With a NAS in your network, you get a central storage point and you can offer users access to the same files from many different devices. NAS, Network Attached Storage, is one or more external hard drives with a built-in computer. A NAS connects to your home network and the software can be managed from your browser.

If a NAS has several disks, they can be set to save your data twice (redundancy), so you have backup. Should one of the hard drives break, nothing will happen to your data. Just replace the faulty disk and you can continue with dual storage.

A NAS does the same as e.g. Dropbox and OneDrive. The difference is that you own the equipment yourself. With programs like Xbmc or Plex, you can stream movies and music from your NAS to your SmartTV, your mobile or computer.