[therealmarv]

Buy a large SSD like 2-8TB (just avoid the Samsung 860 QVO 4TB, it sucks more power during write than USB A standard allows) and buy a nice case like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D2BHVBD and mount it there. Work from the external SSD, it's fast enough in my opinion. Use the cloud only for backup purposes whenever the drive is attached (I use Insync for that but this is Google Drive centric).

[anonsivalley652]

A Mac Mini expanded with two SSDs with syncthing is superior to sneakernet because it provides replication. And, if you really want to, add a 14 TiB HC520 placed in an external USB 3 case.

Add an rsync server to get backup. Forget the cloud, most solutions are overpriced and insecure. Use TarSnap if you have absolute have to backup reasonable quantities of critical data and call it a day.