Commercial NAS Operating Systems – Exploring Value-Additions – Part I

A comprehensive overview of how various commercial off-the-shelf NAS operating systems address the core requirements was posted last month. From the perspective of addressed features, the core requirements are fulfilled by all vendors in the space. The user-experience, despite varying significantly from vendor to vendor, is difficult to convey from a marketing perspective to consumers. Therefore, there is a reliance on value-additions to sway the purchase decision. In this first follow-up article, we look at three of the most important value-additions that NAS vendors offer in their OS – multimedia support, surveillance recording / NVR capabilities, and remote access / cloud-related features.