NAS vs. Cloud in 2021

2 minute read Published:

Here we are throwing some numbers on the table to decide where to put 10 TB of data I don’t want to lose.

Assumptions, goals:

  • we have a decent Internet connection
  • capacity: 10,000 GB
  • no single point of failure such as:
    • losing a cloud account (disagreements around ToS, lost credentials, vendor out of business, etc)
    • natural disasters
  • all figures in EUR include VAT

Pricing - cloud

Storage [EUR/GB/Month] Ingress [EUR/GB] Egress [EUR/GB]
AWS S3 Glacier 0.004 0 0,1
Backblaze B2 0.005 0 0.01
Dropbox 0.0072 0 0
Storage [EUR / 10,000 GB /month] Recovery [EUR / 10,000 GB]
AWS S3 Glacier 40 1000
Backblaze B2 50 100
Dropbox* 5TB=36EUR. Assuming 10TB=72EUR? 0

*Dropbox: Standard work plan, minimum 3 users billed.

**Cloud USD to EUR conversion: 1 USD w/o VAT = 1 EUR with VAT

Pricing - NAS components

Source: mindfactory.de

HDD Price per 10,000 GB, EUR
WD Red Plus WD101EFBX 10TB 278
2-bay NAS w/o drives Price, EUR
Synology DiskStation DS218 260
QNAP Turbo Station TS-231P3-2G 275
QNAP Turbo Station TS-230 167

Pricing - NAS system

Two 10TB drives in RAID1 and 1 replacement drive in stock

EUR, capital EUR / month*
QNAP Turbo Station TS-230 167
WD Red Plus WD101EFBX 10TB 278
WD Red Plus WD101EFBX 10TB 278
WD Red Plus WD101EFBX 10TB, replacement 278
TOTAL (hardware) 21
TOTAL (with electrical power) 22.2

*Assuming 1 failed drive in 4 years

*Electricity cost: TS-230 itself consumes 12W. HDDs consume 0.5W each in sleep and 8.4W during R/W. Assuming 2h of R/W per day the average power consumption is 13.62W. Ballpark electricity cost in Slovenia is 0.12EUR/kWh.

Solution 1: NAS + cloud

EUR / month / 10,000 GB
NAS 22.2
AWS S3 Glacier 40
TOTAL 62.2

Solution 2: Cloud + another cloud

EUR / month / 10,000 GB
Backblaze B2 50
AWS S3 Glacier 40
TOTAL 90

Conclusion

A combination of NAS and AWS S3 Glacier satisfies requirements at minimal cost, assuming likelihood of ever having to recover from cloud is low.