Is NAS Needed for Everyday or Professional Gaming?

Video games contain a wealth of data, such as models, artwork, text, and audio files, just to name a few. There’s also data that surrounds the people who play video games, including saved levels and player profiles. But what do you do when you have outgrown your desktop data storage? Whether you game on a casual or professional basis, it is critically important that you back-up any important files you don’t want to lose. We depend too much on hard drives, USB keys, and cloud-based services to hold gaming data in an accessible place that is also secure. Local storage solutions can and do fail. Today, we address the question on many minds: is NAS needed for everyday gaming or professional gaming? In this article, we explore the pros and cons of using NAS for gaming. Are NAS Devices Good for Gaming?Throughout the gaming world, network-attached storage (NAS) drives are the standard when it comes to storage you can always count on when and where you need it most. NAS devices connect to a local area network (LAN) via Ethernet cable and come with dedicated hardware that allows anyone on the same network to share files efficiently. NAS is perfectly suitable for everyday gaming or small-scale LAN parties, provided that you have enough bandwidth. It is entirely possible to set up a NAS device and install a Steam-like library of games, so you can save valuable space on your hard disk drive or solid-state drive. In order to game on NAS, you will need capable hardware, namely a high-end Intel or AMD CPU.What makes NAS a particularly good option for everyday gaming is that it doesn’t depend on third-party involvement. Furthermore, NAS devices are much faster than cloud-based servers, where download speeds are susceptible to internet connection, server firmware, and a host of factors. With that in mind, it is entirely up to you to keep up with security profiles, update credentials, and look for firmware updates. NAS may not be as appealing for professional gaming without enough network bandwidth, because newer games will suffer in the long run. eSports professionals typically invest in hard disk drives or solid-state drives due to general responsiveness and reliable performance.In summary, NAS is not a minimum requirement for everyday gaming or professional gaming. However, it does represent a safety net against critical data loss or drive failure, which can be potentially catastrophic for gaming enthusiasts or users that want shared access to files. Storage setup is crucial, because an application may halt if it has to wait upon requesting data from storage. You can still host LAN parties by using a network switch or wireless router that is big enough to host multiple systems. If you have any questions about NAS, please feel free to contact us today.