NAS Drives

RestlessNatives

RestlessNatives

Striker
Contributor
As I'm taking a lot more RAW images and drone footage, my storage needs have shot up.
At the moment photos and videos on my phone sync with iCloud and any drone photos or videos I download go into OneDrive. At the moment I have plenty of storage in those accounts but I suspect they will fill up quickly.
My upload and download speeds are around the 350Mbps mark so not a major issue.
When the time comes, is a NAS drive(s) a sensible option or am I just better off paying a bit more on my cloud solutions?
I have little to no knowledge on the subject so willing to be persuaded either way.
 


RestlessNatives said:
As I'm taking a lot more RAW images and drone footage, my storage needs have shot up.
At the moment photos and videos on my phone sync with iCloud and any drone photos or videos I download go into OneDrive. At the moment I have plenty of storage in those accounts but I suspect they will fill up quickly.
My upload and download speeds are around the 350Mbps mark so not a major issue.
When the time comes, is a NAS drive(s) a sensible option or am I just better off paying a bit more on my cloud solutions?
I have little to no knowledge on the subject so willing to be persuaded either way.
Click to expand...

I think NAS drives are not quite obsolete but cloud storage is probably more reliable.

Pros and cons are that once you’re saving stuff in the cloud at any sizeable volume, you need to keep paying to keep and access it.
You’ll never lose it as they manage back ups.
NAS will have an initial cost, but then free to use until you need more/ bigger storage volumes.

I’d get prices for both and see how long you’d get using a cloud service for the equivalent NAS drive volume.
 
RestlessNatives said:
As I'm taking a lot more RAW images and drone footage, my storage needs have shot up.
At the moment photos and videos on my phone sync with iCloud and any drone photos or videos I download go into OneDrive. At the moment I have plenty of storage in those accounts but I suspect they will fill up quickly.
My upload and download speeds are around the 350Mbps mark so not a major issue.
When the time comes, is a NAS drive(s) a sensible option or am I just better off paying a bit more on my cloud solutions?
I have little to no knowledge on the subject so willing to be persuaded either way.
Click to expand...
I'd use both to be honest, always better to have backups in more than one place. I ran a nas which I dumped everything on and could stream everything locally, stopped short of making it available from outside the house but I suspect it's a lot easier now. My drone is connected to an old mobile which is signed in to my Google photos so it automatically backups up to the cloud along with everything on my mobile, such a good process,only downfall is videos are huge and definitely need the WiFi. So yes I'd definitely recommend a nas
 
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Personally I’d pay extra for more cloud storage. It’s the future of storage, you don’t have any of the risk or running costs and your data (in your case photos) can be accessed from a limitless amount of devices from anywhere.

I work in IT and can’t get my head around people not taking advantage of cloud storage and computing. I know everyone will have a different story to tell but I have everything backed up to the cloud, both personal and work so it’s always available on my phone, laptop, iPad and MacBook whenever I am as long as I have an internet connection. It also saves you in the long run. My MacBook only has 256gb storage but the only space I’ve used is on apps. No need for a 1tb laptop these days unless you need a hard copy of a shitload of photos and videos.
 
I'm a big fan of Synology NAS drives. Not the cheapest around but they are packed full of features from media streaming, web server, security camera storage, VM host and many more. Currently have a 2 bay DS220+ (newer models are available) with 2 x 4TB drives which is enough for me but you may want more if handling a lot of media files.

I also use a 1TB OneDrive account (comes with M365 subscription) for cloudy backups of more important stuff.
 

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