A company's storage strategy is dictated by factors like nature of files, usage patterns, scope and scale of business and infrastructure, and IT budget. The factors affecting that decision to buy a SAN or NAS have changed, as both technologies have evolved, transmission protocols and capabilities have evolved, virtualization has become a major factor, and new usage cases have emerged including storage support for private cloud environments. The SAN vs. NAS choice is about choosing the technology that best supports existing strategy and longer-term business goals.