Blog: JBOD vs NAS Storage: Which is right for my business?

They’ve both become commonly used storage solutions for businesses of all sizes; and while NAS (Network Attached Storage) sales have exploded over the past couple of years, JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) still adequately meets many storage demands depending on business needs. A company’s value of storage capabilities, speed, redundancy, cost effectiveness, and more dictate what solution best suits that business.

So what benefits should you be aware of when it comes down to JBOD vs NAS storage?

JBOD (“Just a Bunch of Drives”)

JBOD traditionally refers to either a single disk or architecture of multiple disk drives presented to an operating system as a single entity. JBOD has no actual RAID functionality, which comes as a turnoff for businesses seeking redundancy and performance improvement.

JBOD storageThis solution strips out the extra bells and whistles and places emphasis on the ability to continuously expand storage space easily. If you see you’re fast approaching your current memory capacity, simply add another drive to the disk enclosure. Furthermore, JBOD storage avoids drive waste unlike some RAID configurations that can lose storage volume when combining drives of varying capacity (although best practice tells you to stay consistent with disk size). And even though the price of disk drives continues to drop, JBOD still stands as one of the most cost effective solutions on the market.

As mentioned earlier, there are potential risks that come with JBOD storage systems that stem from RAID inabilities. Due to lack of redundancy, losing data on a single drive may also result in lose of data on the other drives as well. If a backup system isn’t in place, that data is gone for good.

NAS (“Network Attached Storage”)

As opposed to JBOD, NAS devices function as storage directly connected to your computer network through an Ethernet connection. NAS systems typically utilize hard drives in a RAID configuration, providing redundancy and speedy access to files across your network of computers.

NAS storageTraditionally a pricier option compared to JBOD, costs of NAS solutions have dropped dramatically over the past couple of years resulting in 46% sales growth. NAS is the answer for businesses willing to pay a slightly higher price point for performance enhancement and the redundancy RAID configurations provide. A continuous backup of your data is invaluable, and the ability to separate storage resources increases data availability across your network.

It’s important to note that NAS does display some weaknesses when it comes to dealing with large amounts of data transfer. For businesses utilizing these types of applications, be aware that prolonged use of NAS for this type of work can slow the LAN.

Finding the right storage solution for your business is a tedious, but crucial decision. ACNC offers both JBOD and NAS devices, and our representatives are qualified to help you determine which is right for your company. For more information, please contact us at 1-800-213-2667, Ext. 122 or email sales@acnc.com and we’ll reach out to you.