We are an SMB with a very small but dedicated IT staff. We look at new technologies mainly from an initial cost standpoint and secondly, from an ongoing cost basis. I have very limited resources (people and $) that are stretched very thin in many directions. A technology has got to be easy to maintain or it would be detrimental to install in our environment. Furthermore, it can not cost an arm and a leg or it will not be considered as a contender in the first place.

For these reasons, when evaluating iSCSI versus FC, iSCSI was the clear winner. iSCSI was about one quarter of the price of FC for the same amount of storage. iSCSI was easier to maintain and administer. My staff already had the knowledge it needed to administer our iSCSI SAN because iSCSI uses the same administration technology as direct attached storage. This is a huge benefit as we could use the technology from day one. The FC manufacturer suggested that we take a course to learn how to administer their FC SAN. They would explain what a LUN was, how to allocate the necessary size of this LUN and how to add it to a storage pool. Compare this to iSCSI where you create a volume of storage and make it available to a server in a few easy clicks.

Another key decision point was the fact of how easy it is to expand our iSCSI SAN. Each unit is a standalone appliance with a set storage space. To add storage, just purchase the appropriate unit with the needed amount of storage and add it to the group. The new storage is instantly available for use. Simple.

I think the storage market is being separated into large companies and SMBs. While larger companies need speed of data transfer, they are favoring FC with 4 to 8 GB transfer speeds. iSCSI is a bit slower but SMBs are more interested in cost and ease of use. Therefore, iSCSI is the preferred storage technology for SMBs, and its adoption will grow rapidly as other small businesses jump into the SAN customer base.

As for our own plans, we have recently upgraded our SAN with newer and higher capacity units. Our future plans include starting to take disk-based snapshots of data for backups. This will greatly reduce our current backup window by allowing tape backups to be written during normal work hours. We also plan to add equipment at an off-site location to satisfy disaster recovery requirements.