Hi, new to NAS but been a programmer for 30+ years, so I know my way around software, computers and networks.
I want to add NAS functionality to our home network and we do not need to access (DDNS) data from outside the home.
I bought a Zyxel box and after going through the setup, it came down to Mapping Shares as drives.
All good - but - why couldn't I just add another HDD to one of the PCs on the home network and then Map to that?
The box for this application seems redundant to this NAS-neophyte.
A greater incentive to go with a simple Mapped HDD drive is that I can also encrypt it, whereas I could not with the Zyxel box. I added some test music files to the Zyxel and removed the drive from the box and I could easily read (and copy) the data using a simple Hex file viewer. I chose the Zyxel as it used NTFS so I expected to be able to read the disk. I did not expect to be able to read and copy the files from it in a reusable format.
Sooo, do I really need a "box?"
Thanks