NAS Devices

While small businesses may most often rely on cloud-based servers, they may have a need to store large amounts of data locally. Businesses that often perform video editing will not be to tolerate cloud server upload and download speeds. Cloud storage can also become prohibitively expensive.

Network-attached storage (NAS) devices are available for around $500 that can hold up to 64 TB of data. They usually come with file management software. NAS devices may have RAID arrays (redundant array of independent disks) which allow for immediate access to data if one disk fails. RAID arrays should not be used for data back-ups because they are configured to synch updates made on one disk to the others automatically.

Device Manager Secrets

Many of us will have had occasion to go into Device Manager to troubleshoot connections to external hard drives, or update drivers for printers. Note that not everything connected to your PC may show up under the default settings in Device Manager.

Under View, you can select 'Show hidden devices' . . .

. . . to reveal everything that is connected to your computer. In this example, you can see that this setting shows imaging devices which are not shown under the default settings.

Laptop safety

When you're working with a laptop that you are often moving around with in a hotel war room or courtroom, take advantage of the option in system settings that will simply have Windows 10 do nothing when the lid is closed:

This way you can quickly come back to your work, and avoid leaving your laptop open and more vulnerable while it is balanced on the arm of a chair or the edge of a table.