One may think that development will stop once the age of technology has reached its full potential. However, technological advancements are not showing any signs of slowing down yet as new trends rise to the top. Although there are many types of devices sweeping professionals across all industries off their feet, there is one element that any business or company should keep updated-- network storage devices.

Importance in Investing in Your Storage Devices

The age of technology is also the age of high-resolution photos and heavy file-sharing activities. Storage spaces in business networks can fill up faster than ever nowadays. Simply using an external hard drive for offloading and backing up files from your business PCs poses many issues and challenges like:

• offloading files into a hard drive for several PCs will take ages
• looking for the hard drive containing a specific file will be a challenge
• using separate hard drives has safety risks
• using hard drives without backup can be risky in the event of a corrupted file (sometimes, the whole drive can be corrupted)

Network Attached Storage (NAS) is a popular setup for businesses since it allows multiple users to save and share files with the whole office, it also allows you to set up security measures, and backup systems to help resolve the issues that come with just using individual hard drives.

Network Attached Storage Trends

At the simplest level, a NAS device is a container for hard drives that allows you to easily expand your maximum potential storage capacity. Typically, you can determine a NAS device's base capacity by the number of its drive bays. But, NAS is flexible in the sense that you can further expand its capacity with the help of some extensions and accessories. 

The concept of NAS itself has been around for a while, but what's new with it nowadays?

Diskless NAS Options

You can get some NAS drives pre-populated with disks, and sometimes-- they are already formatted for use in a particular RAID configuration. Now, you can find many other options that offer diskless or empty drives.

A few years, this was an important consideration since some NAS manufacturers make sure that their NAS devices can only work with their hard drives. But now, you can choose diskless NAS options without worrying about compatibility. But of course, a little research goes a long way-- after all, pre-populated drives are not completely out of the market yet.

Since diskless NAS options are available, you will only need to be concerned about the overall drive capacity, the interface technology, and the overall cost of your NAS.

Remote Access 

One of the many issues of just using an individual hard drive is that you need to physically have the device to be able to access your files. If a team member needs a file from your external hard drive, they have no way of obtaining it unless you send it to them through email or if you lend the physical device to them. You have to admit that these two solutions have too many extra steps when you can just share your files through your corporate network.

When someone says "corporate network" you may immediately think that you still need to be in the office to access the files within the company network. This statement is not wrong as it is one of its purposes. However, thanks to technological advancements, most NAS drives allow you to send web links to other users which will allow them to access certain files or folders within your network. In a way, your NAS can now serve as the company Google Drive, but with more flexible storage capacity. 

Keep in mind that the method by which each NAS vendor offers this feature can vary. For instance, some will offer as little as a simple File Transfer Protocol (FTP) manager or simply a command line feature. This method requires you to understand something about configuring a secure FTP server to avoid making your files available to public spaces on the internet. 

More updated NAS devices can offer an app that will handle remote Internet access. Since this type of NAS device comes with an advanced feature, it will also come with an updated user-friendly interface and advanced security options.

Cloud Connection

Cloud services are gaining popularity nowadays, and modern NAS setups will allow you to connect your network to cloud storage services.

Cloud storage is a great option for backup for company networks. Being connected to a cloud storage service will also allow you to access the NAS from any internet connection other than your local network. 

What does this mean? This means that you can download files you need anytime and anywhere.

Bottomline

Due to further advancements in storage technology, you can do more with your NAS nowadays. For instance, you have better flexibility in choosing your devices because of the diskless NAS device options. Working remotely will not be an issue as well since newer NAS devices and cloud service options offer file-sharing options even outside the company's local network.

Investing in your company's NAS and storage devices is always a good idea. Having a functional and secured network will allow your operations to run smoothly without any bottlenecks due to file sharing issues.