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Multiple Choice

Which statement best describes NAS vs SAN cost in large deployments according to the material?

The key idea is that cost effectiveness in large deployments tends to favor NAS because it uses standard Ethernet networks, commodity hardware, and familiar file-sharing protocols, which scales more cheaply as you add capacity. NAS devices sit on the regular network and expand with additional drives or shelves without needing a separate, specialized storage fabric. SAN, on the other hand, requires a dedicated storage network—often Fibre Channel or a specialized iSCSI setup—along with expensive switches, HBAs, and additional licensing and management overhead. Those extra components and licenses accumulate quickly as the deployment grows, driving up total cost of ownership. So NAS is described as more cost-effective for large-scale deployments. The idea that NAS uses only Fibre Channel is incorrect, since NAS typically relies on Ethernet.

The key idea is that cost effectiveness in large deployments tends to favor NAS because it uses standard Ethernet networks, commodity hardware, and familiar file-sharing protocols, which scales more cheaply as you add capacity. NAS devices sit on the regular network and expand with additional drives or shelves without needing a separate, specialized storage fabric. SAN, on the other hand, requires a dedicated storage network—often Fibre Channel or a specialized iSCSI setup—along with expensive switches, HBAs, and additional licensing and management overhead. Those extra components and licenses accumulate quickly as the deployment grows, driving up total cost of ownership. So NAS is described as more cost-effective for large-scale deployments. The idea that NAS uses only Fibre Channel is incorrect, since NAS typically relies on Ethernet.