What is the difference between centralized storage and distributed storage? How to choose?

According to Gartner, by 2020, the global data volume will reach 35 zettabytes, equivalent to 8 billion 4TB hard drives. Data structure.

Changes create new challenges for storage systems. Unstructured data.

It accounts for nearly 80% of the storage system.

The development of the Internet has gradually shifted the subject of data creation from enterprises to individual users, and most of the data generated by individuals are unstructured data such as **, documents, and **; Enterprise office processes are more realized through the network, and forms, bills, etc. are mainly unstructured digital archiving; At the same time, structured data based on database applications still occupies an important position in enterprises, storing a large amount of core information.

With the rapid increase in data services, the traditional single SAN storage or NAS storage mode can no longer meet the needs of business development. SAN storage: The cost is high and it is not suitable for petabyte-level large-scale storage systems.

Data sharing is not good and multi-user file sharing cannot be supported. NAS: Shared network bandwidth.

Poor concurrency performance. As the system scales, performance degrades further. As a result, centralized storage is active again.

Then centralized storage and distributed storage.

What are the disadvantages? How do we choose between the two? Below, I will introduce and analyze the differences between centralized and distributed storage, and the choices we should make in our applications.

Choice of distributed and centralized storage

Distributed storage. The advantage and disadvantage of centralized management is that the physical media is distributed across different geographic locations.

There are no requirements for bandwidth; Multiple sets of low-end small-capacity storage devices can be used for distributed deployment, and the equipment and maintenance costs are low; Small-capacity devices are distributed and deployed, which has low requirements for the equipment room environment.

Definition: A distributed database refers to the use of a high-speed computer network to connect multiple physically dispersed data storage units to form a logically unified database. The basic idea of a distributed database is to distribute the data in the original centralized database to multiple data storage nodes connected by the network to obtain larger storage capacity and higher concurrent access.

In recent years, with the rapid growth of data volume, distributed database technology has also developed rapidly, and the traditional relational database has begun to develop from a centralized model to a distributed architecture.

Features:1High scalability: Distributed databases must be highly scalable, with the ability to dynamically add storage nodes to achieve linear expansion of storage capacity.

2. High concurrency: Distributed databases must respond to read and write requests from large-scale users in a timely manner, and be able to read and write massive amounts of data at random.

3.High availability: Distributed databases must provide a fault-tolerant mechanism to achieve redundant backup of data and ensure high reliability of data and services.

The distributed database adopts the distributed deployment mode of PC server local storage, which is convenient for horizontal expansion;

The centralized database adopts the deployment architecture of centralized server storage and storage, and the expansion is restricted.

There are differences in function and role.

1. A server is a computer that centrally processes client computer requests by providing various services, such as file transfer, printing, email, web services, etc. A server provides data resources to multiple end users and is a complete computer system, usually with a complete set of hardware components such as an operating system, application software, processor, and memory. Servers can also be used to store data, but storage is often an add-on to the server, not its primary function.

2. Professional centralized storage is a special device, which takes data storage as its main purpose. Unlike servers, it typically doesn't have a full operating system and software applications, and only includes the necessary hardware and operating system to improve storage speed, scalability, and security. It contains a large amount of hard disk or memory and provides access to the client computer via a network connection.

Professional centralized storage can be connected with multiple servers to provide a system.

1. Reliable data storage and backup function. It can meet the demanding data storage needs of enterprise data centers, cloud storage, and large databases.

Therefore, the design ideas of the two are different.

The purpose of the server is to provide data processing and services to multiple users, while professional centralized storage only provides data storage capabilities and is designed to improve data reliability and availability.

Two important concepts in computer science are distributed computing and centralized computing. Centralized computing runs all the applications and services on a single computer, while distributed computing distributes tasks to multiple computers to work together. There is a clear difference between these two calculations.

One of the main differences is their scalability. In centralized computing, all applications run on the same computer, which makes increasing workloads or applications lead to performance degradation. In distributed computing, tasks can be assigned to multiple computers to work together, which allows computing power to scale as needed, improving scalability.

Another difference is their fault tolerance. In Lahufeng's centralized computing, if a computer fails, the entire system may stop working. Distributed computing, on the other hand, improves fault tolerance by setting up redundant computers so that if one computer fails, other computers can take over and continue working.

In general, the choice between distributed and centralized computing depends on the needs of the application. If your application requires high scalability and fault tolerance, distributed computing is a better choice. If the size of the application is relatively small or does not require high scalability and tolerance, centralized computing may be a better choice.

Differences: 1. The distribution of physical media is different.

Centralized storage: Physical media is centrally deployed.

Distributed storage: Physical media is distributed across different geographic locations.

3. There are different requirements for the computer room

Centralized storage: It has high requirements for the environment of the computer room, requires a large space in the computer room, and needs to be considered for load-bearing and air conditioning.

Distributed storage: There is no requirement for the bandwidth of the backbone network, and multiple sets of low-end small-capacity storage devices can be used for distributed deployment, and the equipment and maintenance costs are low. Small-capacity devices are distributed and deployed, which has low requirements for the equipment room environment.

Distributed storage is DAS, that is, there are hard disks in the server, and if there are multiple servers, it is distributed storage, and the data is scattered and not easy to manage.

Centralized storage is NAS, SAN, the server and the hard disk are separated, the data is stored in the NAS device, the NAS device is cascaded disk array, and then multiple servers access the NAS device, operation, centralized data management, improve utilization, and liberate the server!