Storage and Storage Area Networks

The explosion of our information age has created a mountain of data that is growing at an amazing rate. The storage demands for even small companies have become incredible as they begin to take advantage of data mining, and convert all of their paper based processes to a digital medium. For resources related to NTFS, RAID, and Hard Drives checkout our Disk Management Resource Center

Network Storage Buyers Guide  
A huge site that provides information on Network Storage Hardware and Software. It includes a database of products, links to vendor sites, whitepapers, and more.

Storage Area Network Industry Association
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is the point of cohesion for developers of storage and networking products in addition to system integrators, application vendors, and service providers as the world computer systems market embarks on the evolutionary journey called storage networking

Storage Management Solutions Magazine
An entire magazine dedicated to this stuff! And it's FREE! You can search their article archive here.

Description of System Area Networks 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 260176 - A System Area Network (SAN - is a new class of high-performance communication interconnector that has recently become available for workstation or PC clusters. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports SANs with certain hardware.

Differences Between a System Area Network and a Storage Area Network
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 264135 - Windows 2000 includes two technologies that use the same acronym, System Area Network (SAN) and Storage Area Network (SAN). This article provides a description of these two technologies, including their differences. 

Overview of Fibre Channel
An early look at Fibre Channel is an excellent primer for beginners. Source: Windows NT Systems Magazine (March 1998)

Step-by-Step Guide to Remote Storage
This document provides sample procedures demonstrating the installation and administration of Remote Storage, the hierarchical storage management solution provided in Windows 2000  Source: Microsoft.com (updated March 10, 2000)

SAN Advice
Take heed when a systems integrator says they can deliver a total SAN solution. You might be buying into a needlessly expensive and restrictive storage topology. We tell you what the issue are, and what questions you need to ask your vendors. Source: EarthWeb

SAN Solutions
Learn about the benefits and capabilities of SAN technology and the hardware involved in building a SAN solution for your environment. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (September 2002)

SAN Topology
An overview of SANs by Tom Henderson. Explains how SANS can enhance data manageability and accessibility without adding huge overhead costs. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (June 2000)

Unlimited Storage
Windows 2000 RSS lets you increase your storage capacity without moving data completely offline. HereŠs how to set it up. Source: Windows 2000 Magazine (June 2000)

Windows 2000^Š Storage Management Overview
Storage management is an absolute requirement because it represents such a huge cost that's in the total cost of ownership metric that you're using in order to justify purchasing and maintenance of all of your disks systems and all of your computing systems. Microsoft Online Seminar (April 2000)

Building SAN Castles
Storage-area networks will be big business, once all of the elements are controlled. Any child can tell you that it's tough to build a great sand castle on a windy day with the tide rising. Can anyone seriously argue with the logic? Building storage-area networks (SANs) today is much like building a beach sculpture on a day when the elements are raging. Source:  Sm@rt Reseller (June 7, 1999)

Designing a SAN for Fast Backups
New Storage technologies give Administrators more options for High Speed Backups. Source: Windows NT Systems Magazine (Nov 1999)

End to End Services for MultiVendor Storage Area Networks (SANS)
IBM Global Services Whitepaper

Inside Storage Management, Part 1
Learn how Windows NT manages disks. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (March 2000)

Inside Storage Management, Part 2
Storage architecture in Win2K has changed dramatically from NT 4.0, supporting the creation of advanced volumes and dynamic growth of existing volumes without reboots. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (April 2000)

NAS vs. SAN
What you need to know to pick the best storage solution for your environment. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (June 2000)

NDMP FAQ
NDMP is an acronym for Network Data Management Protocol and is an open standard protocol for enterprise wide backup of heterogeneous network-attached storage. To date it has been jointly developed by Network Appliance (NetApp) & IntelliGuard Software (formerly PDC Software) and submitted to the IETF

Network Attached Storage
If you think server-based storage is complicated, expensive, and time consuming, think again. Network Attached Storage (NAS) is here and available for most budgets. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (Feb 2000)

Remote Storage Migration Job Performance Begins to Degrade Over Time
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 244832 - Over time, Remote Storage nightly migration jobs begin to degrade in performance by taking longer to complete. For example, your RSS service logs (located in the Remote Storage snap-in) show the nightly scans and data transfers taking longer 

Storage for the Network: Designing for an Effective Strategy
This chapter explores the critical issues related to data storage in a network and will guide you through the many options available for storage, whether yours is a small-scale departmental LAN or a massively large enterprisewide network. The available technologies differ in terms of capacity, performance, cost and reliability. The network architect's job involves sele cting the right combination of hardware and software options that will meet the data storage needs of the organization. Source: Network Computing

Storage Management Technology
A look at archiving and hierarchical storage management systems. Source: Windows NT Systems Magazine. (July 1999)