One of the major benefits of a storage area network (SAN) is scalability. The management of a SAN is centralised and allows for partitions to be moved, resized and shared, all without downtime.

Once a SAN is in place, drives can be easily added to a SAN storage device, or multiple devices can be added to the same network. In directly accessed storage networks, data tends to be spread across multiple server and storage devices. Managing this data can be time consuming and scalability is limited, often with downtime to move and replace drives. This makes SANs a great option for networks that need centralised storage and scalability.

The benefits of using a SAN are many because a SAN usually has a very high return on investment, makes the total cost of ownership of computing less, and has a pay-back period based in months instead of years.

Some of the ways you can expect a SAN to be beneficial.

• Removes the distance limits of SCSI-connected disks

• Greater performance

• Increased disk utilisation

• Higher availability to storage by use of multiple access paths

• Deferred disk procurement

• Reduced data centre rack/floor space

• New disaster recovery capabilities

• Online recovery

• Better staff utilisation