Hardware

Cools Things You Can Do With a NAS (Network Attached Storage)

  • Learn a few of the cool things you can do with a NAS if you’re willing to put the time into setting these functions properly.
  • I’ve been using a NAS for a few years now, and I can’t imagine not having access to one.
  • The main functionality of a NAS device is to store and manage data (files, folders, you name it) coming from multiple computers, but it’s not limited to storage.
qnap nas interface

If you’ve been using cloud storage you’re probably not aware but you’re basically using someone else’s server that’s located somewhere “in the cloud”. A better, more private option would be to use your own home server instead. This is not as costly as it sounds.

If you already own a NAS there are a lot of things you can do with it not just manage data. Sure, managing storage is the main purpose of a NAS, but it can replace a lot of paid services, plus it’s more secure when it comes to protecting your privacy if you know what you’re doing.

In this article, I’m going to try to show you how to use your NAS to do cool things you didn’t know it was able to do, but first, let’s see what’s a NAS exactly.

What is NAS (Network Attached Storage) Device?

A NAS is essentially a small computer without a monitor, mouse, or keyboard, running a custom operating system, usually based on Linux. A NAS is connected to your home network and offers room for one or more disk drives.

A basic NAS will show up in your network neighborhood and you are able to copy and move data to/from your PCs to the NAS. Most modern NAS devices include advanced functionality available through the NAS interface, which can be accessed and configured in any browser and act as a monitor when entering the IP address of the NAS.

Typical Functionality of a NAS

I’ll do the exemplification of NAS functionality on my QNAP 3-bay NAS, but don’t worry, most manufacturers offer the same functionality. It’s a very competitive business, so picking a new NAS from a major manufacturer is a matter of looking for the best price-to-features ratio.

Backup for Your Important Data

This is what I wanted a NAS for in the first place: to have a centralized place to store my important files (hence the Network Attached Storage term). As with all backup advice, you’ll read online: don’t rely solely on a NAS for backup. Make sure you also have an online backup and an off-site backup for your most important data.

If you’re using a NAS with more drive bays make sure you set them up in a RAID setup that allows some form of redundancy (never RAID 0).

A NAS can do much more than just be a place where you dump your data from time to time. Most NAS devices can act as Time Machine for Macs and can do automated incremental backups of your Windows or Linux machines at set intervals.

You set it up once and you’re done, hopefully never have to worry about lost data again.

FTP server

The easiest way to access your NAS data from outside the network is to set up an FTP server. Make sure you secure it with a strong password and eventually whitelist the IPs that are allowed to log in via FTP. You can’t be too cautious when it comes to keeping your data safe. Please read the warning at the end of the article!

P2P File Sharing – Torrent Management

File sharing is not illegal. What you share might be illegal. There’s a difference. That being said on my NAS I have the option to download and manage torrent shares if I wanted to.

qnap download station app

Cool Things a Modern NAS Can Do For You

Now let’s get to the really interesting functionality baked into recent NAS devices. here are my favorites.

Private Cloud Server

If you don’t want to use Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and the like, for privacy fears, then you can set up your home NAS as a private cloud to access data from everywhere in the world. QNAP offers mobile apps for Photos, Music, and Videos that can be used to backup up files from your mobile devices and also to manage and playback anything stored on your NAS.

Streaming Server for Your Media

Storing your family video files and photos is cool, but streaming them to all network devices, like your Smart TV is even better. On my QNAP NAS, I have access to the excellent Plex media server. It can even do transcoding on the fly.

Client apps are available for most operating systems, and you can even access your media library from the Internet if you forward the ports Plex is using on your router. More on that in another article.

plex media server qnap

As a bonus, Plex also offers free access to a multitude of movies, documentaries, and TV shows. Don’t expect the latest blockbusters though.

Web Development Server

When localhost doesn’t cut it anymore, the best option is to use your own NAS as a development server. Depending on how powerful your NAS is you could even host your own blog, but I don’t think you can rely on a NAS to function as a shared hosting web server, let alone a dedicated one. Keep your expectations in check, please.

qnap nas web development apps
Developer apps on a QNAP NAS

A NAS just doesn’t have the required resources, plus you don’t have the same Internet bandwidth and redundancy a hosting provider offers for hosting a website you will make money with.

NAS as a Virtual Machine for Work

We’ve talked about virtual machines in the past, but that requires using resources from the local computer. Some NAS machines, those with powerful resources, can also act as VM supervisors. This is useful for developers and can also be used to create sandboxes to securely try new things.

Turn Your NAS Into a Surveillance System at Home

If you’re mostly concerned about physical home security, most NAS devices can be set up as surveillance centers, where video streams from your CCTV cameras are sent for storage and later analysis (hope it doesn’t come to that).

Sometimes it’s also cheaper to use a NAS for home surveillance, not just more convenient.

A Word of Caution About NAS Security

I think it’s worth mentioning at the end that properly securing your NAS device is very important. Also, make sure you always run the latest firmware, which includes fresh security patches.

I’ve personally cut access to the NAS from outside the network completely because it was actively targeted by malicious parties. I can still access the NAS via a VPN server set up on ASUS Router, which I’ve secured following this article. You may want to do a bit more research on how to secure your NAS properly.

Some of the cool stuff mentioned in this article involves making your NAS available from outside your network. Think carefully if you really need that functionality before turning it on.

After you do let me know what cool things you are doing with your NAS.

Avatar for Ionuț-Alexandru Popa
I'm a writer and Editor-in-Chief at BinaryFork. I am passionate about technology, science, space exploration, and movies. I started writing about tech more than 20 years ago, after graduating in Computer Science.
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