If you don't know what NAS means, odds are it won't be all that long before you do as network attached storage appliances become more common. Patriot Memory sees network storage as the next mainstream consumer product and is releasing its own home server named Corza. Designed to meet the storage needs of the home network, the Corza is a dual-bay unit that can accommodate up to 2x2TB hard drives. That translates into a maximum of 4TB of storage when configured in either a RAID 0 or JBOD volume. The Corza also offers RAID 1 for those looking for the protection of mirrored drives.

As multimedia becomes a greater focus of home networks, Patriot's new server can stream files over its gigabit Ethernet connection supports as many as three HD movies simultaneously. The Corza offers features such as a built-in FTP server making the files on the server accessible from anywhere an Internet connection is available.

Memory manufacturers have been branching out into other product lines such as cooling products and power supplies, but this is the first I've seen a memory company moving into the network storage market with a server based on hard drives. Let's hope Patriot can bring something extra to the table with the Corza. It'll be interesting to see additional specs on the Corza including processor and memory size. Those are two of the critical features that can set a unit above the rest of what is a fairly crowded field at this end of the market.