Why I ditched bodily storage for the comfort of a ...

For a very long time, bodily storage was king. I loaded my first pc video games from cassette tapes, and utilizing my first 5.25-inch floppy disk felt like magic. 3.5-inch disks dominated for some time earlier than USB flash drives and external hard drives took over.

Whereas cloud storage is now an possibility, many people nonetheless retailer paperwork on bodily storage units equivalent to exterior exhausting drives or USB sticks. Nevertheless, there are lots of downsides to utilizing bodily storage units. Here is why it is best to ditch yours and change to Community-Connected Storage (NAS) as a substitute.

Synology 2-Bay DiskStation DS223j (Diskless)

The Synology DiskStation DS223j is Synology’s price range possibility. It has two bays that assist 3.5-inch SATA HDDs or 2.5-inch SATA SSDs with an adapter. It comes with Synology DiskStation Supervisor on board.

What’s Community Connected Storage?

It is precisely what it appears like

Synology

The identify itself is fairly self-explanatory. Community-attached storage is only a storage machine that is connected to a community. It signifies that computer systems on the identical community can entry the recordsdata on the NAS, with out being bodily related to it.

If you use bodily storage equivalent to a USB exhausting drive, you may solely entry the recordsdata when the exhausting drive is related to your pc. With a NAS, you do not want a bodily connection in any respect; all of the recordsdata are accessible over the community. In your house, for instance, you may entry your NAS over your house Wi-Fi.

The great thing about a NAS is that it would not must comprise only a single drive. You need to use a number of drives in a NAS to extend the storage capability and add redundancy, including additional drives to your NAS at a later date when you want them.

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A NAS is accessible to each machine

Like a tough drive that everybody can hook up with directly

Eero

If in case you have your complete film assortment saved on a tough drive, you may join it to your pc while you need to watch a film. If you wish to watch it in your TV, you may join the exhausting drive to that as a substitute. If another person desires to observe a film, they’ll plug the exhausting drive into their very own machine.

With a NAS, you needn’t play cross the exhausting drive. Any machine in your house can entry your NAS immediately, having access to all of the film recordsdata. Even higher is that a number of units can entry the recordsdata on the identical time, so you may watch a film in your TV whereas another person watches a distinct film on their pc. It is like having a tough drive that may plug into each machine directly.

One other profit is that it makes it simpler for individuals to share recordsdata. For instance, your loved ones can all add photographs and movies to a shared folder with out having to cross round a tough drive or add recordsdata into the cloud.

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You possibly can entry your recordsdata remotely

You will by no means depart your recordsdata behind once more

You are catching up on a bit of labor at a espresso store while you notice you want a file that is not in your pc. If that file is on a bodily exhausting drive, you are out of luck. Nevertheless, if the file is in your NAS, you may entry it remotely so long as you have got an web connection.

Because of this your whole recordsdata in your NAS are accessible to you anyplace on the planet at any time. It is like your individual cloud storage with out having to pay for a cloud storage subscription. Your shared family photos folder may also be shared with different members of the family around the globe to be able to all share photographs.

In fact, that does not imply that anybody can entry your NAS. There are methods to make sure that your connection to your NAS is safe, equivalent to using a VPN tunnel or utilizing safe relay companies supplied by your NAS producer. That manner, you do not have to fret about different individuals snooping round in your recordsdata.

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You needn’t hunt for that lacking exhausting drive

That pile of outdated exhausting drives shall be a factor of the previous

Western Digital / Pocket-lint

In case you’re something like me, you may have drawers stuffed with USB sticks, SD playing cards, and exhausting drives that comprise all the pieces out of your trip photographs to your complete music assortment. Every time you should entry particular recordsdata, it’s important to seek out the proper storage machine and join it to your pc to trace down the recordsdata. Loads of my bodily storage units are sorely missing any labels, so it will possibly take lots of searching to search out the recordsdata that I would like.

With a NAS, you do not have this drawback. It can save you all the pieces in a single location and save your self hours of searching by USB sticks. You additionally not have to fret concerning the muddle of all these exhausting drives or the truth that your thumb drive has a USB-A connector, however your laptop computer only has USB-C ports.

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There’s much less danger of dropping all of your knowledge

You possibly can duplicate your recordsdata to maintain them secure

Framework

This is among the greatest causes to think about ditching your bodily storage for a NAS. Until you’ve got been extremely fortunate, sooner or later, you’ll have skilled the horror of a tough drive dying, inflicting you to lose massive quantities of your knowledge. It is a painful expertise you can take steps to keep away from.

Many NAS units assist a knowledge storage expertise known as Redundant Array of Unbiased Disks (RAID) that manages your recordsdata over a number of bodily disks. There are numerous completely different choices, however one of many easiest is RAID 1. This creates two an identical copies of your knowledge on two completely different drives. If one of many exhausting drives fails for any motive, the entire knowledge remains to be accessible, safely saved on the opposite drive. You possibly can exchange the lifeless drive with one other with out dropping any of your knowledge.

It is not a foolproof system, and with out conserving backups elsewhere, you may nonetheless find yourself in a scenario the place all of your knowledge is misplaced. It is a lot much less seemingly that this may occur utilizing a RAID setup in your NAS, however it is best to nonetheless take into account conserving offsite or cloud backups, too.

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You possibly can at all times add extra storage

Add additional drives to your NAS (so long as there’s area)

One other good thing about utilizing a NAS is that it’s endlessly expandable. That 2TB exhausting drive to procure could have felt like it will be greater than sufficient while you purchased it, however now it is full, and you are going to have to begin switching forwards and backwards between completely different drives once more.

With a NAS, you do not have that drawback. In case you’re operating out of area, simply add some extra drives. Every thing that is at the moment saved in your NAS stays accessible, however you now have extra space to retailer additional recordsdata. As an alternative of getting to exchange a tough drive with a much bigger one, you may simply maintain including extra to your NAS to satisfy your wants, so long as there’s room for the extra drives.

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You possibly can take automated backups

Again up all of your units with out lifting a finger

Samsung

Your NAS would not simply shield the information saved on its drives. You need to use one to guard the information in your tech units, too. Many NAS units include software program that may mechanically take backups from units in your community, equivalent to your Home windows or macOS computer systems and even your cell units. You possibly can schedule these backups to cut back the danger of dropping essential info if one thing goes improper together with your machine.

The great thing about that is that you simply needn’t keep in mind to attach a tough drive to your pc earlier than you may back it up. All of it occurs mechanically with out you needing to raise a finger, that means you are way more prone to have an up-to-date backup accessible ought to one thing go improper.

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