Robert Triggs / Android Authority
With everything moving to a subscription model and increasing cloud dependence, we are living in the era of the forever tax. Between Spotify, Netflix, and cloud storage, we pay for music, movies, and to keep our own digital memories safe. And while cloud storage started as a convenient utility with fairly minimal charges for an additional 100GB of storage when photos were all we uploaded, that’s not the case anymore. Between years of data archives, larger photo files, and even larger 4K video-first content capture being the norm, for many of us, it has morphed into a significant monthly bill that we aren’t really in a position to cancel.
Over here at Android Authority, we’ve talked about Network Attached Storage, or NAS, as a solution for the privacy-conscious or the tech-savvy enthusiasts who want to de-Google their lives and reduce their cloud dependence. We’ve even talked about data sovereignty and actually owning your files in a world that desperately wants you to rent them. But while all that is great, cost is another significant factor to consider. The fact of the matter is that a significant chunk of users considering a local storage option are only trying to reduce their monthly expenditure.
Between subscription fatigue and rising data needs, a NAS can be enticing. But does it make financial sense?
As it turns out, if you ignore the privacy benefits, security, and satisfaction of tinkering with your own server, there’s a massive chunk of the population for which cloud storage might still be the cheaper and better option. However, there is a tipping point where the economics flip in favor of owning your own hardware. There’s a very clearly defined data threshold where staying on the cloud stops being a convenience and starts being a surprisingly significant monthly expense. Here is exactly when you should stop renting cloud storage and invest in your own NAS.
Are you all in on cloud storage or have you switched to a NAS? 26 votes I'm sticking to cloud storage plans. 15 % I only use a NAS. 19 % I use both cloud storage and a NAS. 50 % I don't use either. 15 %
The cloud pricing ladder
Karandeep Singh / Android Authority
Let me preface this by saying that I’m going to factor in pure storage as the deciding factor here. Sure, some of us run our NAS as Plex media servers and music servers. However, between the cost of acquiring legal media and the number of streaming subscriptions you’ve signed up for, there’s no real way to accurately represent a break-even point. So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s roll with pure storage costs as the clincher. With that said, let’s dive in.
If you open up the upgrade page for your choice of cloud storage providers like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, you’ll observe that they have designed a pricing ladder that is nothing short of brilliant in terms of incentivizing an upgrade. For most people, the bottom rung 100GB plans are just about enough to get you comfortable with the idea of paying for cloud storage before you inevitably run out of the extremely limited basic tier. The 100GB or 200GB plans cost the price of a coffee, making them feel negligible, but they are a good start for very basic needs.
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