A new network storage architecture based on NAS and SAN

NAS and SAN have their own advantages respectively and they are two primary network storage systems nowadays. But they also have their own limitations and can´t meet the demand of the high-speedly increasing network application. This paper presents a new network storage architecture made by integrating NAS and SAN in IP: the high performance storage network (HPSN). Firstly, with the help of the Global Multi Protocol File System (GMPFS), HPSN implements the unification of NAS and SAN,and meet the requirements of a high scalability and large capacity. Secondly, HPSN can offer the block I/O and file I/O services simultaneously by iSCSI module, and it has the advantages of NAS and SAN. Thirdly, with the help of the adaptive controller (AC), HPSN can adaptively allocate bandwidth in accordance with various requirements of the performance and priority. As shown in the experiments concerned, HPSN has an ultra-high-throughput for the file I/O and block I/O, and may provide the great capacity network storage system with higher performance, scalability, compatibity,high- availability and quality/price, etc.