Google Drive vs. NAS: The Real Cost of Storage

One of the big realizations when scaling storage needs is how quickly cloud costs add up. Services like Google Drive are convenient, but once you’re past a few terabytes, the economics shift dramatically.

📦 Google Drive / Google One Pricing

As of 2025, U.S. Google One pricing looks like this:

• 2 TB → $9.99/month ($120/year)
• 10 TB → $49.99/month ($600/year)
• 20 TB → $99.99/month ($1,200/year)

That means if you need 20 TB for 5 years, you’re looking at around $6,000 in recurring fees. And that doesn’t scale well if you ever need 30 TB, 50 TB, or more.

💾 Local NAS + Hard Drives

The setup in the example uses Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB drives (NAS-rated).

• 6 drives × ~18 TB = 108 TB raw capacity
• Drives cost ~$280–$320 each → ~$1,800 total
• Synology/QNAP NAS chassis → ~$500–$700
• Total upfront investment: ~$2,500

Even after RAID/SHR overhead, you still get 70–80 TB usable, with full control and expandability.

⚖️ The Math Over 5 Years

• Google Drive (20 TB): ~$6,000
• NAS (70–80 TB usable): ~$2,500 (one-time)

If you keep the hardware 8–10 years (very possible with IronWolf reliability), the cost gap widens even more.

✅ Why People Switch

• Scalability: 50+ TB is nearly impossible with consumer cloud pricing.
• Control: Your hardware, your data. No throttling or “out of space” notices.
• Economics: One-time vs. endless subscription.
• Longevity: Drives often last 8–10 years with no dead sectors if treated well.

💡 Takeaway

Cloud storage is great for convenience and light use. But for serious storage needs (10 TB+), a NAS pays for itself quickly.

This is why more people are saying:
“Bye bye Google Drive — you got too expensive.”