Outline the advantages and disadvantages of DAS, NAS and SAN. Choose the most appropriate storage for the UCC university results database and why you have chosen it.

DAS is Direct Access Storage. DAS is connected directly to the server which enables quick access to the data, through the server.
It is a block based storage, which means raw data can be stored directly onto a disk, instead of being stored on to files and then on to a disk. This would be an advantage if a database is being connected to DAS, such as an exam results database system because databases work better with block based storage.
DAS contains multiple disk drives connected to a server.DAS is also a cheap and efficient method of storage.
DAS uses a SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) cable. It hides the complexity of physical format. Every device attaches to the SCSI bus in a similar manner. Up to 8 or 16 devices can be attached to a single bus. A SCSI cable is a pretty secure cable; it cannot be hacked as it is a direct line to the network. If this cable breaks, you cannot access data you have stored. However, you can use multi-pathing to prevent this. Multi-pathing means having 2 cables instead of just one. Then if one cable fails, the other takes over. This means that multi-pathing is fault tolerant.

NAS is Network Attached Storage. This is file based storage. File based storage is inefficient when using databases, because data must be written to a file system and then to disk storage. NAS can store any data that appears in the form of files. Such as email boxes, web content, backups and so on.
NAS connects to your LAN, you do not wire to a disk like other storage methods. This file based storage connects to a computer network providing access to a variety of clients.
NAS is gaining in popularity as it is a convenient method for file sharing among multiple computers. However, as