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NAS Hardware.

Depending on who you ask, network attached storage hardware may be called a NAS box, NAS unit, NAS server, or NAS head. Like any other server, the server itself is basically set up with CPUs, random-access memory (RAM), and storage devices or drives. To satisfy the requirements of a given purpose, a NAS device may be modified with additional RAM in addition to different disk kinds and capacities. However, the software is where NAS and general-purpose server storage diverge most.


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NAS Software.

Software installed on a bare-bones operating system, typically integrated into the hardware, is included in a NAS box. A general-purpose server running a full-fledged operating system, sending and receiving hundreds or thousands of tiny, distinct requests every second, is in contrast to that. A NAS operating system, on the other hand, just handles two functions: file sharing and data storage.

Protocols

Data transfer protocols, which are common methods of data transmission between devices, are formatted into NAS boxes. Through a network switch—a central server that connects to everything and routes requests—clients can access these protocols. In essence, data transfer protocols enable you to access files on another computer just like you would on your own.
The internet protocol (IP) and the transmission control protocol (TCP) are the two core data transfer protocols that most networks use, though they can run other protocols as well. Prior to being transmitted over an IP, TCP aggregates data into packets. Consider IP addresses as email addresses and TCP packets as compressed zip files. You must email your grandparents your trip pictures if they are not on social media and do not have access to your personal cloud. You can bundle those pictures into zip files and send them over a handful at a time rather than one at a time. Similar to this, TCP bundles files into packets before sending them via IPs over a network.
The files that are moved between protocols can be formatted as follows:

  • Network File Systems (NFS): Linux and UNIX systems frequently use this protocol. NFS functions on any hardware, operating system, or network architecture since it is a vendor-agnostic protocol.

  • Server Message Blocks (SMB): The majority of SMB-capable systems run Microsoft Windows, where it is referred to as "Microsoft Windows Network." SMB is sometimes called the CIFS/SMB protocol because it evolved from the common internet file sharing (CIFS) protocol.

  • Apple filing protocol (AFP): Apple proprietary protocol.

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