Joe Maring / Android Authority
A network storage device is often sold as an antidote to subscription overload. At one point, I was paying for multiple cloud storage services, streaming platforms, hosting tools, and a long list of digital conveniences that quickly sent my credit card bills soaring.
My first Synology NAS helped me significantly cut down on those subscriptions — and I thought I was finally free from subscription lock-ins. That honeymoon period lasted a while, but as the early excitement faded, I began to see the real implications of moving everything off the cloud.
That’s when it dawned on me that I had bought into the wrong idea of what a NAS is meant to be. It’s built to excel at specific tasks, not juggle my entire digital life on its own.
What would you trust more for your data? 27 votes A NAS at home 52 % Google One 15 % Both, for different things 30 % Neither — still figuring out 4 %
The satisfaction of control
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
At its core, self-hosting is about control. Owning both the data and the server that stores it means you’re no longer at the mercy of a remote cloud provider that could one day change its privacy policies, pricing, or retention rules. With a NAS, you own the data, operate the system, and step in directly when something goes wrong. There’s a deep sense of ownership baked into that model.
Storing everything locally — away from the prying eyes of the internet — genuinely has its merits. A local NAS can be just as reliable as a cloud server and often faster, simply because it’s sitting a few feet away. Transfer speeds are blazing fast, and latency is negligible because of proximity.
But that control and speed come at the cost of convenience. Remote access is a complex puzzle that’s better left unsolved for most average users. And when something breaks, you’re forced to become the maintenance staff. When your NAS goes down — and it will — you can’t open a support ticket and expect someone else to fix it. You end up giving up an entire weekend just to get things back on track.
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