For midcap and enterprise organisations, the challenge with data isn’t just how much of it exists. It’s how quickly teams can access it, how securely it’s stored, and how well it scales when projects multiply. Storage topology—the way you design and connect your storage—plays a central role in whether your workflows stay smooth or grind under pressure.
Direct Attached Storage
Direct Attached Storage (DAS) is the most straightforward model: storage that connects directly to a workstation or server. It delivers low latency and excellent speed, making it a favourite for single-user environments. But simplicity comes at a cost. Data tied to one machine doesn’t travel well. As teams grow, the lack of shareability quickly turns into a bottleneck.
Network Attached Storage
Network Attached Storage (NAS) steps in where collaboration is essential. By connecting storage over the network, it allows multiple users to work on the same files without swapping drives. Redundancy features like RAID add a layer of protection, and modern NAS appliances are easy to manage. The trade-off is performance: speeds are only as good as the network they sit on. For serious workloads—editing large video files, training models, or handling heavy design assets—upgrading to faster Ethernet links becomes a necessity.
Storage Area Networks
At the enterprise end of the spectrum are Storage Area Networks (SANs). Here, storage is delivered at the block level over fibre or iSCSI, appearing to servers as if it were a local disk. The advantage is scale and speed, with uptime and reliability designed for environments where failure simply isn’t an option. The downside is complexity. SANs are expensive and demand skilled IT staff to manage. They are rarely the right choice for midcaps, but for large enterprises with continuous workloads, they can be indispensable.
Hybrid Cloud
An increasingly common approach is the hybrid model, blending on-premises storage with the cloud. Active, high-speed data stays local for performance, while archives, backups, or overflow move to the cloud. This brings agility and cost flexibility, but also adds complexity. Security, bandwidth, and data consistency must all be carefully managed to prevent gaps.
Making the Right Choice
There’s no universal answer to the storage question. A design firm with fifty employees may find a robust NAS solution more than enough, while a financial institution processing transactions in real time may not be able to avoid a SAN. Hybrid models are often the bridge, offering scale without abandoning speed. The decision rests on knowing how many users need access at once, what kind of workloads are most common, and how much in-house expertise is available to manage the system.
A Note from the Field
When Prasad Studios set out to restore film at 4K and 8K, their challenge wasn’t just about computing power. It was about ensuring that 160 workstations could all pull and push massive files without lag. The solution was a 100 Gbps NAS backbone—an infrastructure that kept their teams working in sync and their projects moving forward. It’s an example of how the right topology isn’t just about storage; it’s about enabling performance at scale.
Closing Thought
Storage is often treated as an afterthought, but in reality, it defines how well an organisation can use its computing power. The topology you choose determines whether your teams spend time creating or waiting. If your organisation is starting to feel the strain of growing data, now is the time to address it—before inefficiencies pile up.
