Cloud storage is better, faster, and more affordable per gigabyte than ever before. But it’s not the best way to go for everything, nor can it completely replace local storage and backups. In fact, cloud storage can be drastically inferior to local storage, placing sensitive data in real danger of oversight, theft, and loss.
Storing your data locally on a physical drive that you can touch with your hands and manage on premises can be a great way to avoid the pitfalls of remote data storage. Here are several key ways in which local storage trumps cloud storage and remains relevant in 2025.
Speed and availability
One of the main reasons for backing up important data is that it can be readily recovered in the event of an outage, data breach, ransomware, or loss. However, while cloud backups are convenient for day-to-day stuff like individual files or folders, they’re dreadfully slow when it comes to restoring large swaths of data after a catastrophic loss.
Downloading several terabytes of data from a cloud provider can take hours or even days, depending on the speed of your connection. A local drive, on the other hand, can transfer data way faster and gives you more options on how to actually access that data — over your network, with a USB cable, or even installing directly into your PC.
Think about it. Why do cloud backup companies like BackBlaze offer restore-by-mail programs, where they ship out a hard drive or flash drive with your data on it, which you can then return for a refund? It’s just plain faster and more secure than going over the internet.
Backblaze
Local storage also means your data is always available. Even if you have an ultra-fast internet connection, there’s nothing you can do if you experience an internet outage, nor can you do anything if your cloud provider goes down for any reason. Services may promise 99.9 percent uptime, but that 0.1 percent is always there — and according to Murphy’s law, it’ll go down when you most need it.
In July 2024, the infamous CrowdStrike disaster took down Windows computers across the world, rendering many sites and services inoperable for extended periods. Similarly, outages at AWS, Azure, Cloudflare, Google, et al. have killed entire chunks of the internet until issues could be addressed.
And let’s not forget that cloud services can go down permanently and you could lose all your data overnight. Is it likely? Maybe not, especially with giants like Google and Microsoft. They’ll probably give you some kind of heads up… but even so, scrambling to clone all your data before some arbitrary deadline could be a pain. Not so if you maintain local backups, at least of your most important files and folders.
Cloud backups are here to stay, I’m not arguing that. Cloud backups are good to have — as one of several options. Local backups are still important because you never know when cloud backups won’t be there for you. The only way to guarantee your data is available when you need it? Store it locally on premises.
Security and compliance
If you’re looking after client data, or if you have sensitive personal information that you want to keep away from prying eyes, then storing your data locally gives you more control and privacy. You’ll still be subject to local and national laws, but you won’t have to worry about other laws that might apply overseas and in other territories.
If you’re based in the US, storing data with a cloud provider in Europe comes with GDPR compliance requirements — and penalties for non-compliance. Cloud providers elsewhere are beholden to the laws of their own countries. That means government intervention can compel those companies to hand over your data.
Speaking about small Australian businesses in 2021, David Tudehope, CEO of Macquarie Technology Group, highlighted this issue in a chat with ABC: “[If] they keep their data offshore, even if it wasn’t a conscious choice, that data is now subject to the foreign laws of that country. … It’s subject to a foreign regulator, it’s subject to foreign courts, none of which they realized when they clicked the ‘I accept’ button.”
Data breaches
One of the best ways to avoid being hacked by malicious attackers is… to avoid presenting yourself as a target. While cloud providers do put a lot of effort into security for the data they oversee, the fact that they store so much data makes them huge targets for cybercriminals.
In 2022, cloud-based password manager company LastPass suffered a major security breach when a compromised developer account led to the theft of users’ password vaults full of incredibly sensitive information. On top of putting customer data at risk, the ripples kept going out — and in December 2024, it was reported that cryptocurrency was still being stolen from customers who had their LastPass accounts hacked.
In 2024, cloud-based data storage company Snowflake suffered a major breach when hackers were able to compromise the data of more than 100 customer accounts, including TicketMaster and AT&T. They stole banking information, medical data, and customer call records from millions of customers of those companies, too.
While these are isolated incidents, they aren’t unique. Even the most hardened cloud storage companies suffer data breaches, and you can’t fully protect your data just by ensuring you have a strong password and multi-factor authentication enabled on your account.
If that data is stored on a server in your office or your home, you retain complete control of its security. With the right know-how, you can guarantee it’s locked down more than any major cloud provider could, and you’re less of a target by keeping your data in a solitary location, without the global access that cloud providers offer.
Local storage still matters in 2025
Cloud storage has undoubtedly revolutionized the way we all interact with and think about data. It offers convenience, scalability, and redundancy in ways that are tough to replicate locally. But it’s not perfect. Cloud storage introduces a range of risks and concerns that can overshadow the benefits for some.
By maintaining local backups instead of (or in conjunction with) cloud backups, you can ensure that your data (or your clients’ data) is always available, with full control over its security and compliance, while mitigating the risks of cloud outages and data breaches.
Whether it’s a managed server, a NAS drive, or a portable SSD you keep in a drawer, local storage remains an important way to maintain swift and secure access to important data in 2025. In need of more local storage? Get started with our top picks for best external drives!
Further reading: Why HDDs are still far from obsolete
Author: Jon Martindale, Contributor, PCWorld
Jon Martindale is a voracious writer and technology fanboy who loves nothing more than digging into the specs of the latest graphics cards, processors, and displays. He's passionate about everything PC, but also enjoys experimenting with AIs, and covering new standing desks that can help avoid his worst posture habits.