Small businesses have huge aspirations and dreams, no matter whether they are a sole proprietorship providing financial services or a retail store with several employees. The valuable data that is generated and maintained by a business can help you achieve even your wildest ambitions. Therefore, what is the most secure and cost-efficient solution that can provide your small business access to data via networked devices?
Just about all Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) have several workstations connected to an Ethernet switch for file sharing and Internet access. For many, very few network shares are set up on workstation hard drives, and that is just about it. Not having a server is a cost-effective, easy to manage and reliable solution.
Many SMB operators are working hard on minimizing footprints of their computing equipment via virtualization. Since heavily virtualized environments require a good network backend, QNAP NAS units and switches with 10GbE functionality are the best solutions.
How to Know You Should Implement a NAS
SMB owners and managers might discover that a NAS system is the best course of action if any of the following conditions are present:
- A limited IT budget for services
- When affordability is critical, but so is network performance
- When enterprise-level storage is excessive
- When other solutions are not a good fit for your business
- When compliance is necessary, especially in the healthcare and finance industries in terms of privacy and data security where a public cloud solution is not feasible
The traditional business network utilizes evolving Ethernet standards, including 100Mb to 1 GB, which are sufficient for running daily tasks. However, the rise of virtualization and cloud technology means that 1GbE can be a huge impediment to innovation. This is something that can easily impede your business from finally creating the ideal virtual environment to grow even further.
How QNAP’s NAS Solutions Make 10GbE Even Better
For a small business looking for a long-term solution while the business grows, QNAP’s NAS family of solutions emerge as the best option. The QNAP NAP equipment will help maximize the use of your 10GbE network more efficiently, so you can focus on what matters most – running and growing your business. In order to do this efficiently, the equipment offers you the following advantages.
Software RAID Functionality
The RAID function helps in replicating data in case of a drive failure so you never experience data loss or a system crash. RAID software does not require the implementation of separate processors. 10GbE NAS enables optimizations for executing RAID functionality without compromising network performance.
Improved Security
A NAS system will allow your business to handle its data onsite and protected behind secure firewalls. NAS systems feature capability to accelerate data encryption without having an impact on your 10GbE network performance.
Improved Network Aggregation
Implementing several network connections through the NAS system has the potential of boosting your overall network performance. However, the number of data connections can increase throughput. This means you need equipment that will route data between the system storage and network.
The processor bandwidth on QNAP NAS systems helps improve the throughput speeds of the writes to and reads from a 10GbE network. Systems feature specialized software drivers that engage multiple cores on processors for faster data processing that comes from multiple network ports. The result is a substantial increase in throughput with two or more network connections.
Improved Compression and Decompression
One way of maximizing storage space is by compressing files before storage and decompressing them as they are retrieved. Processors in the NAS systems help optimize their capacities without adding on any discrete hardware while reducing the impact of read and write performance.
Better Video Transcoding
In recent years, the use and storage of video data has been on the increase as business use video for internal communications, product promotion, and video training. The QNAP NAS family of systems brings you hardware engines for processing video, facilitating the rapid translation of video formats and resolutions. NAS systems help improve the productivity through translating or transcoding high-resolution videos, in real-time or in the background for streaming in client systems.
High-definition video is quickly converted to universal formats that enable smooth playback on various displays like a HD TV, mobile devices and PCs. Fortunately, all these are easily done with little performance impact on other functions your NAS equipment is running.
Conclusion
Using a QNAP NAS system offers small business an affordable, easy-to-use, and more secure storage option while utilizing a 10GbE network. The family of equipment provides your business immediate storage and data accessibility across multiple devices, enabling continuity and collaboration in your small business – along with greater control and peace of mind than exclusively depending on public cloud solutions. Furthermore, NAS storage solutions from QNAP let small businesses more easily organize, manage, protect and share data across 10GbE networks like never before.
