Taken from PC World Magazine, February 2011 Edition

Network-attached storage can make your business easier to run and more efficient in multiple ways.  Let’s look at some scenarios for NAS use in businesses of various sizes.

A small-office or home-office setup consisting of a few PCs, a multifunction printer or two, and perhaps a wireless, peer-to-peer network is far from  optimal for sharing a accessing files.  Data is scattered, and accessing it from outside of the local network requires a VPN or remote control. A NAS box puts important data in one accessible, easy-to-backup location.  You can back up anything you’re working on off-site by logging in and uploading the files to the NAS box.  Most NAS boxes have on-board backup utilities and USB ports for attaching drives.

If you collaborate with coworkers far away, a NAS box’s easy wide-area connectivity can consolidate and centralize your efforts.  Like any other administered network-storage resource, your NAS will allow users to access only the contents you approve.  To handle collaborative work arrangements, simply create folder for each project, give each person access to folders as needed, and give yourself access to all of the folders. A NAS box is self-sufficient, redundant, and task-specific.  But some programs insist that their database reside on a local PC, and others require you to install a traffic-cop program for multiple users.  For these programs, you need a NAS box that uses Windows Home Server.

When buying NAS hardware, focus on redundancy, capacity and speed.  Don’t buy a single-drive NAS box: You’ll need at least a two-drive box for mirroroing one drive on the other so you won’t lose access when one drive fails.  For help, ask the professionals at ICS Computers.