For years many of us have been transferring data back and forth between our desktops and laptops. However in recent years, rather than incur the cost of updating or replacing their old antiquated desktops, have simply discarded or donated them and turned to laptops as their only or main computers. The cost of new laptops, notebooks, and netbooks has made this a very desirable alternative.
Wifi ready network all-in-one printers have replaced the standard USB printer for many who have already gone this route, and new wifi ready adapters have made it feasible to network other peripherals ie: scanners, etc., as well.
Unfortunately, they have yet to match the one and two tare byte internal hard drives (HDD) available for desktop computers. We try to adapt, by using alternative storage devices like thumb-drives, memory sticks, flash drives, and even writable CD’s and DVD’s, but there is nothing a large hard drive. Well – thank God to today’s technology, our prayers have been answered. Recent cost drops have made it very affordable install “NAS”, (Network Adapter Storage) drives to our home networks at exceptionally affordable prices.
I recently purchased a Two Tara byte Western Digital NAS drive from Amazon.com sale priced at $139.99
Amazon’s current price for this drive at $149.99 is still a fantastic price. Other sites are selling this drive in the one tara-byte version for this price.
NAS drives are easy to install and use. Just plug one end of the Kat5 cable that comes with the NAS drive into any open port on your network router and the other end into the NAS drive. Hook up the power to the drive and you’re all set. If your computer doesn’t recognize it automatically, place the CD in your CD/DVD reader, let it auto-boot and follow the instructions on your screen. It’s that simple.
The drive is now available to all computers attached to your intranet (home network). Computers not recognized by your home network will not be able to see the NAS drive unless you make it available to them through shared folders as well. Doing so will make the data available on the internet also.