Surely you will have or at the very least you will have heard of NAS and DAS for PC, devices that allow us to have massive storage outside the PC. But do you know what a NAS is ? How is it different from a DAS ? In this article we tell you everything.
As a general rule, you will realize that NAS are much more expensive devices than DAS, and that is that although aesthetically they may be similar (after all, they are devices in which we can put hard drives) the fundamental differences and, above all Everything, operating are very different. Let’s see it.
What is a NAS and how is it different from a DAS?
NAS stands for Network Attached Storage, or storage connected to the network , and this definition is literal in these devices because in essence they are storage devices that we connect to the network, either to the LAN (internal network) or WAN (Internet) to be able to access this data from other devices.
Physical differences
The main difference with DAS is obviously that a DAS has no direct connection to the network, and is still a “casing” for hard drives that we connect to a PC, and depends on it for everything. Therefore, one of the fundamental characteristics of a NAS is its ability to function as a standalone device, without having to be physically connected to a PC to function.
Therefore, and although many NAS have female USB ports to connect other storage devices to them, in no case are these to connect the NAS to a PC. Unlike DAS, these devices have an RJ-45 connector (or several) to connect to the network, either to a switch or directly to a router, to provide them with network connectivity.
The other physical characteristics are “optional”, such as whether or not it has fans, the number of bays for hard drives, etc., but there is another difference in almost all cases, and that is that a NAS always has a button power, while not all DAS have it since the latter are intended to work as long as they are connected to the PC.
Configuration differences
Without exception, when you buy and install a new NAS you will have to go through a configuration process, which although it is normally quite simple and can even be automatic, will serve to give the device a name, an IP on the network, and if it has various hard drives to be able to configure them (JBOD, RAID, etc.), as well as their volumes. This is done through the internal configuration of the NAS, which for us to understand has its own operating system , almost always based on Linux.
For its part, and except for some very high-end models, most DAS do not need more configuration than the volumes of the hard drives that are stored inside, a process that is normally carried out directly on the PC that we have it with. connected.
From then on, the volumes will simply function as removable USB storage; It is true that in a NAS we can also create volumes and configure them in the operating system, but they will be network drives, accessible from any PC that is on the LAN.
Advanced NAS Features
While a DAS could be considered as a simile of an external hard disk but with several disks and, therefore, its functionality is limited to this, with a NAS we can have many advanced functions that can turn it into an entire server. . Here are some examples:
- Network storage server (main function).
- Downloads autonomously (torrent, etc.).
- Active Directory Server.
- FTP server.
- Multimedia streaming server (Plex, etc.).
- Certificate server and security keys.
Essentially, as you can see the differences lie above all in the functionality and in everything that can be done, with everything that is “underneath” (the operating system) which is what allows it to be done.
