NAS

Traditional NAS

A standard traditional NAS has storage built into the device which allows you to fill it up at your convenience, however, doesn’t allow you to upgrade the capacity of which it can store data. So if you do end up filling up the NAS with a lot of data and files, you may need to delete some files to create more space for storage.

Diskless NAS with HDD bays

A Diskless NAS allows you to bring your own hard drive to install into it. Depending on the model, they may allow you to use hard drives up to 8TB in size per bay, essentially providing you with a very high amount of storage. These drives are also hot-swappable in most cases, which means you’ll be able to switch the hard drives that are installed onto it without having to turn off the device.

Network attached storage with a modem/router

Another form of network-attached storage is via your modem/router which has a USB share port. The share port allows you to connect a USB drive or an external hard drive to your modem/router in order for it to act as storage via your network. While you can do almost everything you can with a NAS via this method, you’re limited to the capacity of the drive you install and at high capacities becomes much more expensive. Furthermore, since this is not a dedicated NAS, it doesn’t have any extra software or features that you’ll find in a NAS. An example of one of these software features would be automatic backups.