A NAS device is a storage device that is connected to a network, allows data storage and retrieval from a central location. It can be used by authorized network users or clients. Flexible and expandable, NAS devices can be expanded as needed. NAS can be compared to having a private cloud at work. You have complete control and it’s quicker than a public cloud.

Network-attached Storage (NAS) allows multiple users to access the same file storage. A standard Ethernet connection allows users to access shared storage from a local network ( LAN).

Why is NAS perfect for SMBs?

SMBs will love NAS systems.

• It is easy to use, so a dedicated IT professional may not be required.
• Lower costs
• Data backup is easy so you can always access it when you need it
• Excellent at centralizing data storage in a safe and reliable manner

A NAS makes data always accessible. This allows employees to collaborate, respond quickly to customers, and follow up on sales issues or other matters. NAS can be accessed remotely via a network connection. This allows employees to work from anywhere and at any time.

SMBs will not be able to use scattered storage arrangements.

• Out-of-sync data
• If storage is reduced, accessibility and reliability issues may arise.
• Reluctance to respond to customer service inquiries or sales questions

Advantages

NAS is gaining popularity. It’s growing in popularity for good reasons. The best experience is possible with NAS servers, which allow you to access company data 24×7. IronWolf Pro-equipped NAS server servers provide great competitive advantages, enhance customer service levels, and expand the collaboration reach across all projects, at any company. The only thing that limits the utility of a NAS solution for your business is not having one!

Network-attached storage: What are the uses?

NAS allows users to share data and collaborate more effectively. This is useful for distributed teams who need remote access or who work in different time zones. NAS can be connected to a wireless router to allow distributed workers to access files from any computer or mobile device that has a network connection. Organizations often use a NAS environment to build a private or personal cloud.

Some NAS products can be used in large companies. Some are designed for small businesses or home offices. Devices typically have at least two drives bays. Single-bay systems can be used for less critical data. Enterprise NAS gear has more advanced data features that aid storage management. It usually includes at least four drive bays.

Before NAS, companies had to manage thousands or hundreds of file servers. The scale-up NAS is a way to increase storage capacity. For scale-out storage, appliances can be clustered together.

To give customers redundant backup, many NAS vendors also partner with cloud storage providers.

Although collaboration is a great virtue of NAS it can also pose problems. To serve data, network-attached storage relies upon hard disk drives (HDDs). When too many requests are being made at once, input/output ( ) contention may occur. Modern systems are faster with flash storage as either a tier along HDDs or all-flash configurations.

Examples and use cases for NAS

The type of HDD that is selected for a NAS device will depend on the applications being used. It is common to share Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Word documents with colleagues. To handle large amounts of streaming media files, NAS requires more capacity disks, more memory, and better network processing.

People use a NAS system at home to store and retrieve multimedia files and automate backups. NAS systems are used by home users to accomplish the following:

• Smart TV Storage Management
• Manage security systems and security updates
• Manage consumer-based internet of things components
• Create a media streaming platform
• Manage torrent files
• You can host your own cloud server
• Create, test, and build a personal website

NAS is used in the enterprise:

• As a backup target using a NAS array for archiving or disaster recovery
• For testing and developing web-based or server-side web apps;
• Hosting messaging applications
• Hosting server-based, open-source applications like customer relationship management, Human Resource Management and Enterprise Resource Planning apps;
• For serving email, multi-media files, databases, and print jobs.

A company might import many images each day to illustrate how it uses the technology. This data cannot be streamed to the cloud due to latency. It instead uses an enterprise-class NAS for the storage of the images, and cloud caching to keep connections to images stored on-premises.

Higher-end NAS products are equipped with enough disks for redundant arrays of independent disks or RAID. This storage configuration turns multiple hard drives into one logical unit, increasing performance, redundancy, and availability.

NAS deployments for businesses

Below is a chart that describes five possible deployments of network-attached storage and lists the pros and cons for each. A single network manager can manage all deployments.

There are several deployment options:

• NAS gateways. These are ideal for large enterprise-class users with a SAN.
• Integrated Network Attachment. This method works well for users without a SAN.
• Clustered File Systems. Large compute cluster users who require high-performance file access will find these Clustered File Systems.
• Parallel file system. These are ideal for large cluster users who require high-performance file access, or any other organization that needs parallel access to file information.
• NAS aggregators. These are great for multi-box or multivendor environments.

What is the future for NAS?

Virtualization has been added to the base functionality of NAS devices. High-end NAS devices may also offer data deduplication flash storage, multiprotocol accessibility and replication.

Some NAS devices use a standard operating system such as Microsoft Windows while others use a proprietary OS from a vendor. Although IP is the most popular data transport protocol, some midmarket NAS devices may be able to support other protocols such as:

• Network File System
• Internetwork Packet Exchange
• NetBIOS Extended Users Interface
• Server Message Block (SMB)
• Common Internet File System (CIFS)

High-end NAS devices can also support Gigabit Internet to allow for faster data transfer across networks.

Larger enterprises have switched to object stores for greater capacity. Small and medium-sized businesses will continue to benefit from NAS devices.

NAS vs. Object Storage

There are two types of NAS: scale-up or scale-out. NAS can also be used to store unstructured data. Object storage is another alternative.

Scale-up NAS

The NAS head, which is the hardware responsible for controlling a network-attached storage installation, is what controls the operation. Through an internet connection, it provides access to the backend storage. This configuration is called scale-up architecture. A two-controller system can expand its capacity by adding drive shelves depending on the scalability.

Scale-out NAS

Scale-out systems allow storage administrators to install larger heads and harder disks to increase storage capacity. Scaling out allows for flexibility in adapting to the business needs of an organization. Scaling out enterprise systems can store billions upon billions of files, without the need to perform metadata searches.

Object storage

Industry experts believe object storage may overtake scale-out NAS. It’s possible that both technologies will continue to work side-by-side. Both storage methods deal with scale in different ways.

The Portable Operating System Interface ( POSIX) centrally manages NAS files. It ensures data security and allows multiple applications to share a scaled-out device without worrying about one application overwriting another.

Object storage is a new way to store data in web-scale environments that can be easily scaled. It’s useful for unstructured data, especially large video files that are not compressible.

Object storage doesn’t use POSIX, nor any other file system. All objects are stored in a single address space. Each object is described in bits of metadata, which allows for quick identification within a flat namespace.

Cloud storage and NAS

Some data centers also augment or replace physical NAS devices with cloud-based file storage. Amazon Elastic File System provides scalable storage in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Microsoft Azure File Service also provides managed file shares based upon SMB and CIFS that can be used in both cloud-based and local deployments.

The network access gateway is used to allow files to access externally attached storage. These were either connected to a high-performance area network over FC or just a few disks attached to servers. NAS gateways still exist, but they are less common. Customers are more likely to use a cloud storage gateway or object storage, while scale-out NAS is more popular.

The cloud gateway is a device that sits at the edge of a company’s network and allows applications to be moved between local storage and the public cloud. The cloud-native UniFS file software was created by Nasuni Corp. It is available either as a virtual storage appliance or bundled with Dell PowerEdge servers.