Preservation
The question is framed wrong
NAS and object storage are usually presented as two camps. In practice they answer different questions: a NAS is fast local capacity, object storage is a durable remote copy. Opposing them is like choosing between a worktop and a freezer.
So the real question is: which of the two are you missing?
What a NAS brings
- Throughput. On a local network you work straight off the volume. No remote storage competes.
- Zero marginal cost. Once the disks are bought, writing is free. For a fast-growing collection, that’s decisive.
- Physical control. Your data is on your premises, with no third-party account or terms of service.
- Local fault tolerance. RAID absorbs the loss of a disk without interruption.
Its limit is structural: RAID protects against the disk, not the site. Fire, theft, flood, power surge, human error, or ransomware take the whole enclosure.
What object storage brings
- Geographic independence — the only real protection against local disaster.
- Stated durability and internal replication, with no hardware to maintain.
- Server-side versioning, which neutralises a propagated deletion.
- No action required. What doesn’t depend on your discipline actually happens.
Its limits: cost grows with retained volume, a full restore is slow, and data egress can be expensive depending on the provider — something to check before choosing, not at restore time.
How to decide
- Under 2 TB, no NAS: local working drive plus remote object storage. Simple, sufficient, cheap.
- 2 to 20 TB: NAS for work and the first copy, object storage for the off-site copy. The most common and best-balanced setup.
- Above 20 TB: a NAS is essential for throughput, and you’ll need to choose what goes remote — usually originals and deliverables, not regenerable derivatives.
The trap common to both
Believing a permanently mounted volume is a backup. A mounted NAS and a continuously synced bucket both propagate a deletion or malicious encryption. You need dated retention or versioning, otherwise you have two copies of the same accident.
In practice
- Identify which one you’re missing: fast capacity or an independent copy.
- Never count RAID as a backup.
- Enable versioning on the object storage side.
- Check egress cost before committing.
- Test a partial restore from the remote copy once a year.
Obscura Flow treats both as archive destinations: NAS, local folder, S3, Backblaze B2, or Cloudflare R2, with resumable uploads and integrity verification from the destination after transfer.