Just like very bit of technology that starts out high-end (expensive) and then gradually comes down in price to reach mass market acceptance (Crossing the Chasm, anyone?), networked storage is no different.

Once only the technology for large enterprises and now much more prevalent in the SMB market (that's most businesses, folks), networked-attached storage (NAS -- in the lingo) is soon to be coming consumers' way.

We're all very used to saving files on internal drives or USB-connected devices, but now we will soon be able to store our files on standalone NAS units that are accessed via our home network.

Look for companies like Seagate, Iomega, Western Digital (storage biggies) as well as other companies like Intel with drives that can store more than a terabyte of data (believe me, that is a lot!). 

It's a long way from Fibre Channel and other EMC, HP, Hitachi, etc., technologies, but who wants the complexity, cost and maintenance of those systems?  Let's see how this moves forward during the year ...