The world of technology advances on a daily basis, and unless you’re someone who’s an enthusiast and is constantly being informed about these changes, you can get “left-behind” pretty quickly. Today we’re talking about NAS, which is a short term for Network-Attached Storage, so if you are eager to learn more about it, feel free to continue reading until the end. Here’s what you need to know.
What is NAS?
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Just like we mentioned above, NAS stands short for Network-Attached Storage and it’s one of the great ways to store large amounts of data while making it accessible at the same time from almost anywhere you want. It’s currently a method that’s being used in many businesses, companies, organizations, and even large corporations.
In this article we are going to take a look at how NAS works from scratch, informing you about everything that you should know about it, including how to utilize it in your personal setup in order to increase your storage space. Before we begin we would like to mention that NAS is not a backup solution on its own, so if you want to have all of your files and data backed up, you will have to find an alternate solution. Let’s begin.
How does NAS work?
A Network-Attached Storage is basically something that most people would call a “mini-server”, and it sits on your desk or somewhere around your office. You are able to connect it to your computer through your USB cable at any time, but this would negate the main benefit, which is the network. What NAS does is it allows you to create a small network which can be accessed by anyone who has the right credentials, which is usually a username and a password. It’s like the futuristic upgrade of a regular Hard-Disk Drive. You can find more useful info here.
Why should I choose NAS over Cloud Storage?
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Many of you are probably wondering why you should pay a couple of hundred dollars for this “NAS Box Thing” when you can just pay five dollars per month and get yourself cloud storage. Well, believe it or not, NAS has tons of advantages over the regular cloud storage methods. Let’s take a look.
The first and most important factor is speed. You will be able to store and transfer files at a much faster pace with NAS, while the same thing with Cloud Storage will be much slower. It might not be even your internet that’s doing the “Bottleneck”, it might be their servers malfunctioning just at the time when you need them to work the most.
And last but not least, you have no third-party involved in your process when using a NAS. Like we mentioned earlier, NAS is being used by many top-tier businesses and companies, so sometimes their data costs millions and they cannot afford to get it stolen or trust someone else to take care of it. By using NAS you are eliminating all third party and the only ones who can access your data are the ones that you give permission to do so.
