Why should I use a NAS?
A NAS is a device that sits on your home network, and it allows your to have a centralized location for all your files to sit. NAS stands for Network Area Storage, and that’s exactly what it does. It is a self contained box that plugs into your home netowrk, normally into your switch or router, and it provides a place to dump common files.
People use NAS devices for storing Photos, Music, Movies, and other programs. Some NAS devices will allow you to have access to the files from remote locations as well.
These devices can be used in a variety of configurations, and normally hold atleast 2 Hard Disks. They will allow for RAID configurations, such as:
RAID 0 – Striping – Faster Data access as data is written across both disks.
RAID 1 – Mirroring – copies the files from Disk 1 to Disk 2
RAID 5 – Striped Disks with Parity – Copies the information across the disks, but keeps one for parity information. Requires 3 disks at a minimum.
RAID 1+0 – Mirrored Data Set which is Striped – Minimum of 2 Disks needed.
Most NAS devices will only allow for 2 Disks (drive bays) to be added to the unit, but there are 3 disk versions which are normally a lot more expensive.
Having a NAs in your network is a great way to not only share files across multiple computers, but also to have a place to store files, so they are not residing on your personal pc. The best application is to use the NAS to store images of your hard drive, so if you ever experience a crash, your data can easily be recovered.
So what do you use your NAS for? Do you have a favorite manufacturer?
A NAS is a device that sits on your home network, and it allows your to have a centralized location for all your files to sit. NAS stands for Network Area Storage, and that’s exactly what it does. It is a self contained box that plugs into your home netowrk, normally into your switch or router, and it provides a place to dump common files.
People use NAS devices for storing Photos, Music, Movies, and other programs. Some NAS devices will allow you to have access to the files from remote locations as well.
These devices can be used in a variety of configurations, and normally hold atleast 2 Hard Disks. They will allow for RAID configurations, such as:
RAID 0 – Striping – Faster Data access as data is written across both disks.
RAID 1 – Mirroring – copies the files from Disk 1 to Disk 2
RAID 5 – Striped Disks with Parity – Copies the information across the disks, but keeps one for parity information. Requires 3 disks at a minimum.
RAID 1+0 – Mirrored Data Set which is Striped – Minimum of 2 Disks needed.
Most NAS devices will only allow for 2 Disks (drive bays) to be added to the unit, but there are 3 disk versions which are normally a lot more expensive.
Having a NAs in your network is a great way to not only share files across multiple computers, but also to have a place to store files, so they are not residing on your personal pc. The best application is to use the NAS to store images of your hard drive, so if you ever experience a crash, your data can easily be recovered.
So what do you use your NAS for? Do you have a favorite manufacturer?
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Even professionals make mistakes
Yep, you guessed it, I made a bit of a mistake earlier today, and I thought I would share my experience with you.
I was making a new avatar for a social site, and I was chatting with a friend of mine on skype. So there was mistake number 1, I should have been focusing on what I was doing at the time.
While editing the image to make it smaller, I mistakenly clicked on the save button and not the save as button. Now, my large nice image has been replaced by a much smaller one. This is where I start swearing at my computer right?
Wrong. Why? because I use Windows 7. Windows 7 and Vista have a built in feature called shadow copy. This allows you to restore files from a previous version. In order to restore the file all I need to do is follow these steps.
Right click on the file and choose properties. A dialog box like this will pop up:
Choose the Previous Versions tab
Now I can select the old version that I want to restore from. Simply choose the file that you want, and hit Restore
Those of you that are paying attention will notice that the old version is from Feburary. Yes, that’s a little old, but in this case its fine. The reason that this file is so old is because the shadow copies are only created during a system restore point. By default this option is turned on, but you can manually invoke it so you have more backups of your data.
I will teach you how to setup this option in my next posting.
So remember, that even the professionals make mistakes. The difference is that we know how to recover from them.
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