Distributed block storage is a

computer data storage Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and Data storage, recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The cent ...

architecture that the data is stored in volumes (known as blocks, a term dating back to Project Stretch) across multiple physical servers, as opposed to other storage architectures like file systems which manages data as a file hierarchy, and object storage which manages data as objects. A common distributed block storage system is a

Storage Area Network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block device, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access Computer data storage, data storage devices, such as disk ...

(SAN).

Distributed storage

Distributed storage, as opposed to centralized storage, typically takes the form of a cluster of storage units, with a mechanism for data synchronization and coordination between cluster nodes. Distributed storage has several advantages. * Scalability: support to scale the storage system horizontally by adding or removing storage units to the system. * Redundancy: store the replication of the same data across multiple servers, for high availability, backup, and disaster recovery purposes. * Cost saving: it is possible to use cheaper, commodity servers to store large volumes of data at low cost. * Performance: offer better performance than a single server in some scenarios, for example, it can store data closer to its consumers, or enable massively parallel access to large files.

Block storage

Block storage decouples data from the user's environment and allows the data to be spread across multiple environments.What is Block Storage?
IBM The storage is organized as blocks with unique identifiers by which they may be stored and retrieved as individual hard drives, and operating systems can connect to. It is an efficient and reliable way to store, use and manage data. The block storage can almost be used for any kinds of application, including but not limited to database storage and virtualization platform storage. Storage blocks are generally accessed by

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to Server (computing), servers in storage area networks (SAN) in ...

Fibre Channel over Ethernet Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...

(FCoE) protocols. Block storage provides high performance for mission-critical applications and can provide high I/O performance and low latency. it is commonly used in

environments in place of file storage.

References

{{reflist Computer data storage Distributed data storage