Goodbye storage and streaming subs; I moved it all to my self-built NAS

Let’s do a little thought experiment — how much money do you spend on subscription services each month? Typically, you might spend $12 on music streaming, have a couple of TV subs at $20, and spring for a modest $3 200GB Google One plan to cover your precious family photos. That’s about $45 a month, maybe $450 a year if you pay upfront, but it could well be much higher if you subscribe to additional services like the plethora of TV options, audiobooks, a password manager, or stump up for cutting-edge AI tools.

But what does this add up to over five years, a decade, or a lifetime? That’s much harder to calculate, especially as subscription costs are heading into the stratosphere. And when it comes to storage solutions, 200GB this year could easily balloon to 2TB after a decade of memories, or even higher if you can’t keep your camera away from little arrivals or pets.

Once you’re hooked on paying fees for these conveniences, it’s tough to leave. But financially, you’re probably much better off in the long term buying a NAS or, better yet, building your own NAS. That’s why I’ve completely cut the cord, and it’s saving me a small fortune in the process. Should you take the plunge as well? Let me walk you through the pros and cons.

Let’s start with the primary reason to grab a NAS — affordable storage for local documents, images, and all that.

Sticking with Google One, 200GB is cheap at $30 a year, but the 2TB option rises sharply to $99, then increases to a horrendous $600 a year if you need to reach for 10TB on the next tier up. Big pools of cloud storage are expensive. By comparison, a decent hard drive will cost you less than $25 for 256GB, $60 for 2TB, and about $200 for 10TB. That’s already more cost-effective in a single year, and it’s just a one-off (OK, you might need to replace drives every 10 years or so) rather than an annual subscription.

Of course, you have to buy the NAS upfront. Prices range from sub-$200 for a budget dual-drive option all the way up to $800 or more for Synology’s powerful RAID-sporting options. If you settle for a mid-range NAS, it’ll probably take between three to five years to recoup that cost from storage alone, but you’re in the money from there on out. But you can spend a lot less by going down the Raspberry Pi, ZimaBoard, or NUC route. Plus, upgrading to bigger drives is flexible and affordable. The more storage you need, the quicker a NAS pays for itself compared to stumping up for cloud costs.

Now, the one thing that Google One, Onedrive, and the other big cloud storage platforms have going for them is software and seamless backups. Google, in particular, offers its excellent Photos app, Drive file management, and even a suite of office tools for document editing that work across our phones, PCs, and more. Can a NAS top this? Well, that depends on your expectations.

Synology Drive is the most comprehensive option, bundling backups, file management, sharing options, audio organization, and even a photo gallery under one roof, but you’ll have to splash the cash on one of its NAS drives. It can’t replicate the AI editing goodies tucked into Google Photos, but in terms of backing up your data, it is as robust as you’ll need. QNAP has a range of apps to handle files, users, data synchronization, and more, but it’s much more eclectic. Alternatively, you can go your own way with third-party services, which is what I’ve done.

You’ll likely want to master the dark art of Docker containers, but once you do, you can install a huge range of software options on your Linux-based NAS. NextCloud is a popular choice for remote files and documents, but the Android app won’t wow you if you’re primarily looking for photo backups. For that, I love PhotoPrism and a simple folder syncing solution like Syncthing or Z-Push, which allows me to back up photos automatically when I’m on my home Wi-Fi. Immich, which is still a work in progress, is also worth a look as a direct Google Photos replacement that you can host yourself. If you’re not all that savvy about installing Linux software, there are a few OS overlays that can make the job a lot easier, such as CasaOS.

If that sounds like more work than letting that subscription auto-renew, it is. I won’t pretend the DIY route is hassle-free, but running things yourself is cheaper; you just need to invest some time in the initial setup and learning curve. Of course, nothing stops you from mixing and matching; why not abuse that free allowance for Google Docs and self-host your massive photo library? This is also a good way to make sure you’re following the 321 backup rule.

Self-hosting your own media library is one of the more controversial NAS use cases, partly because of its association with piracy but also because it’s not a viable alternative to keeping up with new shows. If you want to legally watch Dune Prophecy, you’ll have to pay HBO for the privilege; there are no two ways about it. I’ll admit, I’ll pay for the very occasional month of streaming (usually just a one-off for sports events like the enthralling Autumn Nations Series), but otherwise, playing back my old media library is probably the most frequent use case I have for my NAS.

I have years of music, movies, and TV that I often go back to, and it’s more cost-effective (not to mention nicer) to own rather than rent over and over again. I’m sure many of you are in the same boat or at least are listening to or watching a fair amount of the same material every few years (c’mon, you’ve seen The Office more than once, I bet). I have a solid catalog of beloved 90s and 00s CDs and DVDs that I’ve condensed from boxes in the attic to a tiny SSD and can watch at my leisure without paying for it on repeat, hoping it won’t be edited for “modern audiences,” or worrying it might be taken offline completely.

Speaking of music, your favorite new artists receive a far bigger cut if you buy their digital album (or physical CD/vinyl) than the pittance they’ll earn from Spotify streams. For every month of Spotify, you can easily buy a high-quality FLAC version of an album or two instead. Why not support fledgling artists properly and enjoy owning a copy of their music forever while you’re at it?

Jellyfin, the no-frills alternative to Plex, has been my go-to media server for years now. It serves content to my laptop, TV, and even my smartphone when I’m listening to music out of the house. I’ve even used it to curate age-appropriate shows and movies for my toddlers, freeing myself from the mess that is YouTube Kids. My little ones can watch the same DVDs I did growing up without the headache of swapping discs. A moderately powerful NAS can handle transcoding, too, should you need to condense your library for streaming on the go. Oh, and did I mention that I can keep watching my shows at home when the internet (admittedly very rarely) drops out? Can’t do that with Netflix.

Files and media might be the most obvious use cases for a NAS, but the platform really starts to pull away from subscriptions once you get into the weeds of self-hosting a wider range of services.

You can create a central hub for your entirely offline smart home through Home Assistant, safely house your important passwords locally, block ads across your entire home network, or even self-host software for that weekly D&D game. Coding, email, audiobooks, tracking your finances — there’s an application (and probably an open-source one at that) for most things you can think of, and you can access these tools from any device on your network.

The one thing that’s really sold me on the self-hosted NAS route over subscriptions is this exponential growth in utility. It’s easy to try stuff and drop it if you don’t like it without having to submit credit card info to receive that “free” trial. Not that every tool is free, but the ones that cost can usually be purchased for an affordable, one-off fee. I’m probably running seven or eight services that I’d be paying at least $4.99 for (probably 2x or 3x more these days, let’s be honest) if I subscribed to them elsewhere. Plus, I’m in complete control of the features, can roll back software that makes unwelcome changes, or move to a different tool and quickly take my data with me.

Oh, and that is very important too; everything remains my data, not something to be lost, sold, or stolen by third parties.

All the above said, running a NAS certainly isn’t free, even once you get past the upfront costs. Most likely, it’ll take a year or two before a NAS pays for itself, and there are ongoing costs, too. Powering the thing requires electricity, which isn’t cheap lately. Picking an energy-efficient NAS or processor is very important. Efficient hardware can be the difference between an extra $100 a year, so opt for something Arm-based or a newer, low TDP x64 chip. You don’t want an Intel i9 running 24/7 just to serve you the odd document, and you’d be surprised how much software you can run on something as low power as a Raspberry Pi 5.

Then, there’s the completely optional cost of exposing your services so you can use them remotely. Accessing your self-hosted services over the internet ideally requires a fast fiber internet connection. I’d recommend 100Mbps or more for streaming content outside of your home, which will set you back a bit more than a barebones connection, depending on where you live. However, you probably only need to do this if you want to take your music collection on the go or host a game server for your friends. Backing up documents and photos can usually wait until you’re home.

Services like Tailscale can provide very secure ways to tunnel into your home network, but you’ll have to pay at least $5 per month if you need more than three users. Alternatively, ~$11 a year grabs you a domain name that you can pair with Cloudflare Tunnels to expose services over the internet, complete with SSL security. But you’ll need password protection on everything, at the very least, and this approach is best paired with a robust firewall and Docker containers so that critical failures don’t expose your entire system to the internet.

This brings me to my final point — self-hosting isn’t risk-free either. Services exposed to the internet are, by definition, at risk of unpatched security exploits and the whims of bots that scan every IP and port they can find. Self-hosting means extra busy work keeping things up to date. Then, you also have to consider the risk to your backups. Ideally, you’ll spring for additional hard drives for duplicates (I have a 3TB backup drive just for photos and essential documents) and potentially pay for cloud storage for off-site protection as well.

Owning a NAS costs time and cash, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. Done right, it will still save you dollars in the long run over the spiraling cost of subscriptions. Plus, it opens up greater flexibility in the sort of services you can enjoy. Yes, the hardware can be pricey, especially if you look at Synology’s lineup, but the DIY route is perfectly viable. There are plenty of people out there running aging Raspberry Pi hardware plugged into a USB hard drive — I was one of them until recently.

In the worst case, consider this: You can spend $400 on a superb NAS and plenty of storage today and be set for the next ten years. But how much will Google Photos or Microsoft Office charge you every year for backups by then? I honestly have no idea, but I’d wager it’ll be close to double what it costs today. The way I look at it, you’re hedging against yet more of that stubborn inflation (or just plain price gouging), and while you might trade down some convenience, you gain access to a bunch of new tools and ensure ownership over your data.

I’ve focused a lot on cost in this article, but that wasn’t actually my primary consideration when I started cutting the cord a few years ago. I’d long become fed up with 101 different accounts and services to keep track of, with ever-changing user policies and features, well before prices started increasing. What I wanted was a central hub where I could own my music collection rather than rent it, access important documents from any device without them becoming corporate property, and be sure that I’d always have access to my precious family photos even when the internet goes down. A NAS gives me all that, and if it actually saves me a bit of money in the process, all the better.