Overview
Before NAS became a mainstream storage architecture for individuals as well as businesses, it underwent about four decades of evolution, which began in the early 1980s.
Back then, researchers at Newcastle University experimented and introduced remote file access.
This innovation paved the way for Novell NetWare and Sun Microsystems' NFS (Network File System) in 1984. As networks continued to expand, Microsoft and 3Com developed LAN Manager.
But storage demands were outgrowing these early systems massively. By the late 1990s, NetApp and EMC Celerra had launched dedicated NAS appliances, which offered a centralized and scalable storage architecture for organizations dealing with high volumes of data.
Today, NAS is a mainstay of business storage and has an expanding market in consumer storage as well. Moreover, NAS can also integrate with the cloud, AI, and high-performance computing.
All of these factors make it a cornerstone of modern IT.
In this guide, we will explore how NAS works, understand its benefits and limitations, overview the manufacturer landscape, and see where this technology is headed.
What Is NAS?
- Network Attached Storage, or NAS, is a dedicated file storage system. It provides centralized access to data over a network.
- Unlike Direct Attached Storage (DAS), a NAS operates as an independent network node.
- Multiple users and systems can access it, and they don't require a direct attachment to a specific server for that.
- A NAS device functions as a self-contained storage appliance.
- It integrates storage drives, has a dedicated operating system, and is enabled for network connectivity.
- NAS devices use file-based storage protocols such as NFS, SMB, and AFP. This lets NAS devices integrate with Windows, Linux, and macOS environments.
- Organizations typically use NAS for collaborative file sharing, data backups, virtualization, and media storage.
- The core distinction between a NAS and a Storage Area Network (SAN) is in the data access methods.
- SAN provides block-level storage for high-performance applications.
- On the other hand, NAS operates at the file level and optimizes storage for document management, video storage, and shared workspaces.
- A NAS system has multiple drive bays that are configured in RAID to provide redundancy and to protect against hardware failures.
- NAS devices can range from entry-level consumer models with basic storage capabilities to high-end enterprise systems that are equipped with multi-gigabit networking and SSD caching.
- For businesses, NAS is a worthwhile storage architecture because of its scalability, centralized management, and cost efficiency. It can simplify storage deployment and offer plug-and-play functionality.
Key Characteristics of NAS
Individuals and organizations typically choose NAS for scalability, accessibility, and efficient data management.
The architecture within which NAS devices are arranged and the capabilities of NAS devices depend on the target market.
Manufacturers offer NAS solutions for all types of needs, right from individuals to small businesses to large enterprises. But all NAS systems have some fundamental characteristics.
- The most defining feature of NAS is its file-based storage architecture. This architecture differentiates it from block storage solutions like SAN.
- NAS devices store data at the file level. This allows multiple clients to access shared files over a network. For this, standard protocols such as NFS, SMB, and AFP are used. Advanced NAS systems also support iSCSI for block-level storage. This makes them ideal for mixed workloads.
- Scalability is another key aspect of NAS. A NAS system can be expanded in two ways: scale-up or scale-out.
- In the scale-up approach, larger or additional drives are added to an existing system; while in the scale-out approach, organizations can cluster multiple NAS devices and distribute workloads for better performance and redundancy.
- High-end NAS solutions can also integrate cloud storage extensions and can enable hybrid architectures that can offload data to S3-compatible cloud storage providers.
- The performance of a NAS system largely depends on the CPU processing power, RAM, and disk configuration. Enterprise NAS devices can have multi-core processors, NVMe SSD caching, and high-speed networking interfaces such as 10 GbE Ethernet or 25 GbE Ethernet.
- Reliability and data protection are also integral characteristics of NAS.
- Most NAS systems use RAID configurations, such as RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, etc. These different configurations offer trade-offs between space utilization, fault tolerance, and safety against disk failures. Modern NAS devices have features like snapshot-based backups, real-time replication, and self-healing file systems.
- Security is another critical concern in NAS environments, particularly when they are deployed in enterprises. Modern NAS devices offer AES-256 encryption, role-based access control, and multi-factor authentication.
Network Attached Storage: Manufacturer Landscape
NAS manufacturers offer products for different use cases. They segment their products based on hardware capabilities, performance requirements, and intended workload types.
Typically, NAS devices have a number of drive bays, and this can range from 2 to 6 bays, up to 16+ bays.
- On the basis of workload optimization, NAS devices can be focused on virtualization, HDMI and video transcoding, etc., and have features like M.2 drive slots and upgradable RAM.
- In terms of network connectivity and throughput, NAS devices can have 1, 2.5, 5, or 10 Gbps Ethernet, and some devices have multiple LAN ports.
- Some NAS models are geared for usage in surveillance and edge applications, and manufacturers define the number of cameras their NAS devices can manage.
- Also, NAS devices can be categorized on the basis of their form factor, such as desktop NAS and rack-mount NAS.
- Another way to segment NAS is by enterprise, mid-market, and desktop use cases.
- It is important to understand segmentation so that IT managers or individuals can select a NAS product that aligns with their storage needs, their workload demands, and their security policies.
- Underpowered NAS can cause performance bottlenecks, while overpowered systems can waste resources.
Here is an overview of the key manufacturers of NAS devices with a tentative categorization of some of their popular products across different segments.
| Manufacturer | Segment | Model/Series |
| Synology | Enterprise | DS2422+ |
| Midmarket | DS923+ | |
| Home/Desktop | DS224+ | |
| QNAP | Enterprise | TS-h3087XU-RP |
| Midmarket | TBS-h574TX | |
| Home/Desktop | TS-433 | |
| Western Digital | Enterprise | Ultrastar Serv24 |
| Midmarket | My Cloud Pro PR4100 | |
| Home/Desktop | My Cloud EX2 Ultra | |
| NetApp | Enterprise | FAS9500 |
| Midmarket | AFF A250 | |
| Home/Desktop | N/A | |
| Asustor | Enterprise | LOCKERSTOR 12R Pro |
| Midmarket | LOCKERSTOR 8 | |
| Home/Desktop | DRIVESTOR 2 | |
| Dell | Enterprise | PowerScale F900 |
| Midmarket | PowerScale F600 | |
| Home/Desktop | PowerScale F200 |
Advantages of NAS
The inherent advantages of NAS make it a mainstay of modern IT infrastructure.
- Because it offers centralized storage, it eliminates the inefficiency of distributed storage across individual workstations, thus ensuring consistent data access for multiple users.
- NAS makes IT management simple. Unlike traditional file servers, NAS devices are designed with dedicated management interfaces. This allows individuals and IT admins to configure and monitor storage from a single dashboard.
- Many NAS solutions can also integrate with cloud backup services, which can automate data redundancy and disaster recovery processes.
- NAS is a cost-effective solution compared to Storage Area Networks (SANs).
- NAS can operate over existing Ethernet networks, which reduces both capital and operational expenses.
- A business can implement RAID configurations for redundancy without having to invest in high-end storage hardware.
- Scalability is another key benefit. NAS supports both scale-up and scale-out expansion models for organizations. This helps them increase capacity without disrupting their operations.
Limitations of NAS
Without a doubt, NAS is convenient and scalable, but it has certain limitations. So, individuals and IT teams need to consider these when they evaluate storage strategies.
- Network dependency is the biggest concern. The performance of NAS directly depends on networking bandwidth limitations and latency. So, unlike Direct Attached Storage (DAS), which is not dependent on a network, NAS relies entirely on LAN performance. This means that high-speed networking, 10 GbE or higher, is crucial for large-scale deployment.
- Also, NAS is not the ideal storage architecture for high-performance transactional workloads. Applications that need low-latency block storage, such as ERPs and databases, typically perform better on SAN.
- Even NAS solutions that support iSCSI for block-level access cannot match the performance of SAN-based flash storage arrays.
- For many organizations, it becomes difficult to manage access controls, encryption, and intrusion detection mechanisms in improperly configured NAS. NAS is particularly vulnerable to situations of data loss.
- In terms of scalability, NAS has limits. Even though the option of a scale-out NAS architecture is there for IT teams, it cannot match the horizontal scalability offered by SANs.
But in spite of these challenges, NAS remains a valid, cost-effective, and efficient storage solution. What matters is to understand your needs and decide whether NAS is the right storage architecture.
About The Author
Data Recovery Expert & Content Strategist
