Since NAS storage is typically designed for higher performance and can be expensive, data on NAS is often tiered and moved to less expensive storage classes. NAS vendors offer some basic data tiering at the block-level to provide limited savings on storage costs, but not on backup and DR costs. Unlike the proprietary block-level tiering, file-level tiering or archiving provides a standards-based, non-proprietary solution to maximize savings by moving cold data to cheaper storage solutions. This can be done transparently so users and applications do not see any difference when cold files are archived. Read this white paper to learn more about the differences between file tiering and block tiering.