Nowadays, most home users have more than a single home computer, with some going as high as 3 or 4 home machines, all of which share the same Internet connection via a router, which also acts as gateway. However, depending on the size of the network, moving files from one computer to another might be a bit difficult, especially if not all of the computing systems connected to the network are actually switched on at any given moment.

For this reason, it's a very good idea to add to your network a storage unit, typically known as a NAS (network-attached storage system). These storage solutions, which typically provide 500 GB – 7.5 TB of empty space for your data, are connected very easily to a network via an Ethernet cable, typically supplied within the sales package.

Before going deeper into what it takes to add such a product to your network, we'll have to talk a bit about the types of NAS solutions existing on the market. Basically, you can choose either to purchase a complete network storage system, which packs its own HDDs, or get just the empty shell and install the HDD yourself. In the first case, the main advantage is that brand NAS devices generally work very well both with their hardware controllers and the network itself. In other words, they're more reliable, but also more expensive.

On the other hand, one can purchase just an HDD enclosure fitted with an Ethernet connector and then insert the HDD of choice into it. We won't talk about this particular process right now (because that's the subject of another tutorial), but we'll mention here the main advantage provided by this second solution: you can choose exactly what HDD to insert in the NAS unit.

Unfortunately, NAS units are not exactly what one might call “Plug'n Play”. In reality, most NAS units are miniature file servers, which run an embedded operating system (generally, a Linux flavor of some sort). For this reason, before actually being able to use it, you'll have to go through a more or less cumbersome setup process, which will allow you to establish exactly who's allowed to use the device, for what purpose and to what extent (a.k.a. specific users and permissions).

In general, the setup process takes placed in a web-based interface and allows you to set quite a lot of parameters, including various back-up options, the RAID configuration to be used (if such a configuration is even possible), the files that will be shared across the network, who will have access to the respective files, and so on. Even if it seems quite complicated, the process is quite a fast and easy one, even for those users with little to no technical experience.

After you've completed the setup process, the drive should appear in your Network Places folder. If it doesn't, you will probably have to map it manually, by following the nest steps:

Step 1: Go to My Computer / Tools / Map Network Drive;

Step 2: Within the Map Network Drive window, pick one of the free drive letters that appear when clicking on the dropdown list located next to the "Drive:" option;

Note: When selecting a drive letter, be sure to pick one that has not been previously occupied. You'll immediately notice that drives that are occupied are typically associated with a folder name.

Step 3: Choose the specific folder you want to map by either typing-in the name or clicking the Browse button and finding the respective folder.

Step 4: Decided whether you want to permanently map the drive or it's just a “one-sessions” thing. If you're going permanent, then you'll also have to click the "Reconnect at login" checkbox.

Step 5: Finish the operation.

Of course, several issues might occur during this process, the main being related to the fact that you might have accidentally previously mapped the drive letter to a different location, so you'll probably to first “un-map” the drive and “re-map” it to the new location.

After finishing with the mapping, you can simply use the NAS as an extension of your storage system of for carrying data backup operations. You can also install a FTP file onto it, in order to access it from remote locations, or, if the enclosure happens to support this feature, use it for automatically sharing files with other people on the Internet.