CISSP Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Prep Guide

A Storage Area Network (SAN) primarily provides block-level disk storage via a network. This means that SANs facilitate access to raw storage at the block level, which allows servers to connect to storage devices, such as disk arrays or tapes, as if they were directly attached hard drives. This is particularly beneficial for high-performance applications that require low-latency access to storage, such as databases and virtualized environments.

The architecture of a SAN is designed to optimize storage resources and enhance performance by allowing multiple servers to share these storage devices. This centralized management of storage resources helps in efficient data handling, scalability, and redundancy. Block-level access is crucial because it enables applications to interact directly with storage volumes, offering greater flexibility than file-level storage methods, which typically involve additional overhead.

While data storage accessible over a network is a characteristic of many types of storage solutions, including Network Attached Storage (NAS), the distinctiveness of a SAN lies in its focus on block-level storage. Additionally, in-memory computation capabilities are more related to processing data than to the storage functionalities provided by a SAN. Thus, block-level storage via a network stands out as the primary offering of a Storage Area Network.