Attached Storage

By Author: Ted Starsky
Total Articles: 11
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Attached storage is a solution for data storage. Nowadays, many important files, such as documents, e-mails or reports are still stored on conventional devices without backup copies or any additional protection from system or hardware failures. Attached storage is a method which allows all storage devices to communicate as if they were attached to each other, so that they can transfer the data to a particular space in their network – usually a storage server and, what is the most important, they can have access to the data stored there. The devices in attached storage sometimes are simply physically or, more specifically, directly attached or they just appear attached – they are even kilometers from one another physically, but are linked together via network appliances. An option for attached storage is using virtualized devices. For example, a method of cloud storage is based on virtualization of storage space on servers which do not belong to the company or individual user, but are used by them. This storage uses efficiently all storage space which is leased from ...
... storage service providers. The main types of attached storage are network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN). Both technologies are based on a networked devices which share and have access to data stored on the attached server. Another type of attached storage would be DAS storage (direct attached storage) which, when compared with NAS or SAN, is not necessarily networked but directly attached to servers instead. The main advantage of attached storage is a lot of flexibility in data storage. The data from heterogeneous users can be moved to one primary storage device and additionally to backup storage devices at the same time. This data can then be accessed by the devices networked to the storage server. It is easier to manage and protect the data stored in one location than to manage data stored on individual computer separately. It would involve much more time and workload from storage administrators.