Network Attached Storage (NAS) is becoming an essential part of small-scale networks like a home network. With all of the movies and music you have downloaded, there should be a robust and scalable way to share and store them on your home network and this is what a NAS product provides.

Think of it as a hard drive for your network rather than a hard drive for just one computer.  With Network Attached Storage, multiple computers (even those connected remotely via the internet), printers, or TVs can access the same shared files.

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Most NAS devices tend to be very easy to set up, and some even provide Internet Connection Sharing, wireless connectivity, an email server, a firewall, and a web server all in the same box.

The most popular products for the home and small office are made by Buffalo Technology (www.buffalotech.com), Netgear (www.netgear.com), Cisco (www.linksysbycicso.com), D-Link (www.dlink.com),  and several other companies like Iomega and HP.

A terabyte of capacity seems to be the minimum standard in capacity with prices starting from 200$. There are basic specs that a buyer will look for such as drive size, buffer size (8MB or higher is recommended) and speed (7200 RPM or higher is recommended).

NAS comes with their own software implementation but most supports the networking functionality to easily hook up to a network.  Some more advanced products allow access to music and photos via your network or the Web so you can keep all your photos and music on your NAS, and access them from anywhere by simply browsing to the NAS box’s address.

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Be very careful to check what format it uses on its disks and what maximum file size it supports. If you have a DVD VOB file with 4GB or more in size you might not be able to save it to a NAS that can handle only up to 2GB of file size.  I would prefer a NAS with NTFS disk format so that I can plug it in a Windows computer easily.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.