Nearly every home office or small business needs some sort of central data server, which is one reason why NAS units have been flying off the virutal shelves lately. Many of these networkable storage units are little mini-servers that not only keep your data safe, but offer multimedia capabilities (like TwonkyMedia and iTunes support). Does having a dedicated web server, print server, or BitTorrent server strike your fancy? If so, then you should look at some of these flexible networked appliances.

QNAP has been producing quality networked appliances for a while. One of their most popular products is the TS-409 Pro, which stuffs a whole lot of Linux-embedded servers into one small box. Now QNAP has released a 1U version of this flexible server, which should appeal to small IT shops that need to fit their servers in a rack. Its multimedia capabilities will certainly appeal to the home theater nut, as it allows you to literally have terrabytes of movies instantly available, to create your own video-on-demand service.