walter.iandolo.work :
Hi, can somebody explain why the distinction between DAS and NAS? Why not pluggin in a GigE port on a DAS and make the same piece of hardware suitable for bot DAS and NAS? I can't imagine how a GigE card would change the price of a 2K system...
I realize that the scenarios are a bit different, but I don't understand the practical advantages, from the manufacturer's perspective, to distinguish.
That really is the main difference between a DAS and a NAS. DAS is Direct Attached Storage, as in via USB, TB, etc. It connects to a host system and is used only by that system. NAS is Network Attached Storage, has it's own operating system, and is only connected to a network via whatever networking protocol is being used. It can be accessed by any other computer system on the network (assuming proper permissions and logins).
Now, you can take a DAS unit like this, connect it to a computer, and present that on a network as a NAS. So - you have a NAS made up of one (or many) DAS units. Theoretically you could take a TB card which has two TB3 ports per card, put it on a low cost motherboard which has x8/x8, and attach 4 of these to it for 400TB+ of space.