Network Attached Storage

Network Attached Storage

Ever wished you had your own personal cloud storage that you could access from anywhere in the house without having to deal with upload and download times? With a networked-attached storage box you’ve got more or less exactly that. These machines are basically bare-bones PC towers with vastly expanded storage and network capacities. You put them somewhere central and link them up via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and presto; you’ve got ready access to all the files and only the files you need without having to fill out the storage space on any of your devices. You can play movies and shows on your TV from a personalised library, store photos, videos, and work files for access wherever and whenever you need them.

Of course, these boxes are only as good as their ability to store data. Thankfully, they come with plenty of space to slot in hard drives of both the disk and solid-state variety. The former tends to have more storage capacity, while solid state drives can access data a lot faster. Solid state drives are getting bigger all the time, but if you really need a very large amount of gigs to store photos, video or audio files, disk drives are still the way to go. The network attached storage box itself may have a number of bays that correspond to the amount of drives that can be slotted in. For instance, a 2 bay network attached storage box will be able to accomodate up to two hard drives, while a network attached storage box with 4 bays will be able to accomodate four. Imagine having two or four times the storage capacity of a desktop, available anywhere in range of your home network. Some network attached storage boxes fit as many as eight. Other boxes have their own integral storage that can go as high as 12 TB, but even those might have the option for expansion.