How many devices do you use to listen to your favorite music? Your laptop? Your iPhone or Android smartphone? Your iPad or tablet? We take for granted the “old days” when we’d have to carry our music sources with us in the form of CDs, cassette tapes, or even 8-tracks and vinyl. (Are we showing our age? Keep in mind, we’ve been experts in data recovery for more than 20 years.)

Today’s iPhones and other cloud-based digital storage devices have several advantages over previous storage media, which could scratch, unravel, suffer sun and heat damage or simply get lost. In fact, if you still have your original CD collection from the 80s and listen to it regularly, it’s time to transfer all those CDs to digital storage. Sure, they made it through the 80s and 90s, but that was probably before you had kids….

Let’s explore our options for digital storage, and then talk specifically about one incredibly stable, affordable and convenient data storage solution for the home: Network Attached Storage.

Phone Storage
It might seem logical to keep your digital music files stored in the location you access them the most, which, for many of us, is our smartphone. But we all know that, as much as our phones are our lifelines, they are also in constant peril. Shock damage, water damage, technical malfunctions… it all happens. (And we’ve heard every possible story of smartphone data loss here at 24 Hour Data.) Of course, you want to perform regular backups, but we know that most people don’t. In many cases we can recover your iPhone data quickly and completely, but it’s still not the best place to store your music. The biggest drawback? Phone storage space is extremely limited. 

Cloud-based Storage
If storage capacity is the biggest concern, why not store data in the cloud? This works… if you want to put the security of your data in someone else’s hands. Web storage services can change owners, get hacked, or go bankrupt. Just a few years ago, a major music service was purchased by another company. Subscribers who didn’t want to switch to the new service lost their data if they didn’t back it up. Do you want to put someone else in control of your music files? Many people have thousands of dollars and many decades invested in their music collections. 

Network Attached Storage
If you’re looking for a secure, stable platform for music storage that you control, Network Attached Storage could be the answer. In the most basic sense, a network attached storage device is a file server. Like servers that most people are familiar with, NAS devices can contain one or several hard drives, often in some RAID configuration and sometimes with an integrated controller. The more you pay for your server, the larger the storage capacity, and the greater level of redundancy you will have across the device. Unlike a small business server, however, or even an enterprise level server in a large corporation, NAS devices for home use are optimized to handle audio and video media files exceptionally well.

If you have a whole home audio visual system with a media switcher, your NAS device can connect to the system, allowing you to send your music to any speaker in your home effortlessly.

Many NAS devices are also scalable, permitting you to switch out smaller hard drives for larger ones, or to connect multiple NAS devices, as your media storage needs grow. An NAS device offers plenty of room to store not just your vast music collection, but movies for the whole family, too.

How Safe is NAS? 
Your NAS device stays within your home. You won’t lose it, drop it, scratch it or break it. Depending on the type of NAS device you choose, it may include built-in redundancies so that if one drive fails, you can easily swap out that drive and suffer no data loss. We recommend backing up your NAS to an exterior hard drive whenever you make major updates, such as adding new albums or movies, but, in general, your NAS device is in it for the long haul with you. 

And if your NAS does fail, as a result of a power surge, flood in your home, or simply age-related hard drive failure, 24 Hour Data offers prompt, affordable data recovery service. We are experts in NAS data recovery, so your family knows their music and movies are always safe. 

  These drives are optimized to handle files and data storage. As a home media storage solution the NAS is hard to beat. Data can be offloaded from computers and mobile phones through the home network which will increase their performance.  

Music files can take up a lot of room on your computer or phone. As discussed, CDs are easy to break or scratch which causes you to lose all of your files. A backup that can be damaged so easily isn’t really a backup, is it?  

What About Cloud Storage?

With the recent hacker and virus attacks around the globe, that’s sort of a no-brainer for tech-fiends. But, what about everyday folk with a collection of music floating out in iTunes or Xbox Music? Maybe you have another music account and you’re not sure if backing up the albums or songs purchased is really worth it.

Here’s a bit of advice – web services go down for good, often. Remember Zune? While Zune was changed to Xbox Music, anyone that did not change their subscription to the new service or take the time to download the music they purchased lost it all. These subscribers were lucky; they were warned well before the change and given ample time to backup their music. 

In the event o a hacker attack or a business that quietly goes under overnight, you won’t have that luxury and can lose hundreds of dollars, if not far more, invested in your cloud stored music.

Home NAS Solutions Work

When you have a network attached storage device in your home, you can backup all of your music, your family’s music, and anyone else. Your music will be there today, tomorrow, or years from now since your NAS doesn’t rely on a service other than electricity. 

Your files won’t just vanish and you have the ability to backup your entire music collection for years to come. Just one investment for total media backup – a smart solution for all homes.