I just got a NAS (basically a networked dedicated file server) to keep my media on and have it accessible from any computer in the house. Now one of the features touted by this NAS is that it has a built in streaming media server, so it can stream your media to, for example, Windows Media Player on your PC. My question is, why? What's the advantage? I mount my server as a network drive, it looks just like local storage, so I can just access and play any media file from any computer I have, just playing it like any other local media file. What would the benefit of streaming be? I guess I can see it for some device that doesn't allow direct file access to networked storage, but for a PC? Just curious to increase my understanding, thanks for any insights.
locally, you probably have the situation well in hand, but what abt over the internet? some NAS dont have this ability, but say you want to host yourself an ftp server to access your goodies from a friends. otherwise, your probably a bit more savvy than others when it comes to utilizing your equipment.
