topic Re: Questions .. in Network and Storage Protocols https://community.netapp.com/t5/Network-and-Storage-Protocols/Questions/m-p/76429#M6924 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>No that is not true.&nbsp; SAN LUNs can be accessed by multiple "users", too.</P><P></P><P>I don't want to open up a can of worms so I'll give you MY simple definition of NAS and SAN.&nbsp; Keeping in mind that e<SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;">very vendor has their own terminology (regarding luns, volumes, containers, etc.)... typically a NAS serves CIFS (or NFS) shares/exports to users over an ethernet network.&nbsp; A SAN typically uses its own "network" (fabric) and serves block-access LUNs to hosts on the fabric.&nbsp; Fibre Channel is used typically, but ISCSI protocol can also be used and travels through the ethernet network instead of a fabric.&nbsp; LUNs can also be accessed by multiple hosts, but the synchronization for that access (to prevent corruption of files) is dependent on the hosts accessing the LUN.</SPAN></P><P></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;">Since NetApp's FAS/Ontap can do both... I consider it a hybrid storage solution.</SPAN></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;"><BR /></SPAN></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;"><BR /></SPAN></P></BODY></HTML> Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:12:55 GMT resqme914 2014-03-21T14:12:55Z Questions .. https://community.netapp.com/t5/Network-and-Storage-Protocols/Questions/m-p/76425#M6922 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>SAN vs NAS... </P><P></P><P>In NAS is it true that multiple users can be accessing the same volume simultaneously?&nbsp; </P><P>in SAN ... only one at a time?</P></BODY></HTML> Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:39:57 GMT https://community.netapp.com/t5/Network-and-Storage-Protocols/Questions/m-p/76425#M6922 SMARTIN_1234 2025-06-05T05:39:57Z Re: Questions .. https://community.netapp.com/t5/Network-and-Storage-Protocols/Questions/m-p/76429#M6924 <HTML><HEAD></HEAD><BODY><P>No that is not true.&nbsp; SAN LUNs can be accessed by multiple "users", too.</P><P></P><P>I don't want to open up a can of worms so I'll give you MY simple definition of NAS and SAN.&nbsp; Keeping in mind that e<SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;">very vendor has their own terminology (regarding luns, volumes, containers, etc.)... typically a NAS serves CIFS (or NFS) shares/exports to users over an ethernet network.&nbsp; A SAN typically uses its own "network" (fabric) and serves block-access LUNs to hosts on the fabric.&nbsp; Fibre Channel is used typically, but ISCSI protocol can also be used and travels through the ethernet network instead of a fabric.&nbsp; LUNs can also be accessed by multiple hosts, but the synchronization for that access (to prevent corruption of files) is dependent on the hosts accessing the LUN.</SPAN></P><P></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;">Since NetApp's FAS/Ontap can do both... I consider it a hybrid storage solution.</SPAN></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;"><BR /></SPAN></P><P><SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5em;"><BR /></SPAN></P></BODY></HTML> Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:12:55 GMT https://community.netapp.com/t5/Network-and-Storage-Protocols/Questions/m-p/76429#M6924 resqme914 2014-03-21T14:12:55Z