How to save the information that’s important to me....use a NAS!
In the world today we have more information than ever. Things like personal and family photos, personal reports, personal documents, taxes, movie collections, and even school documents end up consuming large amounts of space on our computer hard drives. I want to keep that space as free as possible. A simple Google search provides many options as to how you can save your data. If you are a person on the go, a popular option is to purchase an external hard drive. A simple search on Amazon.com results in a wide range of options varying from Toshiba, Seagate, Western Digital, to LaCie and many others. There is even a “bring your own hard drive” option as you can buy the case and hard drive separately and be able to upgrade as needed. This is an awesome way to save your data and save space on your computer but at this stage in my life I want less things to keep track of while I’m on the go.
Another option is to use an online data storage capability. If you are a Mac user like me you have iCloud but there are many other pay options out there such as sync.com, pcloud.com, Dropbox.com, Tresorit.com, and sugarsync.com. Looking at recommendation sites, tech radar.com recommended IDrive.com, Zoolz.com, Degoo.com, mega.nz, OneDrive, box.com, nextcloud.com, and spideroak.com for pay solutions and free recommendations Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and MediaFire. These are all very good options but for me they are only temporary because an online storage capability is simply my data sitting on someone else’s computer. Also, in the terms of service of many organizations they can search your data for keywords to sell to advertisers and profit from your use of their service (free or pay).
Finally, and my recommended solution, is to use a hybrid of the first and second options listed...a Network Attached Storage (NAS). This allows for freedom while walking around my house as well as a way to configure it to be able to access anywhere I have a WiFi signal (or cellular outside of my house). There are two key players in the NAS world for simple solutions, QNAP and Synology. That does not mean that the other brands out there such as Western Digital, Seagate, Thecus, Buffalo, Netgear, and Drobo are not good, but for a home use option, the most recommended options are those two. If you want a good comparisons between all of the different types of NAS options, I highly recommend you visit either the YouTube page or website of nascompares.com and get all the specific details about each of these companies (or the other ones listed). There is a bias towards QNAP in all of the recommendations on that page, but a very honest assessment of each of the NAS models you can buy. For the tech enthusiast who believes that if I am using a computer (because it’s just a computer that just saves you data) I must build it to use it, then you can make your own NAS and use either pay software (like Microsoft) or free Linux software such as FreeNAS, Ubuntu Server, NAS4Free, OpenMediaVault, Openfiler, of many others. The Linux versions require additional setting up but are very powerful alternatives to the desktop NAS options I listed earlier.
My recommendation is to use a desktop NAS such as Synology (or QNAP, Netgear, or Thecus) because of how big those companies are more options are available. It also allows for easier setup to provide that access from anywhere capability, whether you are on a laptop or a tablet. Applications are developed to setup that easy access and the software is developed well enough due to the products having been out long enough to receive feedback for ease of use.
www.commzgear.com
www.jbblackmon.com
Another option is to use an online data storage capability. If you are a Mac user like me you have iCloud but there are many other pay options out there such as sync.com, pcloud.com, Dropbox.com, Tresorit.com, and sugarsync.com. Looking at recommendation sites, tech radar.com recommended IDrive.com, Zoolz.com, Degoo.com, mega.nz, OneDrive, box.com, nextcloud.com, and spideroak.com for pay solutions and free recommendations Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and MediaFire. These are all very good options but for me they are only temporary because an online storage capability is simply my data sitting on someone else’s computer. Also, in the terms of service of many organizations they can search your data for keywords to sell to advertisers and profit from your use of their service (free or pay).
Finally, and my recommended solution, is to use a hybrid of the first and second options listed...a Network Attached Storage (NAS). This allows for freedom while walking around my house as well as a way to configure it to be able to access anywhere I have a WiFi signal (or cellular outside of my house). There are two key players in the NAS world for simple solutions, QNAP and Synology. That does not mean that the other brands out there such as Western Digital, Seagate, Thecus, Buffalo, Netgear, and Drobo are not good, but for a home use option, the most recommended options are those two. If you want a good comparisons between all of the different types of NAS options, I highly recommend you visit either the YouTube page or website of nascompares.com and get all the specific details about each of these companies (or the other ones listed). There is a bias towards QNAP in all of the recommendations on that page, but a very honest assessment of each of the NAS models you can buy. For the tech enthusiast who believes that if I am using a computer (because it’s just a computer that just saves you data) I must build it to use it, then you can make your own NAS and use either pay software (like Microsoft) or free Linux software such as FreeNAS, Ubuntu Server, NAS4Free, OpenMediaVault, Openfiler, of many others. The Linux versions require additional setting up but are very powerful alternatives to the desktop NAS options I listed earlier.
My recommendation is to use a desktop NAS such as Synology (or QNAP, Netgear, or Thecus) because of how big those companies are more options are available. It also allows for easier setup to provide that access from anywhere capability, whether you are on a laptop or a tablet. Applications are developed to setup that easy access and the software is developed well enough due to the products having been out long enough to receive feedback for ease of use.
www.commzgear.com
www.jbblackmon.com