Using a NAS Device or Storage Server For Your Data
With the amount of data we now have on our computers (think about all your digital photos for starters), we all need places to store all this data. Luckily, there are many different types of media available to us where we can keep our files.
The internal hard drive on our computers is most likely the primary location for all of our data. It is available every time we start our computers so it is very convenient to use and it is really fast compared to external storage media. The internal hard drive is very reliable, although, unless it is a solid-state drive (SSD), it has moving parts so it is prone to failure.
Besides an internal hard drive, many people may also have an external hard drive. These are similar to their internal brethren, but external hard drives sit on a desk outside the computer’s case. They connect to a computer through a USB or Firewire port on the computer. While they may not be as fast as an internal hard drive, they provide a great storage location for backing up data.
Next up are the optical discs – CD and DVD. CD discs are fairly obsolete because of their low storage capacity, but that can still be used to make audio CDs. DVD discs have more storage capacity and with their cheap price, provide a great way of sharing and storing data. The one issue with optical discs is the quality. Not all discs are created equal, so you actually get what you pay for.
Even more portable than an optical disc is the latest media choice for portability – the USB flash drive. These are small devices that contain flash memory and connect directly into the USB port of a computer. The price of the drive is relative to the amount of storage it contains, with the higher capacity drives costing more. These devices can hold several gigabytes of data, which is more than a DVD disc, and they are rewritable several times over.
If you have a network attached storage (NAS) device, or are on an office network, chances are you can take advantage of network storage server. This type of storage is basically disk storage that is available on a server through a network. Anyone with access to the network can be given access to the server to store data. This is useful if you wish to share data among users on the same network, and the transfer speed is determined by the speed of the network.
This article has listed several media types that you can use to store your data. Which method you choose is dependent on what you have available to you.
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