Best Digital Data Storage Solutions
Having a Storage solution that grows with your business is an essential for long term data storage.
There is no Perfect storage solution for every business, but the main factors that should be taken into consideration, include:
• Quantity of data that has to be stored and shared.
• Requirements of business in terms of performance.
• Storage required in coming 5 years.
• How can the availability or un-availability of data might affect your business.
• Data backup and recovery needs.
• Amount of money, you are ready to spend on data storage.
• IT resources available in your company.
There are different Storage options available, depending upon the size and requirement of the organization. Smaller companies usually have a single storage solution whereas, larger companies mostly prefer, a combination of different storage solution for their different units or departments.
The different storage solutions are:
• Storage Area Networks (Sans)
• Network Attached Storage (NAS)
• Backup to Disk (B2D)
• Content Addressable Storage (CAS)
Storage Area Networks
SAN is a high-speed system of shared storage devices and it allows all servers on the same network to access all of the storage devices. SAN’s sharing techniques make storage administration much easier and flexible as we don’t have to physically move the cables and storage devices to reallocate storage from one server to another.
Also, the stored data is not directly on any of servers in network so it provides, extra server power and network capacity and files can be backed up without using servers.
But SAN is a complex system and gives best results only when provided by an experienced service provider. Also, it is more expensive than other solutions. San is most suitable for organizations with huge storage requirements.
Network Attached Storage
NAS is an economical, cost effective and secure storage solution which is most suitable for upcoming businesses that don’t have a well developed IT department as it is easy to implement and is centrally controlled and managed.
It provides fast and reliable access to data that could be shared by multiple users in an IP network
NAS involves an arrangement of hard drives directly attached to the network. Files written to the main drive are automatically written to the second drive as well, which creates automated redundancy.
NAS is much cheaper than SAN and is most suitable for organizations who want consolidation of their directly attached storage resources.
NAS and SAN are mostly used together as they provide better storage flexibility and performance.
Backup to Disk
This is the most conventional storage method; it keeps confidential data beyond the reach of third parties. It provides complete control over digital assets to organizations.
B2D uses a hard drive to write the same data to a file. B2D solutions make use of different types of rewritable and removable media, such as DVD-RW, CD-RW, and Zip.
Content Addressable Storage
CAS stores information retrievable on the basis of content and not storage location. CAS is most suitable for organizations, where accuracy of data is highly important. In CAS whenever, there’s a tiny change in the data, a new unique identifier is provided to it. This identifier makes sure that users would be able to get the data exactly as it was stored in the system.
CAS is mainly used in highly regulated industries, law offices, and government agencies.
The Best Storage solution is the one that is economical and has the capability to grow with your storage needs. Before buying a storage solution, one must consult with their IT service provider to determine if a particular storage solution would suit their company’s present and future requirements.
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