You could just purchase a laptop with a large hard drive. That's what myself and the bulk of my associates did. Relying on cloud based editing/storage is unpredictable. If you are in and will stay within an urban area it should be fine, but if you're working somewhere remote well, things might be as stable.
I agree; I personally like internal storage as it's fairly stable and fast. Though obviously use backups on external storage (either hard drives, cloud, etc.). If you're going to stay in one place, a desktop Mac & external drives can work. If you travel often, an external hard drive with a laptop tends to get cumbersome.
I've never setup/used a SAN, so I can't give advice on which are good/bad. My only fear with SAN, cloud storage, and other networked storage is if you're traveling, the internet can be spotty. Could be poor wireless service, or just plain slow. That in conjunction with large files associated with Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., could cause serious issues. But your mileage may vary. Personally, I'm old school directly attached storage. Direct, wired connections I find tend to be more reliable & faster.