Amahi Blog

In virtually every internet connected home there is a router. With a little more intelligence and processing power, the home router can make managing the home network a whole lot easier.

An increasing number of homes have a wide variety of networked devices (Windows, Mac and linux based computers, game consoles, telephones, cameras and the list goes no!) Most people would like a simple way to make all these “digital resources” co-operate. Currently, even having some sort of shared storage (whether a NAS device or a desktop computer) is not easy for the technically timid.

There are two classes of devices that are trying to solve this problem: high end home router and home servers/NAS devices. More advanced home routers from vendors like Linksys, Netgear and Belkin include a USB port for connecting a drive for centralized storage and may even include simple media serving applications. Needless to say the user has to be sophisticated in learning how to take advantage of the centralized storage resources.

Home servers and NAS devices take a similar, but different  approach. Whether using Windows Home Sever, or a NAS device from QNAP, Buffalo, Thecus, Synology, or a host of vendors, they have a richer software environment to make it easier to take advantage of the centralized storage, but working out how to reliably and effectively connect to the centralized storage requires some networking expertise. More complex is how to actually use the centralized resources effectively.

Integrating the home router and home server solves the problem. Networking is dramatically simplied by having the server and router integrated. Imagine setting up a home network with no need to ever see an IP address or to install any software. The router “knows” about all the networked devices and with the power of the integrated server can simply guarantee reliable communication with the centralized home server (both storage and applications).

This is a big topic. There are different mentalities and constraints how router and server/NAS vendors approach this emerging market. We’ll write more of our perspective how this will evolve in future blog entries!

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