Networked storage is about 55 to 60 percent less expensive than a comparable DAS environment, based on a 2 terabyte system over a three- year period:
Subsystem costs: Networked storage capacity can be shared between many servers and used more efficiently: Typical disk capacity utilization rates: DAS = 30–50%; NAS/SAN = 70–90%
Resulting storage subsystem savings: 40–66% (in a large implementation)
Administrative staffing costs: SAN customers reduced the time needed to perform a storage upgrade from over a month with DAS to less than a week with SAN. SAN and NAS can reduce administrative staff resource costs by up to 80 percent.