Abstract: Network storage system evaluation becomes more and more important due to the network storage scale becomes huge sharply and its application scope becomes wide as well. Network storage system evaluation includes performance, availability, manageability, power consumption and other metrics. This paper discussed the current research topics and the status on network storage system evaluation, proposed a logical framework for it, and discussed about how to use trace as a basic means to evaluate each metrics, the challenges and solutions in trace collection, trace replay and trace availability. Finally, gave out expectation on the future research topics in this field.

Key words: Network storage system, System evaluation, Performance, Availability, Trace