I work from a home office and telecommute four days a week. I have a Computerworld -issue laptop, a home computer where I pay the bills and keep personal business, a Windows XP PC for my daughter, a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop that I use for mobility around the house and an Apple iMac I use for multimedia and for testing purposes. I have different data sets scattered across all of those machines, yet I'd like to be able to access any data from any machine. If I'm working on my home machine I'd like to check in on my work files rather than go downstairs to my work computer. If I switch to my wireless laptop in the living room, I'd like access to both my personal and professional data.

Since all of my machines are networked, I could use Windows networking to share folders on each, but with five different machines the shared folder scenario becomes a bit confusing. The arrangement also has its quirks. Most recently someone shut off a computer upstairs that contained an important Excel spreadsheet that I had open. The file became corrupted and I was unable to recover it.

With a shared file space on a NAS device, I could place all of those files in one location and make them available from any workstation in the house. A dedicated shared storage device would also use less power than a shared folder on a computer, and because the units don't use a cooling fan, they run quieter too.

My other issue is backups. Like most people, I don't do them often enough -- in part because digital photos and other multimedia files have swelled the size of backups, requiring multidisc backup sets that I have to baby-sit.

For my purposes, a NAS device must integrate storage needs in a home office environment where a heterogeneous mix of business and consumer machines need access to common files. That includes Windows and Mac clients. Linux support is a plus, although I do not have any such machines in use at this time. It also needs to provide consistent, consolidated backup, access to common files -- for both wireless and wired machines -- and secure access using basic password protection.