NAS - Network Attached Storage
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A network-attached storage (NAS) device is a server that is dedicated to nothing more than file sharing.
NAS does not provide any of the activities that a server in a server-centric system typically provides, such as e-mail, authentication or file management.
NAS allows more hard disk storage space to be added to a network that already utilises servers without shutting them down for maintenance and upgrades.
With a NAS device, storage is not an integral part of the server. Instead, in this storage-centric design, the server still handles all of the processing of data but a NAS device delivers the data to the user.
A NAS device does not need to be located within the server but can exist anywhere in a LAN and can be made up of multiple networked NAS devices.