Network Know-How

Using Network-Attached Storage

A network-attached storage (NAS) device is a dedicated computer—without a keyboard or display screen—used as a network file server. In the small business or home networks that many readers of this book are likely to have, one or more NAS disk drives can be an entirely adequate alternative to a more expensive and complicated network server.

For all practical purposes, a NAS drive is just a disk drive that connects to the network through an Ethernet port. Several disk drive and network equipment manufacturers offer purpose-built NAS devices, including complete hard drive assemblies and network storage enclosures for IDE or SATA hard drives. Some NAS devices have both Ethernet and USB ports, so you can use them with ...