A Storage area network, or SAN, is a high-speed network of storage devices that also connects those storage devices with servers. It provides block-level storage that can be accessed by the applications running on any networked servers. SAN storage devices can include tape libraries, and, more commonly, disk-based devices, like RAID hardware. SAN Vs. DAS Performance Organizations often choose to deploy SANs because they offer better flexibility, availability and performance than direct-attached storage ( DAS ). Because a SAN removes storage from the servers and consolidates it in a place where it can be accessed by any application, it tends to improve storage utilization. Those utilization improvements often allow organizations to defer purchases of additional storage hardware, which saves money and requires less space in the data center. Thanks to high-speed connections (usually Fibre Channel ), SANs often provide better performance than DAS. Also, b