Learn · Platform landscape · 💾
SAN, NAS, object, Ceph, ZFS, Veeam, PBS:how data is kept and restored.
Storage decides performance; backup decides survival. The landscape from enterprise SAN to open-source hyper-converged storage, and the backup tools that actually restore.
| Category | Products | Where it fits | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise SAN (block, FC/iSCSI) | HPE Alletra/3PAR/MSA, Dell PowerStore/Unity, NetApp, Pure | Databases, VMware/Proxmox shared storage, high IOPS | Zoning, multipathing, firmware discipline |
| NAS (file) | NetApp, Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS | File shares, media, backups target | SMB/NFS; watch ransomware exposure |
| Object storage | MinIO, Ceph RGW, AWS S3, Wasabi | Backups off-site, archives, app data | S3 API; immutability (object lock) for ransomware |
| Software-defined / HCI | Ceph, ZFS, vSAN, Nutanix, StarWind | Proxmox/OpenStack clusters, scale-out | Ceph ≥3 nodes, 10/25G network; ZFS for 1–2 nodes |
| Backup software | Proxmox Backup Server, Veeam, Commvault, Veritas NetBackup, Bacula/Bareos, Restic/Borg | VM, file and DB backup with dedup and verification | PBS free for Proxmox; Veeam broadest hypervisor support |
| DR / replication | ZFS send/recv, Ceph RBD mirror, Veeam replication, DB log shipping | Second site, RPO minutes | Test failover quarterly or it does not exist |
How to read this
- 3-2-1-1-0: three copies, two media, one off-site, one immutable, zero errors on verification.
- Backups on the same storage as production are not backups.
- Learn ZFS first (concepts transfer), then Ceph; Veeam or PBS for the backup side.