ABSTRACT
The core of any AV/IT system is its storage and file server infrastructure. After all, that is where the crown jewels are stored-the AV and metadata content. This chapter discusses the basics of storage systems: networked architecture, virtualization, file systems, transaction types, HDD performance, transaction optimization, RAIDs, clustering, and hierarchical storage, among other topics. The next chapter analyzes storage access methods (DAS, SAN, and NAS). Between these two chapters, the essentials of storage with focused attention on AV requirements are covered. You may need to bounce between the two chapters, as many of the concepts discussed are so intimately related.
