Ten Ways NAS Hardware Is Getting Enshitified and Losing User Control
Ten Ways NAS Is Getting Enshitified
I examine how the Network Attached Storage market is shifting from modularity to restrictive design patterns. Manufacturers are increasingly soldering LPDDR RAM, limiting network speeds to 1GbE, and enforcing drive lock-in policies. These cost-cutting measures, combined with recycled hardware generations and PCIe lane throttling, are eroding user control and inflating the total cost of ownership for local storage.
What was long considered an industry defined by modularity, local ownership, and hardware longevity is increasingly adopting the restrictive design patterns common in mobile and walled-garden tech ecosystems.