A Guide to Understanding Network-Attached Storage

Owners or operators of a small to medium-sized business face uniquechallenges and concerns on an everyday basis. In addition to being incharge of daily operations, they often have a hand in everything fromclient service to human resources to accounting.

These are traditional business functions that most of us arefamiliar with, so executing them shouldn't pose too great of achallenge, right? But what about information technology? IT has growntremendously in importance as a business function over the past decade,yet it is still the one that average businesspeople know leastabout.

IT is often touted as an enterprise-level concept--a sophisticated,expensive, high-tech business advantage that should only be of concernto Fortune 1000 companies. But its importance to small and medium-sizedbusinesses cannot be overstated.

Every document ever created or received by your staff, whether it bean office memo, customer database, inventory log, or clientcorrespondence, must be safely stored and easily accessible at alltimes. Imagine not having access to your data. What would the impact beon overall productivity? Or imagine losing that data entirely. When youponder all that, the importance of implementing a networkinfrastructure that supports your business 24x7 becomes increasinglyclear.

So you're smart enough to know that data, and the successfulmanagement of that data, is critical to the success of your business.But for those of us who don't have a technical background orspecialized training, the task of building and maintaining a networkinfrastructure can seem rather daunting. Smaller companies also cannotafford the luxury of outsourcing the task to an IT specialist.

So what is the solution for small to medium-sized businesses thatrequire a simple, reliable and cost-effective way to manage theirdata?

One option worth considering is a network-attached storage (NAS)system. Whether you have 5 employees or 50, a NAS solution will keepyour mission-critical data safe, and enable your staff to share filesquickly and reliably for maximum levels of productivity.

In order to understand the value of a NAS system, it is firstimportant to understand what it's designed to address: data storage.Data storage is probably the most ubiquitous concept in the world oftechnology.

As a businessperson, you are directly or indirectly dealing withdata storage everyday--when you're accessing a file, running a softwareapplication, e-mailing a colleague, or drafting a memo. As yourbusiness grows, so does the amount of data you generate. If you don'thave enough storage capacity to handle that data, you will inevitablyslow down your network, and as a result, lower your productivity. Inthe business world, seconds tick by like hours, and time is money.Chances are that you've experienced the frustration that occurs whilewaiting for a file to open. It's also likely that you run a variety ofsoftware applications as part of your business, and that you'veexperienced slowdowns with them as well.

These problems are probably occurring for two reasons: 1) You have alot of data being shared from workstation to workstation; and 2) Thereis a lack of storage space on your server. By installing a NAS system,you can drastically increase the speed of your network so you no longerexperience the downtime, frustration, and lost productivity andprofitability that results from insufficient data storage.

NAS systems are completely dedicated to storage, making them thebest solution for improving the speed and functionality of yournetwork. NAS relocates the storage onto its own independent platform,effectively separating file sharing from application serving. Sinceapplications and storage are no longer running on the same system, thisfrees up file server bandwidth and reduces overhead on existingapplication servers. The result? Applications are processed morequickly and efficiently, and your staff has fast and reliable access todata - both to the benefit of your bottom line.

In addition to accessibility, NAS also offers high levels ofreliability. Almost all NAS systems incorporate a feature called RAID(redundant arrays of independent disks). A system with RAID capabilitycan protect and provide immediate access to data, despite a single diskfailure or concurrent disk failures. Different levels of RAID offerdifferent levels of protection. With RAID 0, data is striped across allphysical drives to improve access times. With RAID 1, the second set ofdrives duplicates the information from the first set for maximum dataprotection. RAID 5 distributes data and parity across all drives and iscapable of tolerating the loss of one drive, providing full driveintegrity.

As a small to medium-sized business owner, cross-platform filesharing is also an area of importance to you. Your currentinfrastructure, like those of many businesses, may contain a mix ofWindows, Windows NT, Apple Macintosh, Novell Netware, UNIX, and Linuxplatforms. Traditionally, sharing data across these different platformscan be both challenging and expensive. The good news is that with a NASsystem, cross-platform sharing becomes quite simple.

On the network, a NAS system can appear like a native file server toeach of its different clients. That means that files are saved on theNAS system, as well as retrieved from the NAS system, in their nativefile formats. So you don't have to worry about converting your entireoffice to one single platform, or losing your initial investment inyour desktops, servers and workstations.

Another key benefit of network-attached storage lies in itssimplicity. NAS systems are incredibly easy to install. This is greatnews for today's small to medium-sized businesses, which have neitherthe budget nor the daily need for an IT manager. Technologicalenhancements to your network should not be difficult or requiresignificant time or effort from your staff. Today's NAS systems are outof the box, plug and play. They are up and running in minutes - aboutthe same time it takes to program a VCR.

Nor does installation require high levels of technical skill or abackground in computer science. Any user, regardless of experiencelevel, can create networked storage within five minutes and two mouseclicks with minimal effort. Not only are NAS systems easy to set up,but they are also easy to use. Intuitive software programs guide you inmanaging your network and getting the most out of your NAS system.Again, they are designed with simplicity in mind.

Network-attached storage is also an attractive option for small tomedium-sized businesses due to its cost. In any business, it isimportant that dollars spent result in dollars earned. The proposedbenefits of implementing a new technology must be carefully evaluatedto determine whether the investment will justify itself in the longrun. Expanding your servers is not a cost-effective way to increasestorage capacity. Implementing a NAS system is. NAS, by virtue of beinga single repository completely dedicated to storage, is simply thesmartest investment for ensuring the integrity, reliability, andaccessibility of your data. For a few thousand dollars, today's NASsystems offer the same performance, reliability and feature sets thatenterprises pay $10,000 or more for.

The above factors present a strong case to small to medium-sizedbusinesses that are looking a simple and cost-effective way toexperience what today's global enterprises are benefiting from:sophisticated technology; fast, reliable network access; productivityincreases; and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that yourmission-critical data is safe. No matter how you look at it, NASsystems are simply the best way for you to safeguard, manage andleverage the information that is the foundation of your business.

Genevieve Ortegon is director of marketing at FIA Storage SystemsGroup, providers of entry-level network-attached storage (NAS) systems.FIA Storage SystemsGroup is headquartered in San Clemente, CA.