File and block storage are probably being overlooked by the new and shining storage solution that are currently on the market but they are still being used by millions of those who can't afford to break the bank.
Storing the right data at the right place is critical and here I will briefly go over the difference between file and block storage and when to use them
Block Storage
Block storage also knows as block level storage is a type of storage commonly used in SAN (Storage Area Network) environment. In block storage the data is written in a form of raw blocks also referred as volumes and are accessed via the SAN. In that configuration, each block is given a unique address. So, let's see what are the main advantages of using block storage.
The area of application where block storage is preferred are the following ones due to the low latency it offers
- Databases
- Email servers
- Virtual Machines file system (Boot Volume)
- RAID Arrays (High Redundancy)
- High performance compute
In addition to that, applications that require server-side processing suck as Java, PHP AND .NET are the best candidate for Block Storage since they need to be as close as possible to the storage to reduce latency
File Storage
File store or also known as file-level or file-base storage is a type of storage where data are stored in a hierarchical file and folder structure. Here, unlike in Block storage, files are storages as whole instead of being broken down into blocks. This also limited the number of metadata that can be attached to created files. Also, here NAS system is preferred as opposed to SAN when using block storage
The area of application where file storage is preferred are the following ones.
- Highly scalable
- Accessible to multiple runtimes
- Do Read and Write at the same time from multiple users
- Unstructured and structured data (Media and text time such as a hosting company)