I turned my NAS into a hypervisor, and now it does way more than just store files

Most home Network-Attached Storage (NAS) units spend their lives doing one thing and one thing only: holding large amounts of data. The NAS waits, like a coiled spring, ready to serve up a file or two when the need arises. But that’s only a fraction of what most modern NAS devices can do.

Yes, at its core, a NAS is a way to store data, either on spinning hard disks or solid-state storage. But under the hood, it’s likely powered by a fully-fledged Linux operating system. That operating system, in turn, likely runs on a capable x86 chip. And it’s that chip, often paired with plenty of RAM, that turns the humble NAS into something more akin to a home server. A server capable of running virtual machines.