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A shrinking budget still won't slow a church's burgeoning mass of data. That's why technology storage is so important. When technology storage expenses are unavoidable—and when space is at a premium and the current storage system isn't cutting it—then it becomes even more important to find an economical solution that meets current and future needs.

Before investing in any new technology storage option, a church should first take stock of its needs. A media-heavy church—especially one that regularly produces videos that eat up storage space—needs a robust storage option. On the other hand, a church that primarily deals with smaller data, such as text documents, spreadsheets, and email, can get by with a much simpler (and cheaper) storage system.

The three most common storage system types include direct attached storage (DAS), network attached storage (NAS), and storage area networks (SANs). Here is what you should know about each of them:

Direct attached storage—which connects directly to a server rather than a network—might be the most cost-effective and simplest option. DAS devices work especially well for churches that don't need to share large amounts of data.

DAS is less complicated than networked options like NAS and SAN. For churches with only a few servers, or just one, DAS is ideal for file serving and email. Difficulties can arise when more servers are added, though.

"It's not that you'll necessarily have difficulties," says Jonathan Fick, Chief Solutions Engineer at Automated Operations, Inc. "You might, but more importantly, [with direct attached storage] you can't benefit from consolidation of the storage pool. Most people transition [to a networked storage option] when they want to consolidate their storage into the same pool."

In terms of reliability, it's hard to beat direct attached storage. "Storage that's directly connected to the server has very few points of failure," Fick says. DAS has few or no external cables and, unlike a SAN, doesn't need switches to route data, he adds.

Even after a network storage option has been implemented, DAS devices can still be used in conjunction with the newer system. In such cases, DAS could store less critical data.

For instance, Saddleback Church in Southern California relies on two SAN units, says Robby McCarrell, the church's Director of Network Operations. But for the church's systems that require higher performance and reliability (such as Exchange and SQL), McCarrell says Saddleback continues to use DAS. "We find that the reliability and ensured performance of direct attached storage makes it a better choice for these systems," he says.

One DAS option is Promise Technology's new SmartStor DS4600, which can offer up to 7.2 terabytes of space (1 terabyte is 1 trillion bytes, enough space to store about 10,000 feature films, 7,000 minutes of high-definition video, or 250,000 songs.) It can be configured in RAID 5, RAID 1, or RAID 0 (Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, a technology that lets users store the same data redundantly, with RAID 0 usually the most susceptible to data loss and RAID 5 the least). It also can be set up without installing any software on the user's computer. Designed without a need for a power supply fan, it has all the power of other four-drive DAS devices but without the noise. The DS4600 is compatible with Mac and Windows computers, and costs less than $400.

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