Finding Network Devices, esp NASs

I was unable to find my 2 NASs on my local hardwired network. Windows Explorer showed them under networks.
Much later I noticed they had shown up in my Directory Opus listing under networks. Why so VERY slow (on a new high end Win 10 machine). Anything I can do to speed up finding network devices? Thanks

The way Windows enumerates computers on the LAN can be slow and/or unreliable. It also maintains a separate cache for each process, which means you might see a computer in one program and not see it in another (or see it later in one than the other).

My advice is to avoid relying on Windows to find the device in the first place. If you go directly to the device, it will work even if it hasn't appeared under Network yet.

For example, you can manually go to \ServerName\ShareName (via any combination of typing, favorites, toolbar buttons or hotkeys).

You can also map a network drive, giving the path a drive letter, which will always work as long as the machine is available. The only downside to using a network drive is it can cause long delays if something tries to access the drive when the machine is turned off (or it's a laptop and on a different network). (The same is true with \ServerName\ShareName style paths, except those are typically only accessed when you explicitly ask for them to be accessed, while drive letters might be scanned in passing to get drive labels, icons and so on in places which display them.)