Hey everyone,

Thanks for reading! I looked on the sidebar and in the FAQ and I was unable to find anything -- if I overlooked it please let me know and I will be glad to delete!

Scrolling through I see a lot of you just storing different types of media, downloads, etc which is great. I see a lot of different set ups and, frankly, it is a bit overwhelming to comprehend so I may be missing the big picture.

Here are a few questions:

• What are the benefits of having hardware where for, what I am sure is a much lower price, you can just store it in the cloud? I would assume speed, but I am sure there are other reasons as well.
• What sort of data do you store? What do others store? I can't fathom having require TBs upon TBs of space (Is the jump to PB feasible now for the daily consumer -- even for PC power users?), but that is what is alluring me to this subreddit and culture.
• I have had this idea for several years now of having a single media station in my house that I can stream content from (preferably without the need for a hardwire connection or if I do, just via USB). Would this be possible? I put torrents (legally downloaded, ofcourse) on a flash drive and put it in my TV and it works, but would it be possible with TBs of information from a single place?
• What if your HDs shit the bed? Is there any form of backup or contingency?
• What type of configurations are there? Are any better for certain situations? What are those situations?
• Tell me something interesting about this culture.

I'm not looking or expecting someone to go down each of the items in the list, but these are just general questions that I have that may lead to other questions. I've seen this subreddit for years and have never thought to reach out and ask, but I feel myself oddly attracted to it.

Thanks for any meaningful response!