Many small and medium-sized businesses are conflicted about whether to go for Network Attached Storage (NAS) or cloud backup for their data storage needs. Like the Batman vs Superman debate, a lot depends on what kind of things you value. Each has certain advantages over the other and one might be more ideally suited for one situation rather than the other. Thus, none of these is a definitive winner.Â
Let’s take a look at NAS and Cloud backup and their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Cost
So let’s start with money. NAS vs. cloud is a classic example of CAPEX vs. OPEX. A NAS solution requires an upfront investment. The good news is that once it is paid for, you’re good to go until the product reaches end of life, at which point you have to open up your wallet once again. As with any other physical platform solution, the problem of over-provisioning arises as well. When purchasing bare metal storage, you want to account for future growth, which means that you may have a lot of untapped storage capacity in the beginning.
On the other hand, cloud storage comes with virtually no upfront costs. This makes it quite attractive for anyone with limited funds. Like cloud computing, you only pay for the resources that you use. The problem is that as your amount of data increases, so does the cost. Over time, costs slowly creep upward, and one day you may suddenly find yourself at a very different price point than you originally planned. In a sense, the two cost structures are in contrast to one another. With NAS, the bulk of your expenses are at the beginning, while the cloud may turn out to be more expensive later on.
Learn More: Legacy NAS Storage Has Become a Liability, Switch to Global File System
Setup and Simplicity
Not just anyone can set up and maintain a NAS. While you may have an MSP that handles it all for you, their service incurs an additional cost. Configuring a NAS requires some knowledge of RAIDOpens a new window (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) and an understanding of how to configure the system for redundancy. Managing scale often involves step changes. While increasing your storage capacity can be as simple as inserting additional drives, your needs may grow beyond the disk capacity of a storage shelf, requiring you to purchase another. If you anticipate a lot of growth, make sure to go with a solution that can quickly scale as per your needs.
Cloud backup is far simpler in most respects. Many cloud backup vendors offer a client application to install on any machine to manage your backups. Often you can integrate cloud storage with the same traditional backup application you use to manage your local backup environment (check with your product documentation to find if cloud storage is supported). Expanding storage capacity is easily achieved with a few clicks, whether you need an additional 5 GB or 5 TB. In terms of setup and simplicity, the cloud has a clear advantage.
Disaster Recovery
Every organization needs to think about disaster recovery. It only takes mere moments for a tornado or storm to obliterate your data center along with everything else around it. It wasn’t that long ago that disaster recovery entailed creating secondary backups on portable media and then transporting them someplace. A small office or school system may have rented a safety deposit box at an area bank and swapped tapes every week. Large corporations contracted with offsite backup repositories to rotate tapes in and out of a secure site an hour or so away. However, times have changed. The cloud makes disaster recovery a no-brainer today. With a few clicks, you can backup your data to a completely different time zone or even multiple ones for super redundancy.Â
Disaster mitigation and recovery is the primary weakness of a NAS solution. Whether you are using an entry-level NAS or the most advanced storage array solution, depending on local backup only puts you at significant risk. Here again, the cloud is the clear favorite.
Learn More: It’s Time to Switch to Cloud-Based File Storage
The Bottleneck of the Cloud
Just when you might be thinking that cloud backup may be a clear choice, let’s discuss its key weakness – the bottleneck. If everything is congregated within your data center, your backups can operate at the speed of your LAN, which far exceeds that of most internet connections. Even if your data is distributed amongst nearby locations, the speed of the typical WAN today is usually far greater than internet speed. The problem with cloud backups is that they are at the mercy of your Internet connection. Scheduling backups during business hours may prove nearly impossible as backup traffic must contend with all other traffic. Because cloud backups take so much longer to complete, organizations with limited non-business hours may find it challenging to complete their backups before operations resume the next day. In most cases, a NAS will offer superior speed and performance in terms of both backup and recovery. Chalk one up for the NAS.
Third-party Dependency and Uncertainty
While every solution creates some level of vendor dependency, it is especially true of cloud backups. You have to be comfortable with the idea that a copy of all of your data resides within someone else’s network. What if that vendor gets breached? What if they suddenly decide to raise their prices next year? There can be many “what ifs†when you hand things over to a cloud vendor. Before signing up for any subscription service, you must review that vendor’s service level agreement to fully understand the vendor’s responsibilities. Should you become disenchanted down the road with your cloud vendor, know that divorces can be expensive as there is often an exfiltration fee to transfer your data to another vendor.Â
Implementing a NAS solution in-house puts you exclusively in charge of your backups and makes you accountable. While the cloud has many key advantages, it carries a level of uncertainty that you always have to be aware of.
Learn More: A Roadmap for Migrating Legacy Tape Storage to the Cloud
Bottomline: Working in Duality
Rather than looking at these two solutions in an “either-or†context, it is perhaps best to consider them working in partnership with one another. In doing so, you can maximize the advantages that each one has to offer. Consider a NAS solution as a means of implementing your primary backups, thus allotting you fast recovery times and autonomous control. You can then utilize cloud storage as a secondary backup to be used in data recovery or to restore data to an alternative location. While you have to choose between thin or thick crust for your next pizza, you can enjoy the benefits of both NAS and cloud backup at the same time.
Do you think using both NAS and Cloud backup simultaneously works best for organizations? Comment below or tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you.