Ask HN: Cloud vs. Edge Computing–Why Choose a Local NAS?

With cloud storage subscriptions like iCloud, OneDrive, Google Cloud, and Dropbox piling up, edge computing—running your own hardware locally—offers compelling advantages. A local NAS can save costs by replacing multiple subscriptions with self-hosted solutions like Jellyfin for media streaming, Frigate for surveillance, Photo management. You get privacy, full data control, and no recurring fees, plus high performance for tasks like AI/ML or virtualization. By pairing a local NAS with an offsite NAS (e.g., at a friend’s house or a secondary location), you can replicate data for robust backups, ensuring resilience against hardware failures, theft, or natural disasters. Tools like TrueNAS replication or Unraid’s rsync make this seamless, combining local performance with offsite security without recurring cloud fees.

But what are the real trade-offs of edge vs. cloud?

I’m designing a low-cost NAS for edge computing, supporting any OS (TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, Linux) with PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe caching (up to 3000 MB/s read, 2000 MB/s write), RAID or flexible arrays, and 25 Gbps networking. I’d love HN’s insights to shape it, maybe for a Kickstarter launch.

Please share in the comments, or fill in survey https://forms.gle/kJe2vFvj2EM7qjqg8

Cloud vs. Edge: Why choose a local NAS over iCloud, OneDrive, etc.? Cost, privacy, performance?

Use Case: What tasks would your NAS handle? Jellyfin, Frigate, backups, AI/ML?

Performance: How key is CPU power, power efficiency, or upgradability (e.g., PCIe slots)? Your LAN speed (1, 2.5, 10, 25 Gbps)?

Storage: Preferred drive bay count (2, 6, 8+)? NVMe cache for reads/writes? Ideal capacity (10 TB, 50 TB+)?

OS: TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, Linux, or no preference?

Design: Appearance matter? Displayed or hidden?

Budget: Ideal price (excluding drives)?

Pain Points: What frustrates you about NAS or cloud solutions? Killer feature to switch?

Your thoughts will build a better NAS. Would you back this on Kickstarter? Thanks!

Cloud vs. Edge: Cost and performance.

Use Case: Mainly storage but probably also jellyfin, and some ligher apps. Not really AI.

Performance: How key is CPU power, power efficiency, or upgradability (e.g., PCIe slots)?

For me power efficiency and noise would be important. Of course a better CPU is nice.

Your LAN speed (1, 2.5, 10, 25 Gbps)?

10Gbps at least.

Storage: Preferred drive bay count (2, 6, 8+)? NVMe cache for reads/writes? Ideal capacity (10 TB, 50 TB+)?

6 bays + nvme ofr cache.

OS: TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, Linux, or no preference?

Not sure

Design: Appearance matter? Displayed or hidden?

Doesnt matter that much but smaller better.

Budget: Ideal price (excluding drives)?

600 usd

Pain Points: What frustrates you about NAS or cloud solutions? Killer feature to switch?

Would be pretty cool to easily be able to expand bays. Lets say you got 4 bays. And you can then buy some case that connects to the main unit and lets you add additional storage.

True, when it breaks. It's annoying. Netflix has its own issues as well.

My small setup with 1gbps internet tunneled via cloudflare is super handy to be honest. Jellyfin, Frigate works with over 2 months of uptime without issue so far.

When I built my DIY NAS, the most important factor was: I wanted it _silent_. No constantly spinning drives or fans. It sits in a sideboard in my living room, and I've been using a M1 Mac for years now that is completely silent in normal daily operation, so I've become a bit sensitive to any "computer noises" and wanted my continuously running hardware to be as quiet as possible.

In practice this meant: a passively cooled Intel N100 SoC, a Corsair PSU that shuts down its fan under a certain power threshold (iirc 35W-ish), and SSD-only main storage. I did include a system fan (low-RPM 120mm Noctua) that is actively controlled based on various system temps (stays off 99% of the time), and two HDDs that sit in standby spindown and only spin up for snapshot backups once every three days deep at night.

Very happy with this system so far. It houses my data dump, backups for all my systems (replicated as snapshots to the HDDs), hosts HomeAssistant/Z2M, and hosts a local-only Gitea that keeps up-to-date clones of all my Github and Gitlab repos.

Anything I host that's available on the public Internet, I don't do from home - that's all on various VPS' or AWS. To access my local stuff remotely, I can always VPN in to my home network.

Tailscale is wonderful for exactly this use case