Where to begin my SAN journey

[itisok4me]

Hi we are a SMB with 100 users currently using NAS solutions. However with ever increasing file size and usage we are thinking of investing in a SAN. I have not worked with SAN. I have a few servers running 2008 and 2012. Is there a simulator or demo web page where i can play with the settings and see what will suit us. Thank you 

[Stor_Mort]

For SMB organizations, iSCSI SAN technology will often provide adequate performance at reasonable cost. You can find a lot of information about all HPE Storage and SAN solutions at the HPE video archive on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4884891E6822C9C6

The classic, comprehensive SAN design reference guide is here:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00403562.pdf

[CalvinZito]

I'm not sure the answer your looking for is a SAN. SAN arrays are for block-based data (applications like SQL or Exchange). As you said, NAS is for file based access. Most people generally think that NAS is easier to manage. So if really what you are trying to do is get a more scalable NAS solution, I'd suggest you look at HPE StoreEasy.  Check out the first half of this blog post focused on StoreEasy.  And checkout the StoreEasy hpe.com page.  As an example, the midrange of the StoreEasy family can support up to 5,500 clients and 96TB internal to StoreEasy and can be expanded with external storage. 

As a bonus, you can also use StoreEasy for iSCSI-based SAN access so if you do have applications that need block-based storage, StoreEasy supports them, though there are limitations. Happy to answer any questions you have.