What is Storage Virtualization? (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

Storage virtualization is a process of pooling physical storage devices so that IT may address a single "virtual" storage unit. It offered considerable economic and operational savings over bare metal storage but is now mostly overshadowed by the cloud paradigm.

What is Storage Virtualization?

Storage virtualization is functional RAID levels and controllers are made desirable, which is an important component of storage servers. Applications and operating systems on the device can directly access the discs for writing. Local storage is configured by the controllers in RAID groups, and the operating system sees the storage based on the configuration. The controller, however, is in charge of figuring out how to write or retrieve the data that the operating system requests because the storage is abstracted.

Types of Storage Virtualization

Below are some types of Storage Virtualization.

• **Kernel-level virtualization: In hardware virtualization, a different version of the Linux kernel functions. One host may execute several servers thanks to the kernel level.
• **Hypervisor Virtualization: Installed between the operating system and the hardware is a section known as a hypervisor. It enables the effective operation of several operating systems.
• **Hardware-assisted Virtualization: Hardware-assisted virtualization is similar to complete para-virtualization, however, it needs hardware maintenance.
• **Para-virtualization: The foundation of para-virtualization is a hypervisor, which handles software emulation and trapping.

Methods of Storage Virtualization

• **Network-based storage virtualization: The most popular type of virtualization used by businesses is network-based storage virtualization. All of the storage devices in an FC or iSCSI SAN are connected to a network device, such as a smart switch or specially designed server, which displays the network's storage as a single virtual pool.
• **Host-based storage virtualization: Host-based storage virtualization is software-based and most often seen in HCI systems and cloud storage. In this type of virtualization, the host, or a hyper-converged system made up of multiple hosts, presents virtual drives of varying capacity to the guest machines, whether they are VMs in an enterprise environment, physical servers or computers accessing file shares or cloud storage.
• **Array-based storage virtualization: Storage using arrays The most popular use of virtualization is when a storage array serves as the main storage controller and is equipped with virtualization software. This allows the array to share storage resources with other arrays and present various physical storage types that can be used as storage tiers.

How Storage Virtualization Works?

• Physical storage hardware is replicated in a virtual volume during storage virtualization.
• A single server is utilized to aggregate several physical discs into a grouping that creates a basic virtual storage system.
• Operating systems and programs can access and use the storage because a virtualization layer separates the physical discs from the virtual volume.
• The physical discs are separated into objects called logical volumes (LV), logical unit numbers (LUNs), or RAID groups, which are collections of tiny data blocks.
• RAID arrays can serve as virtual storage in a more complex setting. many physical drives simulate a single storage device that copies data to several discs in the background while stripping it.
• The virtualization program has to take an extra step in order to access data from the physical discs.
• Block-level and file-level storage environments can both be used to create virtual storage.

Advantages of Storage Virtualization

Below are some Advantages of Storage Virtualization.

• Advanced features like redundancy, replication, and disaster recovery are all possible with the storage devices.
• It enables everyone to establish their own company prospects.
• Data is kept in more practical places that are farther from the particular host. Not always is the data compromised in the event of a host failure.
• IT operations may now provision, divide, and secure storage in a more flexible way by abstracting the storage layer.

Disadvantages of Storage Virtualization

Below are some Disadvantages of Storage Virtualization.

• Storage Virtualization still has limitations which must be considered.
• Data security is still a problem. Virtual environments can draw new types of cyberattacks, despite the fact that some may contend that virtual computers and servers are more secure than physical ones.
• The deployment of storage virtualization is not always easy. There aren't many technological obstacles, including scalability.
• Your data's end-to-end perspective is broken by virtualization. Integrating the virtualized storage solution with current tools and systems is a requirement.

Conclusion

In Storage Virtualization we have learned about how this offered considerable economic and operational savings over "bare metal" storage, but is now mostly overshadowed by the cloud paradigm . By using virtualized storage, enterprises were able to improve storage systems' security and speed while also lowering compatibility issues.