Is it a good idea to...

[IntrinsicValue]

Hook up an external hard-drive into the USB port on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device?

Basically I want to backup the NAS. I want to make sure that hooking up an external hard-drive a) will work, and b) won't cause any problems.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

what kind of NAS device? Is this an off the shelf device? what brand and model...

Did you build a FreeNAS box on your own?

generally USB is supported for NAS devices as a backup target and that shouldn't give you too many issues...but it has to be supported.

 

[IntrinsicValue]

Yes the NAS is an off-the-shelf model. It's called SimpleShare. It has 2 USB ports in the back. But my fear is that those are to transfer information TO the NAS. So if I plug in an external-hard drive, is it going to try to read information from the external, or will it know to send information? Just not sure how this works, I guess.