Why has NAS become such an attractive technology in recent years?
The increasing capacity and I/O requirements of todays information infrastructure are contributing to a shift in storage architecture away from storage that is directly connected to host servers, to network attached storage. As an analogy, just as printers that connect directly to networks have replaced print servers, a strong trend has developed in which specialized servers are replacing older general-purpose servers. These dedicated or special purpose devices provide better reliability, management, and performance than their general-purpose predecessors do. NAS systems provide increased performance, reduced data access times, and lower costs of ownership, all of which have positive impact on the bottom line of companies deploying the technology.
