A SAN provides block-level storage to clients that they can then use to build their own file systems, similar to a real estate provider giving a plot of land. A NAS provides a complete file system to clients similar to a real estate agent providing a ready-made home, with the NAS appearing as a file server and the SAN appearing as a raw disk to the client operating system. The key difference is that a SAN provides raw disks while a NAS provides a complete file system.

1. SAN vs NAS
Making learning fun
PLOT=SAN SAN=PLOT
Real-estate provider provides a Plot and leaves
House Design concerns on the "client" side.
Storage admin provides block storage (lun) and
leaves file-system concerns on the "client" side.
It's up to the client to create a house. It's up to the client to create a file-system: NTFS
or ext3 or blah...blah.so many options.
House=NAS NAS=House
Real-estate agent/Builder provides a flat or a
bungalow ready-made to the client, all you do is
'live in it'
File-system is provided to the client/end-user
ready-made (SMB-CIFS/NFS), all you do is 'use it'.
“One way to loosely conceptualize the difference between a NAS and a SAN is that NAS appears to
the client OS (operating system) as a file server (the client can map network drives to shares on that
server) whereas a disk available through a SAN appears to the client OS as a raw-disk, visible in disk
and volume management utilities (along with client's other local disks), and available to be
formatted with a file system and mounted.”
ashwinwriter@gmail.com
July, 2019