A well hidden feature of Canon Advance series devices is the “Advanced Box” SMB feature.  This interesting little option gives you the control to potentially turn your Canon device into its own NAS (Network-Attached Storage).  It works in the same manner as the scan-to-mailbox feature however your documents are stored then published as a network location.

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After enabling the SMB option for Advanced Box and setting some basic user permissions, your Canon is transformed into a file storage hub or NAS of sorts.  If permissions are set properly, your scans along with any other files you want to store are fully available on the network.  End-users can then map to the network share just as they would to any other network destination and make their files easy to retrieve or store.  Administrators have the option to specify which file types such as PDF, WPD, DOC, etc. are allowed to be stored and accessed on the device.

This feature is most beneficial to users within a small office who do not already have a network scanning solution or storage option, however it could be used as an additional solution for anyone.  If the add-on option for mirrored drives is purchased then the device would also have redundancy and give you peace of mind when storing your files.  This allows the device to have a secondary drive that contains the same data as the primary drive.  If drive one fails then the second automatically takes over and alerts the user that drive one has failed at which point it can be replaced.

If you currently have an Advance series Canon and would like to take advantage of these options then please contact the Advance service department.