NAS question.

[780blzit]

So I'm a real noob when it comes to NAS's, I'm just wondering if they are capable to connect to a VPN such as Private internet access?

 

Thank you!

 

[Slackerhobo]

Not quite understanding your question here I am going to answer it a couple of different ways and see if that answers your questions 

 

 

Can a NAS be used over a VPN

Yes it can, assuming your firewall or whatever is terminating your VPN is not filtering the traffic related to NFS/SMB then you should be able to use a NAS over the VPN. I would note that the latency and throughput are likely to be your biggest issue here NAS protocols are not exactly optimized for WAN/Internet like latencies usually there is a better way of doing this in a corporate environment replication, or DFSR or other like technology to ensure that each site has a NAS device is normally the preference to reduce the poor performance of NAS across the internet 

 

Can a NAS directly connect itself to a VPN

This may be possible but is going to be VERY dependent on your NAS solution for example if you are using a windows or full linux box you COULD conceivably connect it to a software VPN or SSL VPN connection directly it would be harder but not impossible to do so with an appliance (though not sure why you would want to do this in the first place

 

Can a NAS device act as a VPN server

Yes, a lot of NAS appliances (synology) have VPN server capabilities so you could connect to it (and the rest of your network) via a software VPN when you are remote from your home or office

 

 

Hopefully that answers your question in one way shape or form 

[780blzit]

Not quite understanding your question here I am going to answer it a couple of different ways and see if that answers your questions 

 

 

Can a NAS be used over a VPN

Yes it can, assuming your firewall or whatever is terminating your VPN is not filtering the traffic related to NFS/SMB then you should be able to use a NAS over the VPN. I would note that the latency and throughput are likely to be your biggest issue here NAS protocols are not exactly optimized for WAN/Internet like latencies usually there is a better way of doing this in a corporate environment replication, or DFSR or other like technology to ensure that each site has a NAS device is normally the preference to reduce the poor performance of NAS across the internet 

 

Can a NAS directly connect itself to a VPN

This may be possible but is going to be VERY dependent on your NAS solution for example if you are using a windows or full linux box you COULD conceivably connect it to a software VPN or SSL VPN connection directly it would be harder but not impossible to do so with an appliance (though not sure why you would want to do this in the first place

 

Can a NAS device act as a VPN server

Yes, a lot of NAS appliances (synology) have VPN server capabilities so you could connect to it (and the rest of your network) via a software VPN when you are remote from your home or office

 

 

Hopefully that answers your question in one way shape or form 

 

Thank you for your response. 

 

I was wondering if a NAS can directly connect itself to a VPN, and you explained it very well. Thank you!