There are different types of storage, with different protocols, different architectures, different scaling, different capabilities, and also different purposes.
In a virtual environment, you will need a resilient and reliable storage solution, with the expected performance, that can scale for the future. This can only be possible using enterprise storage products, with some exceptions for the ROBO and SMB scenarios, as discussed in Chapter 2, Design and Plan a Virtualization Infrastructure.
Enterprise-class storage can be classified in different ways, but usually different acronyms are used, such as:
- Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
- Network Attached Storage (NAS)
- Storage Area Network (SAN)
- Content Addressable Storage (CAS)/Fixed Content Storage (FCS)
- Object-based storage/cloud storage
For VMware vSphere, the first three storage classes are the most relevant and the...