Thanks to all who replied. Interesting advancement!
I have a Windows Home Server which I created from an older computer,
some new hard drives, and WHS software. It works very well, and is like
a NAS on steroids. The WHS can make incremental backups and can do them
automatically overnight, or at any time. But, my computers use a lot
of power, so I don't leave them on overnight. Also, the WHS does not
have any anti-virus on it (some is available, but I have not used it),
so that I only turn it on to make "manual" backups from time to time.
(They are not really manual, but I tell it to do them now, rather than
when it decides to do it.) It has saved my rear end twice. Once, when I
wanted to make a full recovery of my wife's computer, and once when I
wanted to recover her purchased iTunes music that I had deleted. :)
The NAS seems a lot simpler, albeit not as automatic or efficient. I
would certainly want to have very strong passwords on it!
Dean Kukral
On 10/8/2010 12:58 PM, David Farrington wrote:
> Mine works very similar to what Vandervoort wrote about. Western
> Digital (WD), the maker of my NAS uses a html interface they call
> Shared Storage Manager (SSM). Once your NAS is on the network, you can
> use WD's software to access the SSM or use a browser (IE for example)
> to. Now that I have to think about it, I did have a learning curve to
> use the SSM. And like I said, I have not touched it for a long time.
> It comes password protected but you can take it off. For myself I set
> up different accounts for each of my computers with different
> passwords for each account on the NAS. Each computer backs up to it's
> own space. I like Windows 7 search. As long as my computer I am
> searching from has access to all the NAS accounts I can find just
> about anything I need that has been backed up from any of my other
> computers. It's helpful. You can also connect the NAS using USB but
> then it become tied to the computer that the USB is connected to. To
> answer your question about Connected to one computer that backups are
> made through, the answer is no. The NAS is available to all computer
> on the network with proper access to the NAS. You can read more about
> mine here: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=587
> Here is link to my quick start guide too:
> http://www.wdc.com/en/library/usb/2079-701081.pdf?wdc_lang=en
> My worries about malware would only come if I allowed infected files
> to be stored on the NAS. If my computers are clean then files stored
> are clean. As far as I can tell the SSM does not have any kind of
> virus program on it. All I can say is, so far I have not found any
> virus on the NAS. You did remind me thought that I have not scanned my
> NAS for six months or so, thanks. If you have a home network with
> multiple computers, I think you will find NAS easier to use for
> backing up networked computers. A single computer on a network, NAS
> won't help any more then a external USB hard drive.
>
>
> On 10/8/2010 4:50 AM, Dean Kukral wrote:
>> How does this work? Is there some kind of an operating system on the
>> NAS? Is it connected to one computer and back-ups are made through
>> the one computer?
>>
>> What do you do to prevent malware?
>>
>> I have a Windows Home Server, which I turn off except when I am
>> actually backing up my computers, because I have no anti-virus on
>> it. It actually runs a Windows-like operating system and is more
>> sophisticated than just a hard drive, so I suppose that it is more
>> vulnerable to malware. But, to leave a drive on 24/7 that is
>> somehow connected to all the computers at the same time suggests that
>> there is some kind of operating system that might be vulnerable.
>>
>> Dean Kukral
>>
>> On 10/7/2010 9:59 PM, David Farrington wrote:
>>> I have a 2TB World Book Network Attached Storage (NAS) connected to
>>> my D-Link 655 router. All my computers (Win7's and XP's) use the NAS
>>> for backing up to. My networked Seagate Media player uses the NAS
>>> for movie files to show on an HDTV recorded form Windows Media
>>> Center. The system has work great. I've had the NAS about a year and
>>> a half now. I keep it dust free and powered from my UPS. The NAS
>>> just sits there and looks like a white book on the desk. I also
>>> purchased a 2TB USB external drive and it works fine too. The NAS
>>> drive is available to all computer on the network all the time,
>>> where as unless I share and have the USB drive plugged in to one of
>>> the computers it is not available to all computer. I use the USB
>>> drive for more long term storage or short term storage on computers
>>> I am working on. I like the NAS for ease of system backups. HTH
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>
>
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