>Hi Sergey,
>
>Our environement is compose of 3 SQL server:
>One production, one Staging server, one Development server.
>We also have a SAN for storage.
>
>The production server uses a HBA bus to connect to the SAN meaning that it boot from the SAN and SQL data reside on the SAN like a local drive of the machine.
>
>
>HBA busses are very expensive and we bought them only for production server.
>
>So for Staging and Dev server we have two machine with their own hard drive (without HBA busses), They boot locally on their hard drive and they run SQL server. My problem with this configuration was that SQL didn't permit me to put SQL data on a map drive or to use a UNC path. So with the flag discuss in the article I can put my SQL data from my Staging and Dev computer on a Map drive that reside on SAN.
>
>This way my SQL Production server is fully integrate to the SAN and my two other SQL server (Dev and Stage) are configure half and half, they boot from a local hard drive and the use the SAN to store SQL data. This way I can spare 2 HBA busses and still use the SAN as a storage. My backup schema is simplified and my SQL Data is protect by the SAN with redunduncy and fault tolerance.
>
>The only draw back is that the DEV and Staging SQL server might not recover correctly from a machine crash because the SQL only control disk caching on local drive. In my case only the production server need that kind of protection.

Hi Luc,

I see that you're well aware of all the pros and cons of SAN and NAS so my comment wasn't necessary. :)