Bringing your data home from the cloud

Some tips for how to store your documents, photos and other media on a hard drive — while also sharing and backing it up.

By Shelly BrisbinJune 26, 2026 11:59 am,

Cloud storage and remote backup options are more available than ever. But some people want to keep their media, photos or documents close, stored in their own homes, on hard drives they own.

Tech expert Omar Gallaga recently built his own home storage system.

Highlights from this segment:

– You can store terabytes worth of data on a device called a Network-Attached Storage device, or NAS.

– A NAS consists of a computer that makes the contents of hard drives available to computers and other devices on a local network, plus slots for two-to-four hard drives.

– Setting up a NAS can be challenging, but many users on Reddit and elsewhere offer help to those trying it for the first time. 

– Users who want local data storage, but aren’t interested in setting up a NAS, can add large external hard drives to a local computer, then add software to automate data backups. 

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