What is the fastest NAS, SAN or HD in Server?

[TruthSeeker]

At work I have been arguing with a colleague of mine that the way our server is configured now is the same speed as a SAN or NAS and that spending the money on either of these would be a waste of money . We currently have two 1 terabyte hard drive storage arrays (in RAID 5), connected to one server, that his group and only his group can access. The LAN goes from the server room to a switch closet to his desktop via gigabit switches. Now is a NAS or SAN faster or are they the same speed for high data transfers?

 

[Nn'theraq'pss]

It depends. If it's a 1G FC SAN then you're right. If it's a 2G FC SAN, then you're wrong.

 

[TruthSeeker]

It depends. If it's a 1G FC SAN then you're right. If it's a 2G FC SAN, then you're wrong.

Can you ellaborate?

 

[unhappy_mage]

1G FC means 1 gbit transfer rate, so it'd be (theoretically) the same transfer rate. If you're *really* worried about speed, though, FC will be faster - there's less overhead compared to GbE. However, unless his group is *really* small, it'll be prohibitively expensive to run FC to each machine. If your raid arrays are fast enough, though, you could set up an internal FC network with two seperate machines both connected to both arrays and have seperate gbit links to each. This is really expensive, but if you need the speed it'll give it to you. Make sure EVERYTHING is jumbo packets FIRST, though - they make a huge difference.

 

[Nn'theraq'pss]

Basically what unhappy_mage said. But if all consuming speed is what you need, then going with 2G FC is where it's at. That will get you approx. 2x the performance give or take a few 100 Mb. It's also the newer standard for FC so it will cost more than 1G FC which in itself is expensive. If you're not having trouble with your gigE network I'd stick with that.