Our team is reviewing storage options for a growing business, and we’re trying to decide when a NAS server makes more sense than direct-attached storage (DAS).
For smaller setups, DAS seems simple and cost-effective. However, as more users need shared access, centralized file management, backups, and remote collaboration, a NAS appears to offer greater flexibility. It also seems like a better fit for enterprise storage and data protection, especially when planning for scalability, user permissions, and reliable data access.
For those managing business or self-hosted environments with Nextcloud, what factors helped you decide between NAS and DAS?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your real-world experience and any best practices for choosing the right storage solution.
Most in the community probably use local disk storage, since it is much simpler to manage. And even then with LVM/ZFS/btrfs/… you have many options to create multi-disk redundant storage space that you can grow over time.
For more “professional” usage, object storage probably gives most flexibility.
You need to think about all that, if you go for a multi-server setup where you access from different nodes to a storage backend.
Hey @oliviabarn, welcome to the Nextcloud community
Your project sounds great!
While Nextcloud is open source and the sky is the limit as far as user numbers and scale are concerned, your use case is beyond the community’s scope. The community forum is a community of volunteer enthusiasts helping and supporting fellow users. The community has a huge knowledge base and some clued up folks who gladly share their knowledge and expertise in the spirit of open source. Community support is not affiliated and not obligatory!
Mission critical deployments and Enterprise storage and data protection require professional consultants, engineers and supporters. Your best option is to talk to the folks at Nextcloud or affiliate partners. They’re certainly helpful and inclusive and will not turn you away.
You’ll find community documentation and deployment recommendations here;
You’ll have access to concise expert documentation upon subscription here;
My personal goal is a simple safe and reliable setup with ample resources for 5+ family users, affordable, efficient and low maintenance. As a hobbyist building my own servers and NAS on a small scale using large scale technology made the setup interesting and fun. I wanted seamless integration in my home-network, easy access to my NAS and simple redundancy, backup and synchronisation, hosting multiple services on inexpensive hardware. Typically each family member has device, OS and mobile preferences and everyone wants to have equal access.
Naturally lessons learned in a home lab environment come in handy for professional situations and skills acquired are easily transferred to corporate and enterprise requirements.
