Which statement best describes a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device?

Which statement best describes a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device?

• A. A self-contained computer that connects to a home business network and can share files over TCP/IP
• B. A high-speed network switch for data center
• C. A software application for file sharing over USB
• D. A protocol for storage networks at block level

Answer: (A)

Network-Attached Storage is a dedicated storage device that sits on a LAN and serves files to clients over TCP/IP. It’s essentially a self-contained computer with disks inside, always-on, whose purpose is to provide centralized, shared storage to multiple users or devices. Clients access its files using standard network file-sharing protocols like SMB/CIFS for Windows or NFS for Unix-like systems, rather than directly accessing local drives or using USB. This makes the described statement the best fit for NAS. The other ideas describe different things: a network switch moves data between devices on a network but doesn’t store files; a software tool for sharing files over USB stays local to a single machine and isn’t network-attached; a protocol for block-level storage is used for storage area networks (SANs), which present raw blocks to servers rather than file-level shares.

Network-Attached Storage is a dedicated storage device that sits on a LAN and serves files to clients over TCP/IP. It’s essentially a self-contained computer with disks inside, always-on, whose purpose is to provide centralized, shared storage to multiple users or devices. Clients access its files using standard network file-sharing protocols like SMB/CIFS for Windows or NFS for Unix-like systems, rather than directly accessing local drives or using USB. This makes the described statement the best fit for NAS.

The other ideas describe different things: a network switch moves data between devices on a network but doesn’t store files; a software tool for sharing files over USB stays local to a single machine and isn’t network-attached; a protocol for block-level storage is used for storage area networks (SANs), which present raw blocks to servers rather than file-level shares.