These network-attached storage (NAS) devices connect directly to your home office network and provide a shared storage space that's independent of any individual machine. Such devices used to be expensive, industrial-grade products, but small, consumer market units are selling in increasing numbers out of retail stores such as Staples and Best Buy. The units come with an Ethernet patch cable that you plug into an open port on your Ethernet switch or router. Once it's attached to your network, any computer on your network ' wireless or wired ' should be able to use the device.

If your computers are networked, shared network storage devices offer an easy way to share files, and most include backup software that should allow for painless, set-it-and-forget-it automated backups of the data residing on all of your network-attached computers.

After testing four such units, I'm happy to report that these devices can indeed solve those problems in a home or small office environment, although getting the systems set up and configured properly isn't nearly as plug and play as I had hoped. That could be frustrating for small business owners and home office users, who tend to be novices with little time or patience for technical glitches.

Setting expectations

My interest in network storage arises from the happy convergence of dropping prices with cumulative aggravation over my current home office setup. NAS has been around for years in data centers, but the prices have dropped to the point where a $200 consumer-grade unit could easily meet my needs.