NAS: Spreading Wings of Storage

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Intro: The market for Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution is
spreading its wings in the IT industry.   ITVar News is analyzing the
market situation with leading NAS vendors.

The IT market these days is being flooded with latest technologies. The days when people didn’t have the flexibility to store large amount of data is a history now. Several new methods of utilizing computer networks for data storage have emerged in recent years. One popular approach, Network Attached Storage (NAS), allows homes and businesses to store and retrieve large amounts of data more affordably than ever before. Since the storage needs of average person far exceeds the capacities of earlier storage devices like floppy drives and tape drives, NAS concept is definitely hitting the ground running. In addition to this NAS technology is providing great advantages over traditional file server like lower cost, better security, higher availability (less downtime), easier to use and administer etc.
 
Focusing on SMBs, NAS devices offer a number of important benefits over alternative storage methods. NAS devices provide efficient, flexible storage that is accessible independent of a specific network or application server, which enhances overall network performance.
 
Taking a view of the NAS vendors it was found that the NAS market is in a booming stage and will boom in coming period also.

Scale-out NAS witnessing rapid Growth

Talking about the current scenario of NAS market, S Sridhar, Director – Marketing, India relationship, Dell India, said, “It is estimated that file-based storage system capacity will account for 70 per cent of total storage capacity by 2012. Moreover, IDC has predicted that in view of the rapid growth of file-based unstructured data, 80 per cent of the global storage market's total shipments will be covered by file-level data by 2012. Revenues from the worldwide sales of small-and-medium business (SMB) network-attached storage (NAS) are expected to reach $2 billion in 2015 to reflect the technology's faster growth rate over the total NAS market, says a recent research survey by In-Stat”. Moving further and informing about how Dell looks at the NAS solutions segment in India as well as globally, he elaborated, “Unified Storage provides flexible, seamless storage deployment and scalability. Automated replication, tiering and migration help increase storage efficiency, while automatically optimizing data, performance and efficient data retention. Operational consolidation once posed challenges for enterprises that require both block and file-based storage. With powerful, unified storage from Dell, enterprises can now consolidate file and block-based data onto a single, shared storage system that's affordable, easy to deploy, and straightforward to manage. Dell Unified Storage solutions enables customers to drive down costs, meet demanding service levels and simplify management with an easy-to-use, multi-protocol solution that supports CIFS, NFS, iSCSI, FC and FCoE. The Dell Compellent NAS portfolio allows you to select the best architecture for your IT environment. The Dell Compellent zNAS is ideal for midsize and large organizations with either pure NFS or mixed CIFS/NFS environments, while the Dell NX3000 for Compellent is optimal for pure CIFS environments. Dell has developed Dell Scalable File System (DSFS), a high performance, scalable, standards-based, enterprise-class solution to meet the challenges of rapidly expanding file data. This technology is being implemented in Dell’s family of storage solutions to deliver the advantages of scale-out unified to its customers”. Lastly mentioning about the new/emerging technologies that they expect to see in NAS devices in the next 3-5 years, he informed,    “Scale-out NAS is one of the new technologies we see witnessing growth. The Dell EqualLogic FS7500 adds Network attached storage (NAS) capability to new and existing EqualLogic block storage systems to provide a scale-out unified storage solution. With unified storage, the system stores block and file data on a single platform, improving productivity and streamlining your IT infrastructure”.

“File services are provided by the FS7500 through industry-standard CIFS/SMB and NFS protocols over standard Ethernet interfaces. The FS7500 uses the Dell Fluid File System (Dell Fluid FS) to optimize file access performance and hardware utilization while eliminating capacity constraints. It presents a single file-system namespace through a virtual IP address, regardless of cluster size, and it enables you to expand a single file system up to the capacity of the EqualLogic deployment (maximum of 510TB raw storage)”, he added.

“As the organisation’s needs grow and change, you can easily scale your EqualLogic Unified SAN/NAS system for both capacity and performance without disrupting the storage system or applications. For more capacity, one can add more EqualLogic arrays and for increased performance, more FS7500 systems can be added”, he told.

Cloud based NAS products- The Need of the Hour

Susumu Kobayashi, Country Head, Buffalo India holds the same view. Explaining about the present NAS market, he told, “Indian economy is the third largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power. It has also experienced a global slowdown as far as ups and downs in the economy are concerned. The recent floods in Thailand have affected a significant part of our supply chain, leading to a severe shortage in products and a resultant price rise in the open market.  We're living in an age of information. That means we all need more storage: for documents, for pictures, for video, for music, and maybe media we can't even conceive of yet. That's why everyone, from individuals at home or employees in office and owners of small businesses, need to get all the storage space they can handle. The Indian market is witnessing more and more sophisticated home users who have connected several PCs on a Wi-Fi network and in many cases they are connecting this network to their home entertainment equipment. Consumer NAS products not only backup data but also enable sharing of such personal information with close friends and family”.

“A booming economy is a major driving force for NAS adoption. Higher disposable incomes and increasing adoption of digital lifestyle products and services of the end-users, has resulted in a growing volume of personal data including pictures, videos, data and music files that needs to be backed up”, he added.

Moving further and mentioning about the company’s current focal points in NAS offerings, he mentioned, “Buffalo has been a leading global provider of award-winning networking, storage and multi-media solutions for the home and small business environments. We provide award-winning storage product line that includes the easy to install and manage storage devices and Network Attached Storage series, which allows multiple users to access digital photos and video from one shared location. Our main focal point is at consumer NAS in India”.

Lastly mentioning about the new/emerging technologies that they expect to see in NAS devices in the next 3-5 years, he said, “The market is really diligent and as far as the coming years are concerned it will be more tech savvy and Indian customers will be on a verge of using more and more technology based products. Also there is a lot of demand in the market for cloud based NAS products so Buffalo, as a leader in providing the networking, storage and multimedia solutions for home and small business environments plans to come up with the new innovations in the smart phone segment”.

“Buffalo plans to come up with new range of NAS products as per the market scenario. As of now Buffalo is working upon adding more features to the latest range of network attached storage that can compete easily with other major Brands in the market”, he told further.  

NAS technology- An emerging answer to the storage problems of the Home and SOHO segment

Praveen Sahai, Director of Sales, India & SAARC and Strategic Marketing Director - APJ, Iomega opined that over the last few years, the storage segment has grown exponentially. The explosion of information created by business is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. 2011 was a year of horrific natural disasters for many countries. With the Christchurch Earthquake in New Zealand, Queensland Floods in Australia and the Japan Tsunami, businesses are starting to realise that their data is not immortal or invincible and that they need to start backing-up their data, storing it elsewhere and storing it in the cloud.

Although the use of cloud storage may differ, consumers will also have a growing need to access their data from anywhere at any time.  The 2009 to 2011 saw consumers move from thumb drives to high capacity external hard-drives; 2012 will see consumers moving from external hard-drives to NAS (Network Attached Storage) products with cloud capabilities. Unlike an external hard drive, a NAS device has a processor that uses its own operating system for storing and sharing photos, music, video and personal files. This is where there will be a demand for Iomega’s StorCenter range, the entry level StorCenter which is perfect for personal users or one-man offices

They at Iomega believe that NAS technology has become an emerging answer to the storage problems of the Home and SOHO segment. However, lack of education remains the biggest hurdle in the growth of NAS among SMBs. Many organizations still depend on hard disks for storage and do not venture into NAS products as they perceive them to be expensive. With NAS, SMBs can not only relieve their computers and servers from huge workloads coming from just read/write operations, it can also give them a secure way to manage their data without much complexity. Also, buying new PC/ servers is much more expensive than buying entry level network storage. According to estimates, the market for NAS has grown at least 3-4 times in terms of volumes in the past year itself. With increased awareness about the cost benefits among other things, the NAS market in India is waiting to explode. Seeing the huge potential in the segment, Iomega’s objective is to bring the advantages and capabilities of network storage solutions with enterprise-level applications to small and mid-sized businesses in professional services and manufacturing as well as distributed enterprises in retail, banking and other vertical industries. Lastly mentioning about the Company focus areas for the year ahead, he informed that focus for 2012 will be in the following as growth agenda’s:

A.    Video Surveillance and delivering it ‘as a service’ to customers in addition to a point solution
B.    SMB Back up and Replication – connecting individual office and ROBO environments
C.    Unstoppable Computing infrastructure for SMB – using virtualization and delivering at low cost

NAS market- Witnessing consecutive double-digit growth for past 5 Years

Taking a view of Mr. Edward Lin, Director of Market Promotion, QNAP on the NAS market, he said, “According to the statistics for the past 5 years, the NAS market has witnessed consecutive double-digit growth. With the rapid increase of global digital data, famous research organizations all predict that the NAS market will be steadily growing at the same or higher rate for at least another 5 years”. Informing further about the new/emerging technologies they expect to see in NAS devices in the next 3-5 years, he said, “Cloud computing has gained increasing importance in recent years. So are mobile applications. In the upcoming 3 to 5 years, we expect NAS devices will provide more features for easy remote access without complicated setup and seamlessly work with mobile devices and cloud services”.

Small enterprises- Still the biggest buyers of NAS drives

Mentioning about the current market scenario of NAS, Khalid Wani, WD’s Sales Director – branded business for India, Middle East and Africa said, “The market for NAS devices is very attractive. Small enterprises are still the biggest buyers of our NAS drives. High performance applications along with commercial adoption have resulted in a change in the look of the NAS marketplace. The market for Small Storage Servers is looking especially good. We expect strong growth led by India’s booming SME sector.  A growing preference for mobility and digital lifestyle is helping improve adoption of entry-level NAS drives by home users. NAS drives have the capability to deliver remote access and content streaming through Wi-Fi, smartphone apps or web browsers. Sales of our My Book Live NAS drives have increased since after we introduced the WD 2Go remote access app.  WD will soon be announcing new NAS products for SMBs as well as consumers”.

Informing further about the company’s current focal points in NAS offerings, he informed, “At the moment we are focusing on the WD My Book Live Personal Cloud Storage that offers up to 3 TB of storage capacity starting at a price point of Rs.10799/-. The content can be accessed from anywhere in the world through a smart phone or tablet via a free app called WD 2Go. The app is available on the Android and Apple iTunes markets. By paying a nominal one-time download fee of Rs. 150, users can download the Pro version of WD 2Go. The Pro version lets users save the content being accessed on their handheld, share it with friends via email, automatically sync newly added files with the device, and leverage an additional level of security”.  Lastly mentioning about the new/emerging technologies they expect to see in NAS devices in the next 3-5 years, he said, “It is difficult to anticipate new technologies over the next few years. But in the near future, we are looking at adding RAID to the My Book Live, so as to give users the benefits of a dual-drive system and safe backup through real time mirroring of data. Adding RAID will also enable us to offer wireless storage capacities up to 4-6 TB in the near term”.



Conclusion

NAS technology is designed in a very futuristic manner and it has a very good future. The technology will definitely gain more momentum in future as it plays a very crucial role in providing data storage and back up and this is requisite technology of ever expanding business world. Lastly it could be easily summed up that the new breed of NAS networking products are the need of the hour and has succeeded in providing a reasonable alternative to traditional file servers in client/server networks and the technology will definitely prove to be very crucial in future.