I run several Joomla sites and have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device but I would never have thought about running a website on it. Sure, when I was looking I looked for one that would give you the functionality, but never for a Joomla site more just a static home page.

Well, as of now, QNAP are giving you the option to run a Joomla website off your NAS device - if you pick the TS-409 Turbo NAS that is, but don't be surprised to see this functionality rolled out with others in the future.

Now, Joomla Themes or Joomocarcy will probably not run on this NAS device but I'd quite fancy that this site or my work site would run off it and it would be an interesting experiment.

Then when you look at the specs; 500MHz CPU and 256MB DDRII memory you've got to fancy it might even be able to run a single site with a fair bit of traffic. I'm thinking about giving it a go and if I do I'll let you know how it goes.

It's definitely the way the industry is going. Joomla is now a multi million dollar industry and it looks like QNAP have seen something they can exploit and we should expect others to follow.

I don't expect it to raise many concerns in the hosting industry just yet but as these devices become more powerful they might start to get a little worried - especially as so many of us now have fairly decent internet connections.

It's going to come down to how easy it is to set up and support from QNAP and if they can get that right then I think they might be on to something.

When I picked my NAS I picked LaCie. I'm very happy with the actual product because I went for what was going to be the easiest to set and just leave but now that we've got this functionality from QNAP I think I'm going to have to have a discussion with the wife.

LaCie won't get any more of my money however because of the very poor support, so like I said, if QNAP can support this product and it does exactly what it says on the tin, it could very well become the future of hosting small Joomla websites.

QNAP TS-409 Turbo NAS series adopts high performance 500MHz CPU and 256MB DDRII memory. It is the leading 12-functions-in-one server which provides reliable networked storage and professional backup. The series supports built-in editable php.ini, MySQL, and SQLite web server and DDNS service to enable home and business users to set up a compact and high performance web server with complete functions. According to Mr. Andy Chuo, Product Manager from QNAP, "More and more users are seeking after an energy-saving NAS server to replace PC server for building their web sites or other online applications. The powerful embedded system design of our NAS and the enhancement of the Web Server function should dominate and gradually replace the traditional web server setup by PC. We hope to bring our users a different experience to build their own web sites easily even if they are not familiar with Linux."

For more information on running Joomla on this QNAP device check out the application notes on the QNAP site.