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The biggest advantage of local network storage is speed and almost round-the-clock uptime. These are the structural benefits: Your server will not go down even if the Internet is down, and this is essential for mission-critical scenarios where you cannot afford to lose connection to your data. But beyond that, cloud storage often wins out over convenience, and over time, you gravitate toward that convenience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That network effect is what makes Google Drive a more productive solution for day-to-day work.<\/q><\/p>\n\n
Google Drive, in particular, has a far more sophisticated interface than most enterprise-y NAS software, and also benefits from its wider dissemination. You can share a link without thinking that the other person already uses Google Drive. That network effect is what makes it a more productive solution for day-to-day work. It also blends into the background and continues its work silently.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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On the other hand, a NAS is closer to running your own server, meaning you’re the IT manager who has to set it up, maintain it, and troubleshoot it when something breaks. You can’t just raise a support ticket and move on like you can with Google Drive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
How is life without NAS?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n
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Dhruv Bhutani\/Android Authority<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To be honest, being away from home hasn’t affected most of my workflows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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I use my Synology NAS to sync files across devices, maintain archives, and backup my systems. While I was away, Google Drive, along with a portable SSD, took over for all of this without much trouble. Google Drive for desktop backed up important folders and handled archival duties. Meanwhile, occasional Time Machine backups to portable SSDs replaced my automatic NAS backups. The latter wasn’t as pretty as my NAS setup, but it worked well enough that I didn’t miss the NAS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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If anything, the cloud seemed more reliable. Any problem with the NAS brings down the entire system, whereas Google’s servers are rarely down, leading me to rely on it even more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Joe Maring\/Android Authority<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I was already on the Google One AI Pro plan with 2TB of storage, which recently increased to 5TB. This gave me enough space to start uploading old project files and data for safekeeping that I had previously reserved for the NAS. This also gave me a reason to switch from Storage Saver Mode backup quality to Original quality in Google Photos. And I can now avoid maintaining two parallel backup systems \u2013 one on Google Photos and the other on a NAS \u2013 one of which wasn’t that reliable anyway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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And this is exactly where the cracks started to appear. NAS apps for mobile are still relatively niche, and while Synology Photos and Drive felt competitive when new, they’ve largely remained in the same niche. There are more instances than I can count where the Synology Photos app didn’t back up media for months, even though I assumed it had backed up in the background.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Google’s ecosystem has grown with better design, tighter integration, and a ton of AI features.<\/q><\/p>\n\n
In contrast, Google’s ecosystem has moved forward with better design, tighter integration, and above all, a ton of AI features. In practical, everyday use, Google’s cloud stack feels more reliable than my Synology DS920+, not just because of uptime, but because the entire experience is designed to reduce friction rather than require maintenance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Not that I don’t miss NAS<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n
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Andy Walker\/Android Authority<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I still consider network storage devices to be more basic than the software layer of cloud storage, which is why they can’t be replaced so easily, at least not completely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Having your NAS constantly available on the network means you can automate a lot of tasks, with the computer and NAS talking in the background and executing everything without any interference (NAS devices tend to be more reliable for desktops). My weekly backup routine is an example where I don’t have to touch anything, and things run like clockwork. Whereas right now, I have to remember to plug in the SSD from time to time to run a Time Machine backup. While writing this, I realized I haven’t done a backup in over a week, which in itself highlights the difference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It doesn’t happen often, but when my internet goes down, I wish I had a NAS.<\/q><\/p>\n\n
Also, I can’t host my media locally for Plex streaming without my NAS, which is a bummer. Although I can live with online streaming services, sometimes I like to watch my own collection. My home security camera also uploads footage to a NAS for long-term storage, which contains hundreds of gigabytes of data that would be impractical to manage on a portable drive. And this is exactly the kind of workload where NAS feels purpose-built, offering local speeds and effectively endless storage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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And let’s not forget the elephant in the room, the biggest advantage of local storage is that it’s local. You don’t have to rely on the Internet or available bandwidth to transfer your data, and it’s available instantly, capable of transferring tens of gigabytes every minute without putting a strain on the network. It doesn’t happen often, but when my internet goes down, I wish I had a NAS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Maybe I didn’t create enough dependencies<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n
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Tushar Mehta\/Android Authority<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Drive summarizes the contents of all files in a folder when asked<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the early days my NAS usage came in waves. I was excited to install it and run everything on it, trying to eliminate cloud subscriptions altogether. Hosting my data on my own servers was a fun experience, but I soon realized I was tweaking my workflow to justify NAS, often choosing a cloud service even when it was more convenient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Eventually, I decided to prioritize my workflow over everything else. If a cloud-based tool worked better, I’d use it rather than force myself to stick to a NAS, which is why I never hosted my Notes app on it. Google Keep is fast, and more importantly, it can be accessed anywhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A hybrid system meant I wasn’t completely dependent on a single setup, with workflows that could bypass the NAS or cloud.<\/q><\/p>\n\n
This hybrid system meant I wasn’t completely reliant on a single setup, and I already had workflows in place that could bypass either one. If Google Drive wasn’t working, I’d have a NAS, and now that I don’t have a NAS, I’ve moved to the cloud with no friction. That flexibility is liberating because it helps me focus on real work instead of constantly tinkering with the infrastructure, which is what I found myself doing with NAS whenever something went wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Don’t want to miss the best of Android Authority<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
So, the question is will I replace the NAS completely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The answer is no. I’ll stick to the hybrid system that works for me. However, the balance will now change slightly. I would lean more towards cloud storage for day-to-day tasks, while the NAS would act more as an infrastructure for basic workloads like backups and camera footage. The NAS is getting the deprecation in my setup, and it won’t impact my workflow in the slightest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Thank you for being a part of our community. Please read our comment policy before posting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karandeep Singh\/Android Authority I didn’t intend to use this, but my month-long trip away from home forced me to turn off my NAS for a few weeks. What I expected to be temporary discomfort eventually started to feel normal. NAS is such an inherent part of my local file access workflow that I assumed I’d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[9840,5687,2319,17045,19718,3721],"class_list":["post-57136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-devotionals","tag-barely","tag-drive","tag-google","tag-nas","tag-noticed","tag-replaced"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57141,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57136\/revisions\/57141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}