Home Network Attached Storage

Most home computer users/home office users store their data
locally on their PC/and or laptop.

Storing data this way is simple but it does have many
limitations:

• What happens when you upgrade PC/laptop
• How do you backup Your Data
• What happens if you PC/laptop breaks
• What happens if you loose your laptop?
• What happens if you run out of disk space?
• Ho do you share data/files.

In the corporate world data is held centrally on Network
servers and where it can be easily administered, secured and
backed up.

The same trend is now moving into the home/home office as
more and more people have multiple computers.

NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are basically computer
systems whose sole purpose is to store data. They use standard
networking protocols (NFS, SMB and ftp) to allow client
computers to connect and store/retrieve data.

Network connections are TCP/IP and Ethernet and Wireless
(WI-FI) as for standard computer systems. They are usually
managed via a web browser by connecting to the IP address of the
device just as you do for managing other network devices like
routers/wire access points.

NAS and Raid Disks

The more expensive NAS devices use raid disk arrays to store
data. Raid disks are used to provide data backup as the data is
stored on more than one disk, and improved speed depending on
the raid configuration.

Devices with Raid disks are recommended for office
environments whereas the simpler single disk devices are
suitable for home use for storing photos, music etc.

Again is important that you take precautions to back up your
data to other media on a periodic basis.

NAS and Media center/server

Although Network attached storage devices can be used for
storing audio, video etc they are not the same as media centres
as they are primarily focused on storage.

A media center/server is focused on playback of media and is
usually connected to a TV and controlled using standard TV type
remote control.