Inside Windows Storage: Server Storage Technologies for Windows® 2000, Windows® Server 2003, and Beyond

4.3. Advantages of Fibre Channel

Before diving into the details of Fibre Channel, let's look at the advantages of deploying Fibre Channel–based storage area networks. Although the advantages discussed in Sections 4.3.1 through 4.3.7 are currently accurate, keep in mind that none of these features are permanent and they need to be continuously reevaluated, especially in view of technological advances and adoption patterns.

Table 4.1. Comparison of Network-Attached Storage and Storage Area Networks

Network-Attached Storage	Storage Area Networks
NAS provides access to files over a network. Because users are aware of the existence of files—for example, Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files or Word user document files—NAS devices are intuitively easier to ...