Thanks to a wide array of cloud storage solutions, you no longer have to travel around with a handful of USB sticks or a clunky external drive. Most big services feature free tiers, too.
Cloud Storage Basics: Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and More Compared
- Thread starter SamiHA
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Self hosted cloud, free lifetime, unlimited space.
QNAP/ASSUSTOR/SYNOLOGY is way better than paid services that had many leaks and are not safe at all.
QNAP/ASSUSTOR/SYNOLOGY is way better than paid services that had many leaks and are not safe at all.
dangh
Posts: 1,241 +2,026
While local storage have some advantages (and I use it as well), there are some issues:
- it is not free lifetime: it eats electricity, and hard drives breaks regularly (every few years).
- Space is limited, and to extend it you either have to swap hard drives to new ones (which can take 3 days per drive in Synology), fill empty slots if you still have them, or buy extender or larger NAS. This cost solid money. (contradict the previous point)
- Secutiry is a concern given how many issues we've seen recently. To the point that QNAP said people to not connect their NAS to Internet ( https://threatpost.com/qnap-nas-devices-ransomware-attacks/177452/ ). or ransomware on Synology devices: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...alware-infecting-nas-devices-with-ransomware/
If this is safety you're looking for then connecting NAS to internet will always be a bad idea. Often clouds are protected better.
- Noise is just mad. If you live in a flat, you have to be very picky abouyt hard drives. If you have a house, you'd probably throw those into a garrage.
- 'Easy of use' is as well not-so-given. Synology is nice but expensive, other option often are good if you well into unix command line...
Local NAS is much more expensive as well, if you're really looking for protecting your data. Initial cost of 4 drives NAS with 4TB worth of storage (so lets say 4x2TB hard drives) cost anywhere from $600 to $1200 depends on company and quality of hard drives.
And - you need to buy it twice, and store 2nd NAS in some other location. NAS dies as well and sometimes dies in a way all your data is destroyed, so - better be protected.
And - you still should be doing regular physical copies to a BD or tapes.
Which is 10 years of cloud storage. Get 2 cloud storage options for security and reduce that to 5 years... but I assure you, after 5 years you will spend $200-$400 for maintenance of each of your NAS stations.
And no, 2 drives NAS for 'cheap' is asking for a trouble. I would'nt recomend to anyone getting 2 drives for anything of value, and that still would cost a lot of money.
Theinsanegamer
Posts: 5,405 +10,137
All 3 of the NAS providers you listed have had mjultiple security issues with their devices, and all have advised removing these NAS units from the internet.
I've been a free user on DropBox for a long time and really like what it offers. One thing I'd like to see added though is more control over is saying what doesn't get stored ie stop it from storing log files etc. I'd also like a way of altering the frequency of how often files get saved - I make 100's of changes each day but I don't need that many versions held each day. It would be nice to just say, after a month just store one copy of a file per day.
amghwk
Posts: 1,544 +1,538
I have my own personal Synology 4TB space. With VPN tunneling, it's much much better than depending on online 3rd party services.
Microsoft 365 Family: $10 a month / $100 a year for 6TB of storage
This is a little misleading. You get 1TB of storage for up to 6 people, you don't get 6TB of storage for one person. Sure, you can create multiple accounts, but that can be a little bit of a hassle compared to having an actual 6TB.
This is a little misleading. You get 1TB of storage for up to 6 people, you don't get 6TB of storage for one person. Sure, you can create multiple accounts, but that can be a little bit of a hassle compared to having an actual 6TB.
Bl00dyMinded
Posts: 547 +843
Wait people actually pay for Office365? Very well then, don't mind me with my pirated version of O365.
Oh yes, because hard drives are free, storage appliances are free, network infrastructure is free, electricity is free, the expertise to run it is free, backups are free, and so on. You have proper patch management procedures, you'll most definitely replace your equipment when it reaches end of life, you're doing audits, you have proper intrusion detection and prevention systems in place. You do regular disaster recovery tests.
...
If you actually believe you can provide better confidentiality, integrity and availability than any of the cloud providers, you're delusional.
Draconian
Posts: 157 +58
dualkelly
Posts: 263 +334
Think your math is a little off man but online cloud storage only makes sense if you have a tiny bit of data to store... few pictures few documents...
I have an 8 bay qnap I got for $850 and filled them with 12tb hard drives total cost 2800 dollars at the time I have split the drives into two groups 4 drives a piece and mirror my data on them. So far 5 years has come and gone and haven't spent a penny more. I am about to replace the hard drives for 24tb ones once they are released from enterprise only as the 43 and some useable space I am at 40tbs.
It would cost you well over a fortune to use the same amount of space on the cloud. make no mistake you still have to backup your cloud data.
dangh
Posts: 1,241 +2,026
so...
you paid $2800 for 40TB effective storage. And for 5 years you never paid electricity bill, but that's fine, maybe you're off grid, sollar panels etc.
You've spend no time on configuration, maintenence and so on. Cool.
5 years of 10TB cloud storage on iDrive cost $500 Same for 40TB would cost $2000. So, you already overpaid $300, not counting electricity and your time (I used to calculate that 1 hour of my time cost 3$30-$50, I think it is a good reference).
Now, you want to buy 8 24TB drives to get how much space? Please, do calculations and tell me you're going to 'save money' on that in next 5 years, lol
... and then compare it to Backblaze backup option costing $130 for 2 years for _unlimited_ capacity (private users)
Now, the most important think is, you did not understand a word from what I said. How many people will generate 10 TB of data in normal means? Does 10TB of data 'a few pictures or documents'? 20 years of 10TB storage cost only $2000, and for most of the people it is absolutly fine. Or you can pay just for full backup $1300 and have unlimited amount of cloud space.
But one second! you said cloud storage have sense only for people with 'few pictures few documents' and you braggin you've been using 40TB of storage, then 1/4 of that is only "few pictures"? man...
NAS is a great solution, but for certain use cases. I use NAS myself, and on top of that I'm paying for additional cloud space (you know 321, do you?). Just because my use case shows that I need to pay much more than normal person would ever need. It is much more expensive, prone to security vulnerabilities, and require additional skills, that comparing it to easy to use cloud solutions makes absolutely no sense.
NAS is a tool for professionals to store and protect work related items and for enthusiasts, who wants to play and experiment on new technologies, who have more money to spend and want to have their data available everywhere. For most of the population, cloud storage is best, easiest, most safe and affordable options available for storing and sharing their data.
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False. I store photos with Amazon Prime, no additional cost to me. I have photos spanning more than 20 years, over 12000 photos. I use OneDrive and have paid under $100/yr for our M365 account. So for 5 years, I've spent $500 to store all my files, all my wife's files and all my daughter's files. Even if I include the cost of Prime, that would add another $500. So I'm at $1000 spent and you're at $2800.
dangh
Posts: 1,241 +2,026
To add to it, Amazon Prime stores for free (technically for cost of Prime - if you never shop in Amazon or not using prime video...) all RAW pictures, not only jpegs, which is an excellent cost-effective additional archiving option.
dualkelly
Posts: 263 +334
I have over 30tb of photos and 8k timelapse footage 12k photos is literally nothing. Try working on a 10min 8k timelapse you wouldn't be able to maintain upload and download speeds with cloud storage. You literally are using cloud storage for a very small personal usage which is great for you but it barely works for anyone else. Also if you didnt backup your photos and let your prime lapse guess your pictures are gone right? At average upload speed in the US of 40mbps it would take over 60 days to upload 30tb lol good luck bro.
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How many people have 30TB of anything? You're in the 1% bro. And as far as upload speeds go, according to Ookla Americans have about 200 Mbps so that 30TB will take about 2 weeks to upload. And who is sitting on 30TB of storage capacity at home? Not most people. People who might work from home on graphics projects, but not your average Internet surfing American.
I'd say my usage is closer to average than yours. We're not necessarily talking about using Cloud for video editing workflows. We're talking about static storage, documents, pics, spreadsheets etc. It works for a lot of people.
PS - I migrate hundreds of terabytes to the cloud every year. I have large and small customers who work exclusively from the cloud. Latency and bandwidth are not a problem for them because they pay for that kind of performance. Local storage has its place, but it also has its limitations. I sold enterprise storage (SAN/NAS/DAS) for over 20 years.
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dualkelly
Posts: 263 +334
Ha man that's just the original data from photography there is 30 more TB of blu ray rips and backup of my games from GOG. Call me paranoid but we are all one hack or one closed business for losing all our data in the cloud.
So average download speeds never equal average upload speeds no one in the US has an average upload speed of 200mbps that article you linked too says an average of 70 for upload. In my experience having lived all over comcast tends to cap upload speeds to about 40 unless you want to pay more even if your paying for faster downs they are still capped. I am paying extra for gigabyte and my speed test just now puts me at 950 down and 41up but that's all semantics anyways...
Cloud storage works good for some people and doesn't for others and works good for some usages and not good for others is all I am getting at. I am running a NAS at home which most people don't do just a regular hard drive for 2tb is going to be way cheaper for backups than a nas or the cloud on average if you are storing more than what the free cloud offers. as a 2tb good drive might cost you 50bucks these days. Even I use google drive for small frequently used documents and the like not because I like google in particular but because it works well with gmail.
amghwk
Posts: 1,544 +1,538
At the end of the day, I would rather depend on my personal cloud via NAS, vs online storage. Just feel not safe storing my files in another server. I know it's the norm for this gen, but call me old school. Besides you are at the mercy of the online storage companies' frequently changing policies, and some of these may shut down the door some day.
1) if he does it on his free time, it is free. It also doesn't take long to configure it (formatting the drives and copy data doesn't need the user to sit watching)
2) on cloud you own nothing, with a NAS the drives are yours, so you can change them selling the old ones and get a good amount of money. Most NAS run low power chips and park drives when not in use.
Zordon
Posts: 20 +11
it used to be 50 Gigs a while back but I see they've reduced it now to 20. Still more than the others though.
dualkelly
Posts: 263 +334
You also learn nothing if you just stuff it all on the cloud. Learning how to navigate raids and nas. you learn how to manage things on your own. you navigate how to problem solve on one's own. First reason I got a NAS was more about learning the ins and outs of networking software and protocols not necessarily the need to have one. It was about the joy of learning something new. Lastly people think they have access to their files 24/7 lol only if you paid your internet connection bill your power bill your rent your bill to the cloud storage. I can take my Nas cross country on the road and easily have access to a massive amount of data without paying a single internet bill.
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