When planning a home-based storage solution for all devices, you may encounter storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS). The two terms sound almost identical but describe two very different methods of storing data. A NAS is a simple single device running an operating system, capable of storing data, running apps, and hosting services. A SAN is designed for data storage and scalability. Unlike a NAS, it combines various devices and acts more like a connected storage disk than an external storage hub with superfast interconnectivity.

4 More performance and higher transfer speeds

A NAS has a CPU, RAM, an OS, and a few network ports, usually topping out at 10Gbps. That's more than enough for standard home usage with a few devices connecting simultaneously, but it falls short of what's possible with a SAN. Using high-speed connections through fiber links, you can enjoy speeds anywhere up to 128Gbps, more than ten times the bandwidth of a NAS. This requires specialist hardware, which is why I recommend a SAN if you're part of an IT team at a larger business where performance is vital for data processing.

3 Scalable with additional hardware

Once a NAS is up and running, it's difficult to expand its functionality above what was specified by the manufacturer. Some enclosures will have a PCIe slot for faster LAN connections and others will allow for expansion units or a DAS to be hooked up, but that's about it. A SAN can be configured with additional storage controllers and expanded arrays. The performance of a NAS can be marginally improved with faster RAM modules (if applicable) but a SAN has far better modularity for adding extras to the mix. It's also better for redundancy, especially compared to more affordable NAS with single points of failure.

2 Better suited for data-intensive applications

There's a reason a SAN would be considerably more expensive to set up and configure over NAS enclosures and that's due to the features and functionality that come with such a deployment for data processing. Should you work with data-intensive applications and need more than one client to work with stored data simultaneously, a SAN would offer considerably better performance and availability. When connecting to a SAN, storage volumes will appear on your device as local drives, much like an external drive would when routed through a USB port.

1 Works as local block storage

Unlike a NAS, which acts as a file server, a SAN will show up as local storage on connected devices. You can format and manage the disk similarly to other drives physically connected to that device. It's important to consider a secondary network for an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) such as a SAN. This is different from a file-based NAS, which would rely on NFS, SMB, CIFS, FTP, or AFP for moving files between locations. Interestingly, NAS vendors are starting to offer iSCSI support with specific models, blurring the lines between the two storage methods.

Why you shouldn't use SAN instead of NAS at home

A SAN is generally not recommended for the home due to its increased cost over NAS — setting up a home server is already an expensive endeavor. They are also less user-friendly for the less tech-savvy and are designed for serious data processing and storage. A NAS is a single device and is far easier to set up and manage. A SAN is differently coupling hardware together that unlocks various benefits but typically requires more advanced management.