Tiered storage is a data storage environment consisting of two or more kinds of storage delineated by differences in at least one of these four attributes: price, performance, capacity and function.
Any significant difference in one or more of the four defining attributes can be sufficient to justify a separate storage tier.
Examples:
- Disk and tape: two separate storage tiers identified by differences in all four defining attributes.
- Old technology disk and new technology disk: two separate storage tiers identified by differences in one or more of the attributes.
- High performing disk storage and less expensive, slower disk of the same capacity and function: two separate tiers.
- Identical enterprise class disk configured to utilize different functions such as RAID level or replication: a separate storage tier for each set of unique functions.
Note: Storage Tiers are not delineated by differences in vendor, architecture, or geometry except where those differences result in clear changes to price, performance, capacity and function.
Read more about this topic: Hierarchical Storage Management
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