CHAPTER 5 : STARAGE TECHNOLOGIES
I. Basic concepts
Direct-Attached Storage (DAS)
DAS refers to a computer storage system that is directly attached to your server or
PC. DAS does not use a storage network, main interfaces and protocols used for
DAS connections are; SATA (Serial Advance technology attachment), eSATA, SAS
(serial attached SCSI (small computer serial interface)), and fiber channel.
JBOD (just-a-Bunch-of-DISKS)
JBOD refers to a set of similar disc that are used to increase the DAS capacity.
JBODs are usually connected to one or more servers through SAS or eSATA
CONNECTION. JBODs are less expensive and often more flexible and easier to
manage than RAID
Network-attached storage
NAS devices connect storage to a network, where they are accessed through file
shares. They are not directly attached to the computer. Protocols that NAT devices
support include: Network attached file systems, Common internet file
systems(CIFS) and server message block.
Storage Area Network(SAN)
SAN is a dedicated network that allows you to share storage, a SAN consist of a
storage device the interconnecting network infrastructure and servers connected
to this network. SAN devices provide continuous and fast access to large amount
of data. The most common SAN protocols are: ISCSI (internet small computer
system interface), fiber channel and fiber channel over Ethernet.
DIFFERNCES BETWEEN NAS AND SAN
SAN provides greater flexibility and additional functionality than NAD.it is
design for communication over greater distances.
A NAD is directly attached to your internal network
A SAN is a separately network dedicated to storage devices and traffic
II. Storage technologies
storage space
you can create storage spaces with a mixture of solid state drive and hard disk
drive. Frequently access (hot) data get moved to the SSDs while infrequently
accessed or code data is moved to the high capacity hard disk. This enables you to
balance capacity and performance
server message block
it’s a file sharing protocol, that allows applications to read and write to files and to
request services from server programs. SMB delivered scalable fast and efficient
storage access.
Data deduplication
It’s used to removed duplicated data without compromising its fidelity or integrity.
Its goal is to store more data in less space by segmenting files into small pieces.
Next step is to identify duplicate pieces, remove the redundant copies and replace
them by a reference to the maintained copy.
III. RAID (redundant Array of Independent Disk)
It’s a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk
drive components into one or more logical unit. the aim is data redundancy,
performance improvement or both. Data is distributed across the drive in one of
several ways referred to as RAID levels. Standard RAID levels are based on;
striping, mirroring and parity.
Data striping is a technique of segmenting logically sequential data, so that
consecutive segments are stored on different physical storage devices.
Disk mirroring is the replication of logical disk value on to separate physical hard
disk, in real time to ensure continuous availability
A parity bit or check bit is a bit added to a string of binary code. there are two
types of parity bit;
The even parity bit: The total of ones in the string including the parity bit
will be an even number.
Up parity bit: The total of ones in the string including the parity bit will be
an odd number.
RAID levels are;
RAID0: consist of striping but no mirroring or parity. Its capacity volume is
the sum of the capacity of the drives in the set.
RAID1: consist of mirroring but no striping and parity
RAID2: con
RAID3: consist of bit level striping with dedicated parity
Any RAID request can be service by any drive in the set
RAID4: consist of block level stripping with dedicated parity. The main
advantage of RAID4 overRAID2&3 is I/O parallelism
RAID5: consist strictly of block level striping with distributed parity. it
requires at least 3 disk
Raid5: it consists of block level striping with double distributed parity. It
requires at least 4 disk
