Network attached storage, or NAS, is shared storage attached to a local area network. A NAS server is a storage appliance that consists of a high performance file server that plugs into a LAN. Unlike a general-purpose server, such as a Unix®, Linux® or Windows® server, a NAS server is a specialized appliance optimized for file serving, i.e., storing, retrieving, and serving files in a heterogeneous protocol environment. The power of a NAS solution is that, in an environment with many servers running different operating systems with fragmented storage islands, storage of data can be centralized onto a NAS device, as can the security, management, and backup of the data.