"Traditionally, if a Windows server crashes it takes 4-8 hours to rebuild the server and get it back into a working state because it is a very complex and tedious process," Wyman says.

"There are now solutions in the industry that are able to perform live real-time imaging of servers to create a reliable fast roll-back of the System Volume, which enables a server to be rebuilt from 100 percent dead to 100 percent operational typically in under 10 minutes. NAS is an ideal repository for those images."

Plan Ahead

According Graham Penn, IDC associate vice president for storage in the Asia Pacific region, it is important that companies understand the type of storage they require before they purchase any hardware.

"You have to understand what you are trying to do before you rush out and buy the device - you must know what your objective is, what applications you have, the nature of the data, how long you are going to keep it," Penn says. "You generally use SAN for block level data and NAS for files. You can get a storage system that is either one or both. The industry has moved on from the debate in 1999-2000. SAN and NAS are now parallel, not mutually exclusive."