nas vs external hard drive as a data store for a server

#NAS VS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE AS A DATA STORE FOR A SERVER SOFTWARE#

If you need more space, you have no choice but to delete current files or buy a new drive with larger capacity.

The storage capacity of external hard drives is fixed.

Which one is better, external drive or NAS, is decided by how many computers you have. All computers connected to your routers could enjoy simultaneous access to your data as long as the NAS is connected to your home/office network

Yet, if you have two or more computers, you may as well choose NAS drive.

The number of connection ports on computer or the hard drive itself decides the access to files directly.

External hard drive is a better choice for users who have only one computer.

Physical Storage, Which Is Better? Number of Computers In terms of accessibility, NAS is better than external drive. Besides, you can also let other people to access your data via internet connection. This is what people called Cloud service, which is included in most of the NAS drives.

With NAS, you are allowed to access files remotely, without any contact, under the condition that you have an account setup.

That is to say, you need to plug in the external drive to a compatible port on a computer or other device.

To access files stored on an external hard drive, you must have physical contact with it.

But you need to know that most of the external drives enjoy great portability.Īs a result, if you need to take the data with you or if you don’t have power supply or have no/poor internet, you should choose an external drive. Of course, there are some external hard drives that have big size and need power source (instead of computer USB port). Besides, both the power supply and router are necessary for the normal working of NAS.

Yet, the NAS is always made up of boxes, which are often placed in a permanent position.

Besides, neither internet connectivity nor power supply is required. The external drives are so compact that it can be carried around everywhere in your backpack, even pocket.

In general, the external hard drive is equipped with small size.Here, in the following content, I’ll compare them in mainly 4 aspects. What are the differences between them? The most obvious differences may be: NAS is more flexible and offers more features when compared to external drive it is regarded as a hard drive with a brain.īefore you finally decide to purchase an external hard drive or spend cash for some of the best NAS for home use, you’d better read the comparison of NAS hard drive and external hard drive. If you have a NAS vendor, they may have some input as well (off hand I know NetApp does).Īs for your last question, I don't understand.Though NAS and external hard drive can be both used to keep documents, videos, and other types of data, they are not the same.

#NAS VS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE AS A DATA STORE FOR A SERVER SOFTWARE#

I suggest you research your particular database software in detail to determine if storing it's data on a NAS is a recommended and decent configuration. Issues as lack of protection from conflicting writes, and limitations Problems vary according to OS and version of NFS, and include such InnoDB to use data files or log files on NFS volumes. If reliability is a consideration for your data, do not configure That could mean a big difference in performance and reliability. There is still iSCSI though which is not a filesystem., but it still means (like you said) running things over a network rather than a SAS connection. which could cause all sorts of data integrity and performance problems. Usually (historically speaking) you would not want to put database storage on a NAS, because that would mean using a network filesystem like NFS or CIFS, etc. I depends on what software you're dealing with but. Regarding costs and maintenance speed/simplicity in case of hardwar failures, does it make any sense to keep SQL data files on a NAS server, separate from the SQL Server instance? Our app stores large amounts of measurements (time-series) from many devices, so the amount of data is relatively big to keep on relatively small SAS server disks (~200GB monthly).Īlthough there is a greater risk of accessing files over ethernet (even if only the db server and NAS are on the same switch), having data files completely separated seems like it would simplify things in case of hardware issues due to lower coupling - the database server can be much simpler (I can migrate the simple image quickly, it can even be bundled with the application server for all simpler apps), and fixing NAS failures should also mostly involve switching disks, or switching to a copy in case of failures.Īre there some better (cost effective and faster to apply) ways to manage quick migration in case of failures which would not involve separating the data files, or is this idea not so problematic?

Nas vs external hard drive as a data store for a server