The Fundamentals of Network Attached Storage

Network Attached Storage or NAS is file-level storage which makes data that more accessible to the network devices. In this article, we will explain network attached storage definition, how it works and some of its benefits.

What is NAS?

NAS or network attached storage is a file-level storage architecture, as mentioned before. NAS offers many benefits to the enterprises makes data a lot more accessible to the network devices. This makes networking a lot easier.

Other than this, NAS gives networks a single access point of storage with built-in security, management and fault tolerant capabilities.

How Does NAS Storage Work?

Hardware

NAS storage appliances are preconfigured with storage software that is installed on dedicated hardware. This hardware is known as a NAS box, NAS unit, NAS server, or NAS head, the naming depends on the vendor or the appliance.

This hardware is basically just a server containing storage drives, processors and RAM. However, it is the features that offer the real value to an enterprise and these features vary from vendor to vendor.

Software

The main difference between NAS storage and a general-purpose server storage lies in the software that these solutions offer. A NAS storage software that is present in a NAS storage solution is deployed on a lightweight Operating System (OS) that's usually embedded in the hardware.

General-purpose servers have full operating systems that send and receive thousands of requests every second and every minute of the day. A fraction of which may be related to storage, while a NAS box or a NAS storage device or appliance sends and receives only 2 types of requests: data storage and file sharing.

NAS Storage Benefits

·        Easy Scalability: Adding more storage capacity to a NAS storage appliance is as easy as adding more hard disks. You don’t have to upgrade or replace existing servers; it is done with just a few clicks and the new storage can be made available without shutting down or disrupting the network. It is a seamless upgrade.

·        High Performance: Since NAS storage is dedicated to serving files, it removes the responsibility of file serving from other networked devices. And since NAS storage is tuned to specific use cases (like big data or multimedia storage), enterprises can expect way better performance than their old storage solution.

·        Easy to Setup & Use: NAS storage architectures are often delivered as user friendly solutions, or even as appliances pre-installed with a streamlined operating system. What this does is that it greatly reduces the time it takes to set up the NAS storage device and enterprises can quickly manage the system.

·        Fault-Tolerance: NAS storage can be formatted to support replicated disks, a redundant array of independent disks, or erasure coding to ensure data integrity.

Conclusion

Network attached storage or NAS storage gives enterprise a lot of benefits and perks which gives them a highly reliable and fault-tolerant solution in order to help them stay competitive in this highly competitive world of IT. This is why NAS storage solutions are so popular in the market, even to this date and for many years ahead.