Compact, manageable, affordable, and easy to set up: What"s not to like? Logan Harbaugh knows just how far SANs (Storage Area Networks) have come in a few short years. Back in 1995, he was part of a Bell Microproducts Inc. team that built a then-magnificent 1TB storage array for the Missiles and Space division at Lockheed Martin Corp. Everything about the 3,000-pound behemoth was oversized: from its six 220-volt, 30-amp circuits to the three 72-inch racks required to house it. And the cost for this custom job? Don"t ask.

Ten years later, the scale has changed dramatically, as amply illustrated by the eight storage area networks that Harbaugh, now an InfoWorld Test Center senior contributing editor, reviews in this week"s cover story "Starter SANs suit many needs." First off, 1TB of storage would now qualify as an entry-level SAN (and a small one, at that), best suited for a small to midsize business. Physically, the changes are even more stunning. The most compact SAN we tested, the Nexsan Technologies Inc. SATABlade, for instance, is a 1U unit (just 1.7 inches high) that weighs in at a svelte 50-ish pounds. It runs off a single 120-volt circuit and holds 3.2TB. Not bad for US$12,300.

In other words, compared with the Lockheed SAN circa 1995, the Nexsan unit offers roughly three times the storage at 1/127th of the size, 1/60th of the weight, and an equally impressive fraction of the cost. To maintain that rate of shrinkage, the single-shelf SAN of 2015 would be about the height of a saltine cracker, would weigh maybe eight pounds, and would run off a few rechargeable batteries. It would cost less than $100 and would hold at least 9TB. Those straight-line projections may be absurd, but they help illustrate how far networked storage technology has come and where it"s heading.

According to Harbaugh, the physical changes may not be nearly as dramatic as those taking place inside the box, specifically with the software. "It"s striking how much easier it has become to set up a SAN," he notes. "Anyone who is reasonably savvy could take any of these units, particularly the kits from Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., and be up and running in short order."

This focus on simplicity, however, doesn"t come at the expense of functionality. Although Harbaugh characterizes these systems as SMB choices, they should all scale enough to accommodate "more growth than most companies will see in the next five years," Harbaugh says.

Storage Center QuickStart and MPC Computers LLC"s DataFrame 420 that both earned the Test Center"s score of "Excellent".

In other words, today"s midsize businesses can demand more from their SANs than even the largest corporations expected just a few years back. Now, about that saltine-size SAN!