NAS or encrypted cloud: where should you store your files?

Leaving Google Drive quickly raises the real question: where will your files live? Two paths are open to you. A server at home, the NAS, or a subscription with a provider that cannot read your files, the encrypted cloud. These are not two products but two philosophies, and I’ll give them faces: Synology on one side, Proton Drive and Tresorit on the other.

The match in one table

Criterion	NAS at home	Encrypted cloud
Cost	One-time purchase: the box, then drives as needed	Subscription: from 5 GB free to a few euros per month
Where your files live	At home, on your hardware	On the provider’s servers, encrypted before upload
Who can read them	You	You alone, end-to-end encryption
Failures and backup	Your responsibility	Handled by the provider
Skills required	Some network basics	None, Google Drive-style interface
Remote access	To be configured	Immediate

What the NAS does better

Ownership, in the most concrete sense. Your photos and documents sleep in a box sitting in your home, not in a data center. Synology is the reference to start with: its DSM interface feels like a full operating system, with a file manager, photos, backups, and the richest app catalog on the market. The most curious will even host Nextcloud, Immich or Jellyfin on it.

It’s the demanding path of the journey, fair warning. The upfront investment is significant, and remote access asks for some network basics. Failure also becomes your business: a single storage location is a single point of weakness, and organizing the backup is on you. In exchange, you get a real family cloud, expandable, with no monthly rent.

What the encrypted cloud does better

Simplicity, without sacrificing privacy. Proton Drive encrypts your files end to end before they leave your device: even Proton cannot read them. The interface looks like Google Drive, folders, link sharing, a trash bin, and the free plan includes 5 GB. All of it is hosted in Switzerland, outside US jurisdiction. You find your files everywhere, right away, with nothing to configure.

For professional use, Tresorit goes up a notch: zero-knowledge encryption, built-in GDPR compliance, ISO certification. It’s more expensive, with no permanent free plan, but the enterprise features justify the difference. The shared limit of the two? Less collaboration than Google Drive, and no full equivalent to Google Docs yet.

Verdict

Choose the NAS if you want your files physically at home and learning a few settings doesn’t scare you. The Synology profile details why it’s the simplest brand to start with, and the NAS catalog and the self-hosting page open up what comes next.

Choose the encrypted cloud if you want the gentlest transition from Google Drive, with no hardware and no maintenance. Proton Drive for personal use, Tresorit for professionals: the Proton Drive vs Google Drive comparison shows what you gain, and the cloud catalog lists the rest.

Or marry the two, and that’s the answer I chose at home: the NAS for the bulk of the files, an encrypted cloud for sharing and for the documents that must stay reachable everywhere. Nothing forces you to pick a side, and I even find the two approaches reinforce each other. The starting point stays the same: the guide to leaving Google Drive, and the diagnostic if you’re unsure about the order of the steps.