San, Storage attached network

A SAN is a device backup directly shared by network servers, without direct contact with the stations. It generally consists of hard disks but can use tapes libraries.

The connection to different servers SAN typically uses a fiber optic cable. Each server sees the data on the device as its own records and files and manages. As data is shared by the management by different servers is quite complex, especially when mixing different operating systems.

A similar approach uses the iSCSI protocol that uses TCP / IP instead of the fiber optics. It is less efficient but also less expensive and easier to install. The alternative mass storage network through the NAS, easier to implement and above all much cheaper.

Related terms: network - server