Right tool for the workload.
"We need more storage" is the start of the conversation, not the answer. What kind of storage, for what workload, with what performance and availability requirements — that decides the architecture.
Business NAS
Network-attached storage — the workhorse of business file storage. Central file shares, snapshots, per-user permissions, easy expansion.
Best for: Office file server replacement, shared document storage, department shares, media storage.
Backup storage
Dedicated backup target. Immutable snapshots for ransomware protection, high capacity, decent restore performance. Separate from production storage.
Best for: On-site backup tier, secondary backup copies, backup verification and testing.
Virtualization storage
Shared storage for VM hosts — iSCSI SAN, NFS, or vSAN. Consolidated VM storage across multiple hosts, enables features like VM migration and HA.
Best for: VMware/Proxmox/Hyper-V clusters, multiple VM hosts sharing storage.
High-performance storage
All-flash NAS/SAN for demanding workloads. Design studios editing 4K video, database servers, high-transaction applications.
Best for: Video editing, VDI, database servers, high-IO workloads.
Archive & cold storage
Long-term retention for compliance, historical records, project archives. Slower but massive capacity, lower cost per TB. Often integrates with cloud object storage.
Best for: Legal document retention, medical records, historical project files.
Hybrid cloud storage
On-premise storage integrated with S3, Azure Blob, or Backblaze B2 for tiering, off-site backup, or content delivery. Best of both worlds when properly designed.
Best for: Off-site backup tier, distributed teams, cloud-integrated workflows.
Vendor options across price and performance.
VeloSync (our brand)
Our white-label NAS built on TrueNAS Scale. Pre-configured, hardened, deployed and supported by us. Sized for your specific workload. Local support, no overseas ticketing. See VeloSync.
Synology & QNAP
Consumer/SMB-friendly NAS units with mature software. Wide feature set, good management interface, extensive app ecosystem. Good fit for standard business workloads at reasonable cost.
TrueNAS Scale (custom)
Open-source enterprise-grade NAS on custom hardware. More capacity and performance for the money than pre-built appliances, but requires more expertise to deploy and maintain. What powers VeloSync.
Enterprise SAN
Dell PowerVault, HPE MSA, Lenovo DE-series. Enterprise iSCSI SAN for demanding virtualization or database workloads. Higher cost, higher performance, dedicated storage network.
How to think about storage capacity.
Storage sizing is one of the most common places businesses get it wrong — usually by under-sizing (running out in 18 months) or dramatically over-sizing (paying for capacity they never use). Here's the rough framework:
Base capacity calculation
- Current usage — how much data you actually have today, across servers, shared drives, individual laptops that should be centralized.
- Growth rate — typical business file storage grows 20-40% per year. Higher for design/creative/video, lower for pure text-based work.
- Snapshot overhead — 15-30% depending on retention policy. Snapshots keep old versions for recovery.
- Growth headroom — target sizing for 3 years growth so you're not immediately expanding.
- Free space buffer — filesystems perform poorly above 85-90% full. Never size to exactly fill.
Rough example: Current business file storage 3TB. Growing 30%/year. Sizing for 3 years: 3 × 1.3³ ≈ 6.6TB. Add snapshot overhead (~2TB) and buffer, land on 12-15TB usable target. Choose RAID configuration and raw disk capacity to deliver that usable.