High-capacity storage may well be the single most important factor for many organizations as they address their computing needs. Sure, we could always use faster processors, and faster networks are always nice, but bigger disks are becoming a necessity. In the old days we measured our needs in terms of megabytes, but that gave way to gigabytes (1,000 times larger than a megabyte) and we now think of storage in terms of terabytes (1,000 times larger than a gigabyte).

There are many reasons why businesses and government agencies need more storage. First of all, we're storing new things every day. Pictures, videos, and sound recordings such as voice mails all end up on our hard drives.

Most folks deem it more efficient to store electronic copies as opposed to paper. While the "paperless office" promise has never been fulfilled, more paper ends up being scanned and stored than ever before.

Legislation (as well as the fear of litigation) continues to drive the need to retain records. President Barack Obama's electronic medical records initiative is a good example of a new law that will force the need for more disk space, if enacted.

So what options do we have? We can always throw more disks at our computers, but this isn't necessarily an efficient solution. One of the most popular ways to serve up high-capacity storage in an efficient manner is the use of a storage area network (SAN).

A SAN typically is made up of a rack or cabinet of disks that can be attached to multiple servers via a high-speed, fiber connection. As such, the disks can be shared among a set of servers rather than dedicated to a single machine to maximize efficient use. SANs have been around awhile, and the technology is well understood and implemented. The only devices that can connect to a SAN are computers that are configured to do so.

Network attached storage (NAS) sits on the local area network and is accessed by servers, workstations and other devices. Like a SAN, a NAS also provides efficiency by consolidating the storage into a single unit.

How do we back up all this stuff? Well, tape-drive technology hasn't really kept pace with disks. For large storage needs, a technology known as de-duplication is employed. Abbreviated as "de-dupe," this technology is smart enough to back up only one version of the same file or set of data. So if we have two copies of the same pdf file, or video, the de-dupe technology will only back up one copy. Upon restore, de-dupe is smart enough to remember to "re-hydrate" the data, such that all copies of the files are put back in their rightful place.


This article is republished with permission from a column that previously appeared in The Honolulu Star Bulletin (www.starbulletin.com) on May 2, 2010.

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