Document scanning functionality is a critical component for a software developer building a website, content management system, or office automation system. There are several different scanning drivers in the market:

• TWAIN Scan
• WIA Scan
• ISIS Scan
• SANE Scan

Naturally, you may be confused as to what is the best solution for you.
TWAIN, WIA, ISIS and SANE, are all scanning drivers that support acquiring physical images from scanners and storing the digital images on a computer. Although they are trying to achieve the same task basically, a popularity search shows that TWAIN is leading the game.
These four document scanning drivers have some different scanner functionalities and compatibilities, which makes them suitable for different situations. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

What is TWAIN Scanning
​TWAIN is scanning protocol that was initially used for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems, and it added Linux/Unix support since version 2.0. The first release was in 1992. It was designed as an interface between image processing software and scanners or digital cameras. TWAIN is the most commonly used protocol and the standard in document scanners. In most cases, users should be able to either get a free TWAIN driver or easily find one (from the manufacturer’s website), for their scanners — Canon, HP, Epson, Kodak, Xerox, etc.

​The software has three key elements:

• The Application
• The Source Manager
• The Data Source

The Source Manager Interface provided by TWAIN allows your application to control data sources, such as scanners and digital cameras, and acquire images, as shown in the figure

Although nearly all scanners contain a TWAIN driver that complies with the TWAIN standard, the implementation of each TWAIN scanner driver may vary slightly in terms of scanner setting dialog, custom capabilities, and other features. It’s good if you want to use features specific to a particular scanner model, but if you want your application’s scanning behavior to be consistent on different scanners, you need to be wary of customized code.
The TWAIN standard is now evolving to the next generation, called TWAIN direct. The TWAIN working group, that Dynamsoft is an associate of, claims that with TWAIN direct vendor specific drivers will no longer be needed. The application will be able to communicate directly with scanning devices. The best of TWAIN direct is still to come.

What is WIA Scanning
​WIA (Windows Image Acquisition), introduced by Microsoft since Window Me, is the driver platform delivered with the Windows OS, including Windows 7, Windows 8, etc. It enables applications to acquire images from all kinds of digital cameras and scanners. It sounds very similar to TWAIN, doesn’t it?
Both TWAIN and WIA can work with scanners and cameras as long as the driver is installed. Generally, if your application is going to interact with scanners most of the time, especially if old scanners need to be supported, TWAIN is recommended. For cameras, WIA offers better support. But, sometimes TWAIN based applications can communicate with WIA devices, such as scanners or cameras, via the “TWAIN compatibility layer”.
There are other differences between TWAIN and WIA. TWAIN has three transfer modes (native, memory, file) while WIA has only two (memory, file). TWAIN enables device vendors to create a customized user interface for each driver. WIA uses a simplified user interface for all devices, based on a scripting object model. If you only need basic scanning functions, WIA is enough. If you need to use more sophisticated features of a scanner, such as different options for each page when scanning in duplex mode, TWAIN should be your choice.

What is ISIS scanning
ISIS (Image and Scanner Interface Specification) is a proprietary scanner interface developed by Pixel Translations in 1990 (today: EMC Captiva).
Unlike TWAIN, produced by a non-profit organization, ISIS doesn’t come for free. Scanner vendors need to pay a royalty fee in order to use the ISIS driver. Although ISIS was originally targeted for a production environment (higher volumes, supporting advanced features of high-end scanners), the high cost is driving vendors away. As a result, ISIS is not popular in enterprises.
Moreover, despite ISIS’s reputation in performance, many developers also claimed that no obvious technical advantage is identified when comparing ISIS to TWAIN.

What is SANE scanning
​SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) is an application programming interface (API) commonly used in UNIX (including GNU/Linux). SANE is an open source project. You can download its source code (latest version 1.0.24) at http://www.sane-project.org/source.html .
Unlike TWAIN, SANE separates the user-interface (front-end) from the driver of a device (backend). The SANE driver only provides a backend interface, with the hardware and the use of a number of “options” to drive each scan. One example of an option to define the scan area is as below,

Conclusion
So now have you got an idea and made up your mind?
TWAIN drivers are superior for most cases since it provides the maximum compatibility with scanners and also the freedom to customize the scanning based on the scanner model. If you’re building a simple scanning application, WIA might be suitable as well.
ISIS may only be suitable given a specific requirement. SANE provides optimal support across network scanning and for systems where there is no Windows system.

What Is Guest Mode in Chrome and Edge?

​Guest mode in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge is basically a guest profile for your browsing sessions. When you use guest mode, the browser doesn’t load your main browser profiles (the ones that have your browsing history, browser personalizations, and so on).

When you leave this mode, all the browsing you did in it is deleted from your history. Your downloaded files list is also cleared, although the files themselves are kept.
If you have people at your home or office who need to use your browser, you can offer them guest mode access so that their browsing history doesn’t affect yours.

Create a Guest Mode Shortcut for Google Chrome

Usually, you would click your profile icon on Chrome’s toolbar and select “Guest” to enter guest mode in Chrome, but you can eliminate these clicks by creating a desktop shortcut that directly opens guest mode in Chrome.
To add this shortcut, open the Windows Start menu and search for “Google Chrome.” Right-click the browser in the list and select “Open file location.”

In the File Explorer window, right-click the “Chrome” shortcut and select “Open file location.” You’re looking for Chrome’s executable (chrome.exe) file.
Once you see “chrome.exe”, right-click it and select Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).

Click “Apply” and then “OK” at the bottom to save your changes.
Your guest mode shortcut is now ready.
You should rename this shortcut so that you can easily identify it. Right-click the shortcut and select “Rename.” Enter a meaningful name like “Chrome Guest Mode,” then hit “Enter.”

Make a Guest Mode Shortcut for Microsoft Edge

The process of creating a guest mode shortcut for Edge is pretty much the same as it is for Chrome.
To start, open the Start menu and search for “Microsoft Edge.” Right-click the browser in the results and select “Open file location.”

You’ll now see Edge’s shortcut in a File Explorer window. Right-click this shortcut and select “Open file location” again.
When you find “msedge.exe”, right-click it and choose Send to > Desktop (create shortcut). This adds Edge’s shortcut to your desktop.

If a critical and irreplaceable file you were viewing the other day is lost or will no longer open, you would be in trouble if not for Windows 10’s File History feature. It can automatically save specific file folders to a backup device, thus allowing you to recover a previous version of a file should it go missing or become corrupted and unusable.

Here’s how to set up File History and save your important documents, photos, and files before something goes wrong.

Set Up Storage Device
First, make sure you have a viable drive connected to or accessible from your PC. This could be a simple flash drive, an external drive, or a network location on a Network Attached Storage drive. If your drive plugs into the computer, make sure to connect it before trying anything else. For a wireless network drive, it must be connected to power and properly mapped.

Set Up File History
In Windows 10, click the Start button, go to Settings > Update & Security > Backup, then click Add a drive under the Back up using File History section. Assuming you've connected a workable backup device, Windows displays a list of all such locales. Select the location you wish to use for your backups. ​

File History is now enabled, though it's not yet backing up any files. Click More options to set up a few parameters. At the top of the File History window, click the Back up my files drop-down menu and choose how frequently you wish to back up your files, from every 10 minutes to Daily. ​

If the file still exists in its original location, Windows asks if you want to replace it, skip it, or compare both files. If the original file is gone, Windows automatically restores it to its previous location.

No matter where you’re starting, the number of choices and features NAS systems offer today are overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to buy something that will work now and in the future.

This post aims to make your process a little easier. The following content will help you:

• Review the benefits of a NAS system.
• Navigate the options you’ll need to choose from.
• Understand the reason to pair your NAS with cloud storage.

How Can NAS Benefit Your Business?
There are multiple benefits that a NAS system can provide to users on your network, but we’ll recap a few of the key advantages here.

• More Storage. It’s a tad obvious, but the primary benefit of a NAS system is that it will provide a significant addition to your storage capacity if you’re relying on workstations and hard drives. NAS systems create a single storage volume from several drives (often arranged in a RAID scheme).
• Protection From Data Loss. Less obvious, but equally important, the RAID configuration in a NAS system ensures that the data you store can survive the failure of one or more of its hard drives. Hard drives fail! NAS helps to make that statement of fact less scary.
• Security and Speed. Beyond protection from drive failure, NAS also provides security for your data from outside actors as it is only accessible on your local office network and to user accounts which you can control. Not only that, but it generally works as fast as your local office network speeds.
• Better Data Management Tools. Fully automated backups, deduplication, compression, and encryption are just a handful of the functions you can put to work on a NAS system—all of which make your data storage more efficient and secure. You can also configure sync workflows to ease collaboration for your team, enable services to manage your users and groups with directory services, and even add services like photo or media management.

If this all sounds useful for your business, read on to learn more about bringing these benefits in-house.

How do you evaluate the differences between different NAS vendors? Or even within a single company’s product line? We’re here to help. This tour of the major components of a NAS system will help you to develop a tick list for the sizing and features of a system that will fit your needs.

Choosing a NAS: The Components
How your NAS performs is dictated by the components that make up the system, and capability of future upgrades. Let’s walk through the different options.

NAS Storage Capacity: How Many Bays Do You Need?
One of the first ways to distinguish between different NAS systems is the number of drive bays a given system offers, as this determines how many disks the system can hold. Generally speaking, the larger the number of drive bays, the more storage you can provide to your users and the more flexibility you have around protecting your data from disk failure.
​
In a NAS system, storage is defined by the number of drives, the shared volume they create, and their striping scheme (e.g. RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, etc.). For example, one drive gives no additional performance or protection. Two drives allows the option of simple mirroring. Mirroring is also referred to as RAID 1, when one volume is built from two drives, allowing for the failure of one of those drives without data loss. Two drives also allows for striping—referred to as RAID 0—when one volume is “stretched” across two drives, making a single, larger drive that also gives some performance improvement, but increases risk because the loss of one drive means that the entire volume will be unavailable.

Three drives is the minimum for RAID 5, which can survive the loss of one drive, though four drives is a more common NAS system configuration. Five drives allow for RAID 6, which can survive the loss of two drives. Six to eight drives are very common NAS configurations that allow more storage, space, performance, and even drive sparing—the ability to designate a stand-by drive to immediately rebuild a failed drive.
Many believe that, if you’re in the market for a NAS system with multiple bays, you should opt for capacity that allows for RAID 6 if possible. RAID 6 can survive the loss of two drives, and delivers performance nearly equal to RAID 5 with better protection.
It’s understandable to think: Why do I need to prepare in case two drives fail? Well, when a drive fails and you replace it with a fresh drive, the rebuilding process to restore that drive’s data and parity information can take a long time. Though it’s rare, it’s possible to have another drive fail during the rebuilding process. In that scenario, if you have RAID 6 you’re likely going to be okay. If you have RAID 5, you may have just lost data.

When buying a NAS system with drives provided:

• The drives are usually covered by the manufacturer’s warranty as part of the complete system.
• The drives are typically bought directly from the manufacturer’s supply chain and shipped directly from the hard drive manufacturer.

If you choose to buy drives separately from your NAS:

• The drives may be a mix of drive production runs, and have been in the supply chain longer. Match the drive capacities and models for the most predictable performance across the RAID volume.
• Choose drives rated for NAS systems—NAS vendors publish lists of supported drive types. Here’s a list from QNAP, for example.
• Check the warranty and return procedures, and if you are moving a collection of older drives into your NAS, you may also consider how much of the warranty has already run out.

Choose a system that can support RAID 5 or RAID 6 to allow a combination of more storage space, performance, and drive failure protection. But be sure to check whether the NAS system is sold with or without drives.

Selecting Drive Capacity for the NAS: What Size of Drives Should You Buy?
You can quickly estimate how much storage you’ll need by adding up the hard drives and external drives of all the systems you’ll be backing up in your office, adding the amount of shared storage you’ll want to provide to your users, and factor in any growing demand you project for shared storage.
If you have any historical data under management from previous years, you can calculate a simple growth rate. But, include a buffer as data growth accelerates every year. Generally speaking, price out systems at two or four times the size of your existing data capacity. Let’s say that your hard drives and external drives to back up, and any additional shared storage you’d like to provide your users, add up to 20TB. Double that size to get 40TB to account for growth, then divide by a common hard drive size such as 10TB. With that in mind, you can start shopping for four bay systems and larger.

​If your budget allows, opting for larger drives and more drive bays will give you more storage overhead that you’ll surely grow into over time. Factor in, however, that if you go too big, you’re paying for unused storage space for a longer period of time. And if you use GAAP accounting, you’ll need to capitalize that investment over the same time window as a smaller NAS system which will hit your bottom line on an annual basis. 
​If your cash budget is tight you can always purchase a NAS system with more bays but smaller drives, which will significantly reduce your upfront pricing. You can then replace those drives in the future with larger ones when you need them. Hard drive prices generally fall over time, so they will likely be less expensive in the future. You’ll end up purchasing two sets of drives over time, which will be less cash-intensive at the outset, but likely more expensive in the long run.
Similarly, you can partially fill the drive bays. If you want to get an eight bay system, but only have the budget for six drives, just add the other drives later. One of the best parts of NAS systems is the flexibility they allow you for right-sizing your shared storage approach.
​
​Estimate how much storage you’ll need, add the amount of shared storage you’ll want to provide to your users, and factor in growing demand for shared storage—then balance long term growth potential against cash flow.

Processor, Controllers, and Memory: What Performance Levels Do You Require?
Is it better to have big onboard processors or controllers? Smaller, embedded chips common in smaller NAS systems provide basic functionality, but might bog down when serving many users or crunching through deduplication and encryption tasks, which are options with many backup solutions. Larger NAS systems typically stored in IT data center racks usually offer multiple storage controllers that can deliver the fastest performance and even failover capability.

• Processor: Provides compute power for the system operation, services, and applications.
• Controller: Manages the storage volume presentation and health.
• Memory: Improves speed of applications and file serving performance.

ARM and Intel Atom chips are good for basic systems, while larger and more capable processors such as the Intel Corei3 and Corei5 are faster at NAS tasks like encryption, deduplication, and serving any on-board apps. Xeon server class chips can be found in many rack-mounted systems, too.
​
So if you’re just looking for basic storage expansion, the entry-level systems with more modest, basic chips will likely suit you just fine. If deduplication, encryption, sync, and other functions many NAS systems offer as optional tools are part of your future workflow, this is one area where you shouldn’t cut corners.

​If you have the option to expand the system memory, this can be an easy performance upgrade. Generally, the higher the ratio of memory to drives will benefit the performance of reading and writing to disk and the speed of on-board applications.
​
Entry-level NAS systems provide good basic functionality, but you should ensure your components are up to the challenge if you plan to make heavy use of deduplication, encryption, compression, and other functions.

Network and Connections: What Capacity for Speed Do You Need?
A basic NAS will have a Gigabit Ethernet connection, which you will often find listed as 1GigE. This throughput of 1 Gb/s in network speeds is equivalent to 125 MB/s coming from your storage system. That means that the NAS system must fit storage service to all users within that limitation, which is usually not an issue when serving only a few users. Many systems offer expansion ports inside, allowing you to purchase a 10GigE network card later to upgrade your NAS.

​Some NAS vendors offer 2.5 Gb/s, or 5 Gb/s connections on their systems—these will give you more performance than 1GigE connections, but usually require that you get a compatible network switch, and possibly, USB adapters or expansion cards for every system that will connect to that NAS via the switch. If your office is already wired for 10GigE, make sure your NAS is also 10GigE. Otherwise, the more network ports in the back of the system, the better. If you aren’t ready to get a 10GigE capable system now, but you think you might be in the future, select a system that has expansion capability.

Some systems provide another option of Thunderbolt connections in addition to Ethernet connections. These allow laptops and workstations with Thunderbolt ports to directly connect to the NAS and offer much higher bandwidth—up to 40GigE (5 GB/s)—and are good for systems that need to edit large files directly on the NAS, such as is often the case in video editing. If you’ll be directly connecting systems that need the fastest possible speeds, select a system with Thunderbolt ports, one per Thunderbolt-connected user.

​It’s best to have more network ports in the back of your system. Or, select a system with network expansion card capability.

​Caching and Hybrid Drive Features: How Fast Do You Need to Serve Files?
Many of the higher-end NAS systems can complement standard 5.25” hard drives with higher performing, smaller form factor SSD or M.2 drives. These smaller, faster drives can dramatically improve the NAS file serving performance by caching files in most recent, or most frequently requested files. By combining these different types of drives, the NAS can deliver both improved file serving performance, and large capacity.

As the number of users you support in each office grows, these capabilities will become more important as a relatively simple way to boost performance. Like we mentioned earlier, you can purchase a system with these slots unpopulated and add them in later.

Combine different types of drives, like smaller form factor SSD or M.2 storage with 5.25” hard drives to gain improved file serving performance.

Operating System: What Kind of Management Features Do You Require?
Many of the higher-end NAS systems can complement standard 5.25” hard drives with higher performing, smaller form factor SSD or M.2 drives. These smaller, faster drives can dramatically improve the NAS file serving performance by caching files in most recent, or most frequently requested files. By combining these different types of drives, the NAS can deliver both improved file serving performance, and large capacity.

As the number of users you support in each office grows, these capabilities will become more important as a relatively simple way to boost performance. Like we mentioned earlier, you can purchase a system with these slots unpopulated and add them in later.

Combine different types of drives, like smaller form factor SSD or M.2 storage with 5.25” hard drives to gain improved file serving performance.

Operating System: What Kind of Management Features Do You Require?
​The NAS operating systems of the major vendors generally provide the same services in an OS-like interface delivered via an on-board web server. By simply typing in your NAS’s IP address, you can sign in and manage your system’s settings, create and manage the storage volumes, set up groups of users on your network who have access, configure and monitor backup and sync tasks, and more.
If there are specific user management features in your IT environment that you need, or want to test how the NAS OS works, you can test them by spinning up a demonstration virtual machine offered by some NAS vendors. You can test service configuration and get a feel for the interface and tools, but obviously as a virtual environment you won’t be able to manage hardware directly. Here are some options:

• Synology
• QNAP

The on-board NAS OS looks similar to a Mac or PC operating system to make it easy to navigate system setup and maintenance and allows you to manage settings, storage, and tasks.

Solutions: What Added Services Do You Require?
While the onboard processor and memory on your NAS are primarily for file service, backup, and sync tasks, you can also install other solutions directly onto it. For instance, QNAP and Synology—two popular NAS providers—have app stores accessible from their management software where you can select applications to download and install on your NAS. You might be interested in a backup and sync solution.

However, beyond backup solutions, you’d benefit from installing mission-critical apps onto a dedicated system rather than on your NAS. For a small number of users, running applications directly on the NAS can be a good temporary use or a pathway to testing something out. But if the application becomes very busy, it could impact the other services of the NAS. Big picture, native apps on your NAS can be useful, but don’t overdo it.

The main backup and sync apps from the major NAS vendors are excellent—give them a good test drive, but know that there are many excellent backup and sync solutions available as well.

Why Adding Cloud Storage to Your NAS Offers Additional Benefits
When you pair cloud storage with your NAS, you gain access to features that complement the security of your data and your ability to share files both locally and remotely.

To start with, cloud storage provides off-site backup protection. This aligns your NAS setup with the industry standard for data protection: a 3-2-1 backup strategy—which ensures that you have three copies of your data, the source data and two backups—one of which is on your NAS, and the second copy of your data is protected off-site. And in the event of data loss, you can restore your systems directly from the cloud even if all the systems in your office are knocked out or destroyed.

While data sent to the cloud is encrypted in-flight via SSL, you can also encrypt your backups so that they are only openable with your team’s encryption key. The cloud can also give you advanced storage options for your backup files like Write Once, Read Many (WORM) or immutability—making your data unchangeable for a defined period of time—or set custom data lifecycle rules at the bucket level to help match your ideal backup workflow.

Additionally, cloud storage provides valuable access to your data and documents from your NAS through sync capabilities. In case anyone on your team needs to access a file when they are away from the office, or as is more common now, in case your entire team is working from home, they’ll be able to access the files that have been synced to the cloud through your NAS’s secure sync program. You can even sync across multiple locations using the cloud as a two-way sync to quickly replicate data across locations. For employees collaborating across great distances, this helps to ensure they’re not waiting on the internet to deliver critical files: They’re already on-site.

​Ready to Set Up Your NAS With Cloud Storage
To summarize, here are a few things to remember when shopping for a NAS system:

• Consider how much storage you’ll need for both local backup and for shared user storage.
• Look for a system with three to five drive bays at minimum.
• Check that the NAS system is sold with drives—if not, you’ll have to source enough of the same size drives.
• Opt for a system that lets you upgrade the memory and network options.
• Choose a system that meets your needs today; you can always upgrade in the future.