Someday I’m going to create a time based plot of the average amount of data I accumulate requiring permanent storage.  Like most people whose lives are becoming increasingly digital, the graph will undoubtedly highlight an upward trend.  Since most of this data is irreplaceable pictures, movies, and documents, it’s important to regularly back it up and understand what products exist to aid in accomplishing this.

While external USB hard drives (especially those compatible with USB 3.0) are a great tool onto which data can be backed up from a single source, the best localized storage medium for a home network is a NAS device.  Network Attached Storage shines in this setting because it doesn’t require the user to physically connect it to each PC when a backup is desired, instead operating as a distinct centralized node on the network accessible to every other PC at all times.  Some NAS devices offer the added benefit of RAID features, which provide another layer of redundancy to the data if when the NAS experiences a hard drive failure.

In an effort to make NAS implementation more cost effective for home use, QNAP today announced its TS-410 NAS server.  Sporting four SATA drive bays, each capable of up to 2TB of storage using 2.5″ or 3.5″ hard drives, the device’s 8TB storage potential should pretty much eliminate capacity concerns for most users.  The unit’s 800MHz processor and 256MB of memory, although slower than the hardware found in high end NAS devices, still make the TS-410 well suited for the demands of a small network.  Supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, and hot-swappable drive replacement, the TS-410 doesn’t require an IT degree to maintain.  With a $450 MSRP not including disk drives, the TS-410 is still probably a little too pricey to promote widespread adoption, but at least QNAP is continuing to expand the home NAS market.