>he has to use third party software to access his drives
>>61871435
>He relies on the OS to manage his data
I'd be concerned about having to use first party software. Your OS and file browser are third party to your external hard disk manufacturer. If they are making any specialized software for using it, that's first party, and also bad.
>>61871435
Got one of those setup as a NAS here, seems to be detected by Windows machines just fine without any software.