Asustor, QNAP, and Synology Introduce New NAS Units at CES 2020
 

The network-attached storage (NAS) vendors had a relatively quiet presence at CES 2020 compared to what we used to see in earlier years. We have a few announcements and show presence coverage from a couple of vendors to cover, but, a commentary on the current stage of the NAS market is first required to set the stage.
Where is the Network-Attached Storage Market Headed?

As an active follower of the network-attached storage (NAS) market and a media analyst covering CES for more than a decade, the change in the approach of the NAS vendors to the show over time has been interesting to observe. At a higher level, it also shows the direction in which the NAS market is headed. In the early 2010s, the cloud concept was still in its infancy and over-the-top (OTT) streaming was just taking off. However, the rise of smartphones and the associated user-generated content meant that consumers suddenly had a significant amount of data at home that needed access in a centralized manner. A number of vendors attempted to capitalize on this home consumer demand by releasing NAS units catering specifically to this market segment. Fast forward to 2020, and a number of things have changed on the home consumer front:

Smartphones are backed up by virtually free and virtually unlimited cloud storage, and most consumers are not bothered by the downscaling of the photo and video resolutions
Cloud-based services also enable easier sharing of content with contacts around the world - an aspect that has been a pain point when the content resides on a local NAS device.
Cloud-based services such as OneDrive even provide ransomware protection - meaning that even PC / notebook backups for many consumers are moving to the cloud
Physical media usage has dropped down considerably, and most consumers do not bother to back up their Blu-rays and DVDs. OTT services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Hulu are able to provide instant gratification with a good UI and steady stream of new content compared to media stored in a local server.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15379...ts-at-ces-2020