NAS or add HDD?

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Our network server is running out of space on it's drives. We run are mirrored with 2 scsi drives. Should we add to or replaced the existing drives with larger sdrives? Should we consider NAS? I don't know a whole lot about NAS, but if all we need is data storage, what are the pros & cons of NAS versus adding drives (or replacing drives)?

 

[brianp34]

NAS solutions are fairly expensive if that's a concern.

 

[err]

If you're running 2 mirrored SCSI drives, you will definitely have to either replace the RAID1 with bigger drives or purchase more drives and make it either single of RAID1.

My company's servers are always running out of space as well. What we normally do is purchase more drives and add that drive on to the server.

I dislike this approach as our storage are not centralized, harder to manage and on and on. I always try to sell NAS to the management, but it never went through.

If I were you, I would evaluate your network disk usage. Plan out for at least 2 years. Try to get a NAS as adding storage to the NAS device is a snap. You definitely do not need a whole server to be tied up for data storage. Most NAS nowadays are also RAID5 which provides data redundancy.

If you're tight on budget and just wanted a quick solution, go ahead and purchase more drive(s). However I would bet that you'd pretty soon run into storage dillema again.

err