How to pick the right storage medium for your needs
Let’s embark on a quick tour of the types of storage that are available, which will work best so that you can pick the right storage medium for your business.
Once upon a time, choosing the right storage for your employees boiled down to a single question: how many gigabytes would they need? Now, with the onset of superfast solid-state disk storage, as well as centralised storage options (whether in the cloud or on your local server), things have become that bit more complicated. Local storage This type of storage is included within the computer itself. It contains everything you need to run direct from the client PC itself: the operating system, applications and user data. This type of setup remains the best for those in your business setup who need lots of processing power and fast, readily available storage. When choosing client PCs with onboard storage, always pick solid-state disc (SSD) storage over traditional platter-based hard drives. SSDs are lighter, more robust (as they have no moving parts) and crucially much, much quicker – particularly if you choose a model sporting the newer M.2 SSD storage. M.2 storage is plugged directly into a PC’s PCI-Express bus and looks a bit like a memory module, which gives them a smaller footprint and allows more storage to fit into smaller form factors. SSD has benefits on the road for laptop users of course (check out the ASUSPRO B9440UA, for example). But it will also improve productivity back in the office too. The ASUS PB60 Mini PC takes full advantage of the M.2 form factor to provide 256GB M.2 SSD primary storage, while leaving space for an additional drive in the form of a 2.5-inch drive bay, which can house both SSD and non-SSD laptop-sized hard disks. There’s a premium to pay for SSD storage, so if budgets are tight and storage needs are great, speak to your IT staff about a dual-drive setup. In this scenario, you leave the OS and applications on a smaller SSD, then simply save user data to the slower, cheaper but larger non-SSD drive.
Centralised storage One disadvantage of local storage is that it ties users to a single client. If you run a hot-desk office where people move between client PCs, you’ll need to investigate ways of housing user data in a central location, so when users log in from any client hardware, they immediately have access to the latest version of their data, applications and settings. This kind of approach is particularly suited to so-called ‘thin clients’ where most of the heavy lifting is done by your server. What storage you’ll require will ultimately depend on the type of server you have set up. Those running cloud servers should focus more on ensuring everyone has a decent network connection and fast internet access to reduce latency – the storage needs here will be met by your cloud provider. However, if you’re keeping everything on-site with a local server, then look to invest in RAID-based storage. RAID arrays comprise two or more hard drives working in tandem for both data redundancy and performance purposes. By configuring arrays to pull data from multiple hard drives at once, read times are much improved. But you also need to ensure you provide adequate network bandwidth. To do this, you’ll need a server with multiple Ethernet ports and support for ‘teaming’ in addition to RAID capabilities. Teaming works by grouping multiple physical adapters into one super-fast virtual adapter to speed up the transfer of data to and from clients, plus it can prevent bottlenecks developing when multiple clients attempt to connect at once. Two servers that provide both RAID and teaming support are ASUS’s RS100-E10-PI2 for smaller setups, and RS200-E9-PS2 for larger offices. To find out more about how ASUS can help your business with its storage solution, click here
