While creating your own cloud server is a great solution to an online offering, it’s not always
practical, secure, cost effective or easy to manage. NAS, Network Attached Storage, drives
are a far better solution. They’re small, efficient and powerful units designed to store and
share data.
Using a NAS Drive as a
Cloud Server
A NAS drive is a reasonably
inexpensive investment for
both home and business
users. A single bay, which means a
NAS unit with space for a single hard
drive, can be picked up for well under a
hundred pounds. Dual bay, two hard drive
capable, NAS units can be around the
hundred pound mark. The only expense
is the actual hard drives you buy to install
within the NAS unit. Depending on what
capacity hard drive you want, and how
many, you could be looking at anything
from £40 up to £400.
COST
A NAS drive,
by this we
mean the
entire unit and the hard drives within,
has a reasonable set of specifications.
You can easily expect to see dual or quad-
core processors, gigabytes of memory,
high performance read and write speeds
and gigabit Ethernet ports. In general, a
NAS will outperform a similar specified
PC at the same file serving duties due
to its low memory use operating system
and the limited number of processes the
hardware is required to run. This frees up
a lot of resources for its sharing duties.
PERFORMANCE
NAS technology has come a long way in the last few years. No longer are NAS drives monolithic boxes dominating
the room they occupy, in fact they’re quite discreet, media-type installations that can easily be hidden away in the
corner of a living room or in the corner of the office.
They are remarkably powerful these days too. With specifications
that better that of a top of the range PC from not so long ago, a
modern NAS is a far more capable ‘computer’ than some of the
PCs found on desks. This improved processing power allows more
services to be run simultaneously, and with support for more users.
In terms of service and software many modern NAS units run a
customised version of Linux, which serves as the backbone to
their file and media sharing capabilities. There’s also a range of
installable apps available, that can further improve the scalability
and use of a NAS, such as cloud server software, for example.
NAS BENEFITS
A consumer NAS is just as capable as a business model,
it depends on what capacity you want.
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Advanced Cloud Uses