NAS solution

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    This was first published in August 2003

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