On the recommendation of a colleague I recently picked up a QNAP TS-451 NAS for my home office. NAS stands for Network Attached Storage, defined as follows courtesy of Wikipedia:
A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS unit, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. For example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and configured over the network, often using a browser.
You can in fact attach a monitor and keyboard to the TS-451 and use it as a PC, but I don't anticipate doing this. When I want to get under the hood I do the same thing I've always done with Linux PCs - I get out a secure shell client and log in to a command line session.
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