![]() It does, after all, work with a file system to provide application access to data.īut, block storage is at its best when providing access to blocks that form part of larger files. Meanwhile, block storage can also do all of this. It is also less likely to be addressable by many applications unless they are written for use with object storage. Having said all that, object storage also provides access at file level, but without file locking. It’s also a good choice for data at the other end of the size scale if it exists as small files, such as might be the case with machine or sensor data you want to run analytics on.įile storage as NAS is also well-suited to working with applications that need file locking or that are written as “traditional” on-premise applications. In other words, it’s good if you want to access entire files and so is good for general file storage, or for more specialised workloads that require file access, such as movie files. It’s not the only determinant, however, and with the advent of very fast flash storage, performance wrinkles present in previous times can be ironed out.īut, in general, each storage mode has key characteristics whether used on-premise or in the cloud.įile storage is, as you’d expect, good for storing and accessing files. Whether storage is file, block or object goes a long way to determine the likely performance and use cases. File, block, object: Performance and use cases That makes it quite unlike the hierarchical, tree-like, file system structure. It is based on a “flat” structure with access to objects via unique identifiers, somewhat similar to the way websites are addressed in the domain name system (DNS). Everything a SAN does is also performed in a NAS system, but it is hidden away. In other words, when you buy a NAS box or a linked cluster of scale-out NAS nodes, they come with their own file system with storage presented to applications and users in the familiar drive letter format. When you buy SAN/block storage you are merely buying the storage array and the ability to configure volumes to make them available to applications via a file system resident elsewhere in the software stack.įile access storage – commonly consumed via network-attached storage (NAS) – is most easily understandable in opposition to this. Block and file storage are defined by their relationship to it.īlock access storage – as deployed in storage-are network ( SAN) systems, for example – provides only the means to address blocks of storage from file systems, databases, and so on. Most of what we know about the way data is stored is based around the several decades-old concept of the file system. Object is cut from a different cloth altogether. Where things start to differ is how that basic bit-level information forms part of the bigger picture, and it’s here where the key differences between block, file and object storage emerge.įile and block share a lot, namely in their relationship to a file system. Namely, that it comprises a medium that can register the presence or not of bits of data, and that’s the same whether it is the slowest magnetic hard drive or super-fast NVMe flash. But, at root, all storage is categorised as either block, file or object, with those terms derived from how data is accessed in each mode.įundamentally, the physical storage that data resides on shares a common characteristic.
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