Am I just dumb? Why would one connect a drive to a NAS, move files around, then connect that drive to another machine? Why wouldn’t you just access the NAS from… idk… the network?

not just assume anything’s saved. Verify it’s saved.

Same goes for your backup backup backup, btw…

This.

I learned that back in the days of “this video is not available in your country because Sony/BMG/GEMA/whoever said so.”