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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