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1. Take a top-down approach. "Most disk purchases are still done at the group level—and that's the problem," says Mark Roberts, principal at storage consultancy Dataphile Consulting in Austin, Texas. Adding today's high-capacity disks to individual servers creates much unused storage capacity that could be more efficiently allocated through a network-attached storage (NAS) device that serves multiple groups.


2. Am I really using what I have? Make sure the storage you already have is utilized properly. "We find utilization rates on the high side of 50%, [but] normally it's somewhere in the mid-30s," says James Bowler, a partner in Accenture Ltd.'s Core Technology Practice in New York. With storage prices dropping at a rate of 20% per year, why buy it now if you don't need it?


3. What is the impact on my IT infrastructure? "Will this technology be disruptive? NAS will tax your topology, particularly if you have a lot of data transfer," Bowler says.


4. Don't catch "featureitis." Diving too low into features and functions is a trap, consultants say. Stay focused on your needs rather than on "disease-of-the-week technology," says Jon Toigo, a storage consultant in the Tampa Bay area.


5. Pay attention to performance. "A lot of server-attached storage still outperforms NAS," warns Toigo. Don't trust vendor results. Test an NAS server with your application, and consult peers before buying. You can also download independent test suites and results from Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. But don't obsess, advises Bowler. Speeds and feeds considerations are a hurdle—but it should never be the endgame in choosing a product.


6. Mind the manageability. "Select your management method, and then select your hardware with management clearly in mind," Toigo says. Better products will plug into your BMC Patrol or Unicenter TNG enterprise management system and work with your backup systems.

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Q&A With Jon Toigo: Why NAS Rules

Computerworld recently spoke with Jon Toigo, a storage consultant and author in the Tampa Bay area, to discuss the benefits of network-attached storage (NAS) vs. storage-attached networks (SAN) and where he thinks the technology is headed.

Jon Toigo, a storage consultant and author

Q: Why choose NAS?

A: It works. It's a technology that returns the value of the investment—something that's hard to demonstrate with a SAN. NAS can reduce the costs associated with server-attached storage, facilitate data sharing, and it's a very easy plug-and-play solution, so it reduces the risk of downtime. The only [storage networking] product anywhere near developed is NAS.

Q: Are you saying SANs aren't developed?

A: There is no network storage. Today, we've got thin-server-attached storage—that's NAS—and current-generation SANs—that's switched, server-attached storage.