Photos from your phone, documents, films, company files. Our data grows every year and we keep facing the same question: where to put it so it is safe and at the same time within reach. The answer is usually a NAS, that is, your own network storage that you keep at home or at the company, under your own roof.

What a NAS is

A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a small, quiet device with disks that is connected to your network. Put simply, it is your own cloud. You access it from a computer, a phone and even remotely over the internet, but the data stays with you, not with some company on the other side of the world.

What it is good for

  • Backing up and syncing photos from the phones of the whole family into one place. No more “storage is full” messages.
  • Shared file storage for the household or business, where everyone has access to what they are supposed to.
  • Home multimedia, that is, films and music available on the TV and on phones.
  • Secure computer backups. A NAS can automatically back up all computers on the network.
  • Camera footage. Many NAS units can also record home cameras.

Why your own storage instead of the cloud

Cloud services are convenient, but you pay a monthly fee for them indefinitely and your data sits on someone else’s servers. You buy a NAS once and it serves for years. You have full control over privacy, you decide who has access, and with a larger volume of data it works out cheaper in the long run. For sensitive company data it is often a question of compliance with data-protection rules as well.

Watch out for one thing: a NAS is not a backup in itself

Even though a NAS has several disks and can survive the failure of one of them, it does not replace a backup. If the device is stolen, flooded or destroyed by a power surge, you lose everything at once. That is why we always recommend a second, separate backup alongside it (for example to a second NAS in another location or to the cloud). We follow the proven rule we write about in the article on backing up data.

When a home server makes sense

If you need more than just storage (for example to run your own applications, virtual machines or more demanding company services), you reach for a home or company server. It is more powerful and more flexible than a NAS, but also more demanding to design and manage, which is why it pays to consult on exactly what you need.

We will design and build it for you

We will advise you which NAS or server suits your needs, choose the right disks, set everything up, secure it and configure reliable backups. After that, you simply use your own storage with no need to worry about it. Get in touch and we will design a tailored solution.