Published under Category : Network Attached Storage

NAS as a Google photos Alternative

Now that the much loved Google photos doesn't have the Free Unlimited Storage, an On premise Network Attached Storage is the best alternative.

Google Photos is arguably the most popular photo storage and sharing service. AI tagging, easy sharing, cloud access, and unlimited storage - google photos had it all, at least until google announced the end of "Free Unlimited storage".

Now that the free unlimited storage is going to stop, users will have to find an alternative. We have long believed that public cloud should not be the only home for your photos or any other data for that matter, so we are not going to propose you a public cloud alternative, we would rather show you the benefits of owning your private cloud

Yes, owning a NAS ( e.g. a Synology, QNAP, or Asustor) is your wisest choice, and here is why

Your own private Cloud

With a NAS, you own a device that stays in your network, and you can access it anywhere in the world - that's called a private cloud. A Public could in contrast is akin to amazon keeping a NAS in their datacenter and offering you access to it ( Yes we oversimplified but you get the idea)

You control your NAS

A NAS that's physically in your Custody is as much control as you can get. You don't have to worry about where your data is stored. it's always right with you.

No Recurring Fees

Decide how much storage you want. Buy a NAS that gives you the scalability for future expansion and you have a single predictable amount, which gets you a unit for life. No recurring charges ever.

Share, Use AI, Personalize your Own portal

All the major NAS vendors give you granularized access control, option to share with guests, and AI processing ( for face recognition and auto AI Tagging of objects). Honestly, AI is not at par with Google, it just can't be. But enough to keep you happy.

Not only photos; stream movies, download torrents, host your site...

NAS are extremely versatile devices and can not only be used to store your photos. You can save all kinds of data, run Plex server and stream your movies, have a virtual machine running on it, run your blog off the machine, etc, etc... it's a small server and if you have time and passion you can configure it to be anything.

Mix Public and Private cloud

If you have multiple public clouds, you can also use your NAS to syncroinze all the clouds. Keep a copy of your photos on google photos , keep the older ones on Dropbox , office files on NAS and Amazon S3 for example.

Here are a few popular NAS that made it to the Editors Choice and are perfect for replacing your google photos.

Synology DS-220+
Qnap TS-253D
Synology DS-920+
Asustor AS-3102T v2
QNAP TS-453D

2 comments

Akash @ Mon, Sep 26, 22

In reply to Graham Monaghan.

Yes, ransomware is becoming a real problem. Configuration is not so daunting on the NAS itself but the parameter security, on your router for instance is another story.

Graham Monaghan @ Mon, Sep 26, 22

That’s the beautiful dream of NAS systems like Synology and Qnap, Access whereever you are in the world, uploading images from your travels or just viewing the content with friends or family outside your home. However as you drew attention to (on previous articles) there is the very real risk of losing it all to a cyber attack ( ransomware etc.) and it is the new user who is particularly vulnerable to these attacks. I’ve read scathing comments on forums on how it is their own fault, they should have done this or that and they wouldn’t have had a problem….
But it is a steep learning curve for any new user when their technical knowledge is limited even with your well written articles.

About Author : Akash Jain

I have worked in Data Storage Industry since 1998. I loves Technology and write often about NAS, Hard drives, Tapes and Flash technologies

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