NAS storage systems are designed for high-speed primary storage. Scale-out NAS storage systems compensate for growing demands. On enterprise servers by using a shared approach to storing information. Far greater than their capacity.
NAS systems are typically used to store and share data over a network. However, NAS systems can be limited by their scalability. A scale-out NAS system is a NAS system. That scales the performance and availability of your NAS system. By working together with other NAS systems in a cluster. In such a system, storages work together as a cluster. Accessing data from other members in the cluster. As a result, scale-out systems scale the performance and availability of your NAS system. This can be beneficial if you need to increase the performance or availability of your NAS system.
Enterprises can add or remove Network Attached Storage servers from their cluster. Depending on how much extra capacity they need at any given time. This keeps costs down because it eliminates unused hardware.
This post explores the benefits of scale-out NAS storage systems. And how they solve challenges for organizations of all sizes.
Why Scale-out NAS storage instead of scale-up
NAS, or Network Attached Storage, is a type of file storage system. That allows users to access and share data over a network. NAS systems come in two different types: scale-up and scale-out. Scale-up NAS systems are designed to be upgraded by adding more NAS heads, which are controller units that come with a pre-set amount of memory, a CPU and slots for drives. Scale-out NAS systems, on the other hand, are designed to be expanded by adding more NAS heads as well as additional storage devices, such as drives and SSDs. Both types of NAS systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, but scale-out NAS systems are generally more scalable and easier to expand.
The devices in the scale-up NAS storage share resources within the system and control functions. However, the system’s capacity doesn’t increase with the capacity of storage which means that performance decreases when the storage capacity increases. Even with the best NAS systems in this category, at its limit – power and performance can only be improved by introducing a new separate managed system.
Scale-out Enterprise NAS storage
You can comprise as many clusters as you want with Scale-out NAS systems
Scale-out enterprise NAS storage is expanded through the addition of clustered nodes. These are usually the x86 servers with a specific operating system and storage linked via the external network. The nodes can be connected for communication via the high-speed backplane or network.
When it comes to storing data, there are two main approaches: scale-up and scale-out. In a scale-up system, a single device is responsible for storing all of the data. As the amount of data grows, so too does the size of the storage device. This can eventually lead to bottlenecks and slow performance. In contrast, a scale-out system consists of multiple devices, each with its own storage capacity. As more data is added, additional devices can be added to the system, providing near-linear scaling of both capacity and performance. NAS (Network Attached Storage) systems are a common type of scale-out storage, in which each node consists of one or more drives, as well as their associated processor and I/O bandwidth. By distributing both the storage and processing across multiple devices, NAS systems are able to provide scalable capacity and performance without sacrificing reliability or features.
Bottom Line
Scale-out NAS storage can offer Up to 10x better transparent data access performance and 2x larger capacity per node versus traditional NAS approaches. In addition, with a flexible user interface, compatibility, and software-defined storage architecture, you can use standard device interfaces and keep up with the capacity expansion.
If you are interested, do check out StoneFly’s Super Scale-out NAS appliances that host a variety of security features like Immutable delta-based snapshots, Write-Once Read-Many (WORM) volumes, Automated storage tiering, Deduplication, AES 256-bit encryption.
