A standalone storage product having: a first bus connector for connecting to an external processor; a second bus connector for connecting to an external network interface; a storage device accessible over the network interface; and a processing device configured to communicate, via the second bus connector, with the network interface to obtain storage access messages represented by incoming packets received at the network interface from a computer network. The processing device can: identify, from the storage access messages, first messages and second messages; provide, the first messages via the first bus connector, to the processor; and provide, the second messages, to the storage device without the second messages going through the processor. The storage device is configured to: receive, via the first bus connector, third messages from the processor; and execute commands in the second messages and the third messages to implement a network storage service.