Business News
Finding IT Storage Solutions
By
Sep 6, 2005, 23:33

(NAPSI)-Whoever made the promise of a "paperless office" probably never thought of all the digital storage space it would require. But finding room on busy servers or networks for storage has become a top concern for many small and medium-sized businesses.

The right storage solution can help people protect and access files and documents, while the wrong type of storage can slow down servers and workflow-or worse, allow data to be lost. When choosing storage type, experts say to consider affordability, immediate needs and plans for future expansion. Dell provides this look at the three common categories of storage solutions:

Direct Attached

About 70 percent of companies use Direct Attached Storage (DAS). Attached to servers using a relatively short and dedicated connection, DAS systems provide easy additional external storage expansion for servers that have filled their internal storage capacity. The devices are ideal for departments or workgroups needing immediate additional storage capacity because they are simple to install and have a low initial cost. They can also be a good choice for those whose storage requirements are not growing rapidly and who have a small number of servers.

Networked Storage

Networked storage can be an improvement over DAS because it helps eliminate a company's need to have islands of storage. It also helps improve manageability, usability and costs by letting you move storage out of individual servers into a dedicated storage solution that can support multiple servers. It is generally a good choice for companies with large numbers of users or large and growing data needs. Networked storage is associated with one of two product types: Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Networks (SANs). Most NAS products are all-in-one appliances built to handle file and data sharing amongst heterogeneous clients. Since connectivity between clients and servers is often provided over the same IT network, NAS users can have access from remote locations. In contrast, a SAN device uses a dedicated network to connect to the server. Advantages of SANs over NASs include better performance, security, availability and scalability. A SAN is commonly used to provide storage for databases and can host multiple servers over long distances. About 30 percent of businesses use SANs.

Tape Backup

Tape backups are an important complement to DAS or networked storage because they provide protection against data loss from sources such as viruses, accidental file deletion, server or hard disk failure, and natural disasters. They're generally easy to use and are the most cost-effective way to protect all types of data such as e-mail, databases and video files. Tapes are also easily transported off-site for further protection.

For more information, visit www.dell.com/storage.

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