Why cloud storage is moving back home

As web storage gets pricier, users are looking for alternatives like private cloud devices that promise ownership, privacy, and savings

- Abhishek Baxi

A decade ago, the idea of running your own cloud storage at home was the kind of weekend project only a certain kind of tech enthusiast attempted—someone who enjoyed tinkering with Raspberry Pis, configuring routers, and explaining RAID storage at dinner parties.

For everyone else, the cloud meant something far simpler: Google Photos’ unlimited storage, a few gigabytes on Dropbox for archiving documents, or the automatic backups on iCloud. Today, that equation has changed dramatically. The cloud is still central to our digital lives, but the economics around it have shifted. All of this has created a new consumer category: personal cloud storage. Not a hard drive. Not a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) in the traditional sense. But a simple, plug-and-play device that sits in your home, quietly syncing your photos, videos, and files.

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When Google Photos ended its unlimited free storage in 2021, it was a watershed moment. For years, users had treated it as a bottomless pit. Suddenly, they were confronted with storage quotas, upgrade prompts, and the realization that their photo library was growing faster than their free space. Apple and Microsoft, meanwhile, have kept their free tier at 5GB, an amount that feels almost symbolic in 2025, given that single 48MP photo on a flagship smartphone can be 10-20MB while a 4K video clip can be 400MB per minute.

Nirmal TV, a Kochi-based technology content creator, used Google Photos for the longest time. “But over a period of time, the number of photos was increasing exponentially. I have family pics from 2005 onwards, so I had to think of some other option instead of Google Photos,” says Nirmal.