Analysis: NAS and SAN uniting

The world's two main networked storage architectures - SAN and NAS - are breeding. EMC, IBM and less well-known storage specialists such as BlueArc are beginning to mix and match the best elements of network-attached storage (NAS) devices and storage area networks (SAN) to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of storing data. NAS boxes, which hook into existing Ethernet networks, are simpler to manage than SANs but provide less performance and can top out on capacity. SANs generally are far faster and hold more data but they can be expensive and can result in cumbersome file sharing.

The Law Enforcement Support Agency of Tacoma, Washington, for instance, which provides services such as records management to local law enforcement groups, opted for a 6-terabyte 'SiliconServer' system from BlueArc that is on the surface a NAS product - serving files over an Ethernet network - but promises the speediness of a SAN.

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