There are technology decisions that take you years to make. Not because they’re complicated, but because there’s an inner voice that always says “I’ll do it later” or “the cloud is enough for now”. I listened to that voice for too long. Until I stopped.
I bought a NAS. And in this article I’m going to tell you exactly why.
The cloud is convenient. Until it isn’t.
For years I stored my data in the cloud as if there were no alternative. Google Photos for photos, iCloud Drive for documents, GitHub for code and a bunch of paid services for the rest. It worked. It was convenient. It was the default option.
But over time I started asking myself uncomfortable questions.
What happens if Google decides that some of my content violates its terms of service? What happens if Apple changes its storage policy and suddenly the plan I have no longer covers what I need? What happens if, for some reason I don’t know about, they suspend my account?
The answer to all those questions is the same: you lose your data. As simple and as brutal as that.
And we’re not talking about work files. We’re talking about photos from trips you’ll never take again, videos of moments that won’t repeat, memories that are priceless. All of it hosted on the servers of companies that owe you nothing and can change their terms whenever it suits them.
Tech companies change their terms and conditions constantly. They do it with an email nobody reads, with a banner nobody consciously accepts, with a silent update that forces you to accept or stop using the service. And you, trapped between losing access or accepting, end up giving in without having really decided anything.
I didn’t like that. So I started looking for a way out.
I wanted to own my data
The concept I started exploring has a name: digital sovereignty. It’s the idea that your data belongs to you, that you decide where it is, how it’s managed and who can access it.
This doesn’t mean disconnecting from the internet or becoming paranoid. It means making conscious decisions about where you host your critical information and not depending exclusively on third parties to keep access to it.
A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is, basically, a storage server connected to your local network. It’s your own networked hard drive, under your control, in your home. No monthly fees, no changing terms of service, no risk of someone suspending your account for a reason you’ll never fully understand.
That was exactly what I wanted.
Three devices, one same problem
Beyond the philosophy, there was a very concrete practical need: I had three devices without a decent backup system.
MacBook Air: My daily work machine. Documents, projects, configurations, years of accumulated work. Time Machine works, but it needs a dedicated external drive or a compatible server. Without that, there’s no automatic backup.
Windows PC: My desktop, which I use for both gaming and work. Windows has its own backup system, but without a reliable network destination, those backups don’t happen. And if the drive fails, it takes everything with it.
server-war: My home development server. The one where I run experiments, test configurations, run containers. If it fails, I don’t just lose data, I lose hours of configuration that aren’t always documented anywhere.
All three had the same problem: they depended on me remembering to make the backup, or on cloud services that, as we’ve already said, didn’t fully convince me.
The NAS solved this in one go. A single destination point on the local network that all three devices can back up to automatically and silently.
RAID1: what it is and why I set it up this way
The NAS runs two Seagate IronWolf 4 TB drives configured in RAID1.
If you don’t know what RAID1 is, let me explain it simply: it’s a configuration where all data is written simultaneously to both drives. Each drive is an exact mirror of the other. If one fails, the other keeps working with all the data intact.
Why IronWolf? Because they’re drives specifically designed for NAS. They’re optimized to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with constant writes and multiple simultaneous accesses. They’re not desktop drives that can handle that load; they’re drives built exactly for this kind of environment.
Why RAID1 and not RAID0 or other configurations? For the same reason I bought the NAS: reliability. RAID0 splits data across drives to increase speed, but if one drive fails, you lose everything. RAID1 sacrifices capacity (4 TB instead of 8 TB usable) in exchange for redundancy. If one of the drives dies tomorrow, the NAS keeps working without losing a single file.
But here comes something important that many people confuse.
RAID is not a backup
This point deserves its own section because it’s one of the most common misunderstandings in the storage world: RAID is not a backup.
RAID is availability. Its job is to guarantee the system keeps running if a drive fails. Nothing more.
RAID doesn’t protect you if you delete a file by accident, because both drives sync instantly and the deletion replicates on both. RAID doesn’t protect you if the NAS suffers a power failure that corrupts the data. RAID doesn’t protect you if there’s a fire, a flood or a theft.
Availability and backups are two different things that complement each other, not substitute for one another.
That’s why, in addition to RAID1, I have an extra layer of real backup: Backblaze B2.
Backblaze B2: the backup that actually is a backup
Backblaze B2 is a cloud storage service designed specifically for backups. Its price is significantly lower than Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage, and for the use case I need, it’s more than enough.
The NAS makes a periodic incremental backup to Backblaze B2. This means that if RAID1 protects against a drive failure, Backblaze B2 protects against everything else: physical disasters, human error, ransomware, whatever.
This is the difference between having availability and having a real backup strategy. With RAID1 I have a system that doesn’t go down if a drive fails. With Backblaze B2 I have an offsite copy that survives practically any scenario.
The classic rule is 3-2-1: three copies of the data, on two different media, with one copy offsite. With this setup, I meet it:
- 3 copies: original data on the device + RAID1 mirror + backup on B2
- 2 different media: local storage (NAS) and cloud storage (B2)
- 1 offsite copy: Backblaze B2 is off-premises
The beginning of something bigger
I won’t lie to you: buying the NAS wasn’t just a technical decision. It was the first step of something broader.
Starting to question your dependence on big platforms inevitably leads you to question other things. Netflix prices, which keep going up. Amazon Prime Video, which now charges you extra to watch content without ads. Spotify, which raises the subscription price while reducing service quality for those who don’t pay. Every SaaS, every platform, every subscription competing for a slot in your bank account.
And that widespread fatigue is having interesting consequences on the internet. Consequences that many of us are already starting to notice and that some are taking advantage of.
There’s a phenomenon growing quietly: a return to something many of us thought had been buried in the 90s and 2000s. But that deserves its own article. I’ll analyze it in depth soon.
Conclusion: control your data before someone does it for you
Buying a NAS was the right decision. Not just for the backups, not just for the convenience of having network storage for three devices. It was the right decision because it gave me back something I’d handed over without realizing: control.
My data is at home. Under my control. With local redundancy thanks to RAID1 and with an offsite copy on Backblaze B2 to cover the rest of the scenarios. No fees rising every year, no terms of service changing without warning, no risk of losing access to my memories because someone at some company made a decision they never consulted me about.
If you still depend solely on the cloud to store what matters most, I recommend you start thinking about it. You don’t have to make the switch all at once, but it’s worth starting to ask the right questions.
See you on the net.