Disk storage can be attached to a server in a couple of ways, either directly (internally or externally) or via a dedicated Storage Area Network (SAN). Traditional SAN technology uses Fibre Channel hardware to link servers and storage together but in recent years there's been a move to cheaper commodity Ethernet to provide the infrastructure, running a protocol called iSCSI collectively, known as an IP SAN. On the downside SAN storage can be both expensive and difficult to manage, issues Data Robotics is claiming to address with the latest member of its Drobo storage family, the DroboElite.