A storage area network is generally better suited to an organisation where there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of users. Implementing a SAN will mean that there is less of an operational overhead in that the organisation’s in-house or external IT expertise will not be required to oversee the day to day workings of a SAN environment. If an upgrade or further storage is required, this can be done quickly and relatively inexpensively without impacting the users and their ability to continue working.
Furthermore, existing storage can possibly be used as part of the new SAN thereby further increasing the ROI (Return On Investment). Certainly within a mission critical environment, a SAN system ensures that information is available 100% of the time thereby negating risk and loss of revenues in certain environments.
As a result, you should expect lower storage costs, lower maintenance and support costs and potentially negating the need for further server hardware which is generally more expensive.