Reducing my reliance on cloud storage

[willhub]

Apologies if this isn't the correct place to post this.

I see I'm paying £11 a month nearly for cloud storage, 1TB for me and 1TB for my GF, but that's all we're paying for.

I do wonder if I'd be better off reducing my reliance on that and having an in-house solution where I can remotely backup my phone pictures and also perhaps store data for the PC for quick access?

I've got 900Mbit upload/download which I presume would be sufficient for smooth access remotely?

I'm just unsure about what sort of cost and what sort of hardware would be required?

Cheers.

 

[Robert T.]

Off-topic, but self-roast coming:
My first instinct was to ask following:
"Immediate First question would be - how I.T. shy or brave you are.. in other words do you mind managing some remote access software in-house?"
Then I saw you have 25k posts in here and laughed my ass off..
Apologies

 

[doodah]

In a similar boat and becoming acutely aware I don't have any backup for my camera pictures. I've just bought a Ugreen NAS which will act as our own cloud storage and local backup. I'm then pulling the 7200 RPM HDD from my HTPC (too loud for this use) and converting to an external which can act as an offsite backup. And finally, I'll backup the NAS to a cloud solution like Backblaze.

Your Internet speed should be fine. You could buy something like an HP N54L (secondhand = <£30) and bung a few HDDs in there for your own cloud storage and local back up. But others will say you should have at least one other offsite solution if you need back up as well.

I'm not sure of software and OS solutions outside of Ugreen and Synology for things like cloud storage and automatically backing up phone photos etc. Am sure there are options but the likes of these two companies (particularly Synology) offer great software. It's just that Synology skimp out on hardware and are expensive and Ugreen offer great hardware but are still catching up with software (my DX4800+ cost ~£450 without HDDs).

 

[b0rn2sk8]

For the amount you’ll need to spend, I’d just stick with cloud storage for the relatively small amount of space you require.

 

[d_brennen]

For the amount you’ll need to spend, I’d just stick with cloud storage for the relatively small amount of space you require.

Was going to post this pretty much. 2TB of someone else's problem isn't really worth the outlay imo, unless privacy is a concern

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Was going to post this pretty much. 2TB of someone else's problem isn't really worth the outlay imo, unless privacy is a concern

I posted the above as someone with a NAS.

I should also say that I still pay for cloud storage for critical things. A NAS at home is no good if your house burns down or you get burgled, the chances are your phone is going with it.

3 copies, 2+ physical locations.

I’ve actually got 2 different cloud storage providers so the data is in 3 physical locations.

I assume you have a family plan so your storage is pooled across accounts rather than two separate subscriptions?

 

[CaptainCrash]

Apologies if this isn't the correct place to post this.

I see I'm paying £11 a month nearly for cloud storage, 1TB for me and 1TB for my GF, but that's all we're paying for.

I do wonder if I'd be better off reducing my reliance on that and having an in-house solution where I can remotely backup my phone pictures and also perhaps store data for the PC for quick access?

I've got 900Mbit upload/download which I presume would be sufficient for smooth access remotely?

I'm just unsure about what sort of cost and what sort of hardware would be required?

Cheers

Unless you need vast amounts of storage space, eg a media server, or you have another particular reason for preferring a self-managed solution, it's very hard to make a case for a NAS over MS Office 365 Family, which gives you 6 x 1TB OneDrive storage for around £5/month if you jump on one of the deals which come up regularly. You'd probably be spending that just keeping a NAS powered up, and that's before you even factor in the purchase cost of the hardware.

 

[Avalon]

If the goal is to save money, stop. You are likely to end up pay more in power per month than you currently do in subscriptions, and that's before you throw hundreds at hardware and potentially software/licenses along with your time initially and on an ongoing basis to manage and maintain it. What you have now likely offers you multiple backups/versioning hosted across multiple servers in multiple data centers with resilient power/connectivity and staff employed to keep it going 24/7/365 and security. I'm all for people self hosting, I literally have half a rack at home and the power bill to prove it, but in this case with your stated usage, it makes little sense unless you already have the hardware and experience, at which point you probably wouldn't be asking the question.

*HOWEVER* if you want to learn new skills, and have expanded uses in mind going forward, then self hosting can be a great way to go vs paid subscriptions, but you need to plan ahead and beware of the costs/pitfalls. It's possible to build a small and inexpensive server at home with reasonable running costs, run all sorts of HA/automation stuff on it, but be warned, when (not if) something breaks or fails, you're in the firing line and once you actually understand what that means, £11/m isn't much to pay not to be that person.

If you want to save money, find something else.

 

[willhub]

So after this post I think the cloud storage price I appreciate more, however perhaps a NAS or something would be worth while just for quick access storage for computers in my network, games etc.. but when I share it from my PC the speeds are horrendous.

 

[jigger]

If the goal is to save money, stop. You are likely to end up pay more in power per month than you currently do in subscriptions, and that's before you throw hundreds at hardware and potentially software/licenses along with your time initially and on an ongoing basis to manage and maintain it. What you have now likely offers you multiple backups/versioning hosted across multiple servers in multiple data centers with resilient power/connectivity and staff employed to keep it going 24/7/365 and security. I'm all for people self hosting, I literally have half a rack at home and the power bill to prove it, but in this case with your stated usage, it makes little sense unless you already have the hardware and experience, at which point you probably wouldn't be asking the question.

*HOWEVER* if you want to learn new skills, and have expanded uses in mind going forward, then self hosting can be a great way to go vs paid subscriptions, but you need to plan ahead and beware of the costs/pitfalls. It's possible to build a small and inexpensive server at home with reasonable running costs, run all sorts of HA/automation stuff on it, but be warned, when (not if) something breaks or fails, you're in the firing line and once you actually understand what that means, £11/m isn't much to pay not to be that person.

If you want to save money, find something else.

The power side is doable. £11 would be 30-40 kWh per month or circa 50-60~ watts. The issue would be hardware cost and management.

 

[Avalon]

The power side is doable. £11 would be 30-40 kWh per month or circa 50-60~ watts. The issue would be hardware cost and management.

Feels like you missed the point. How much of a power envelope £11/m buys you is largely irrelevant, anyone can spec a box that will do op’s required workload in 5-6w, but it’s not in any way comparable in terms of resilience or potentially speed to what op’s £11/m is currently providing.

So after this post I think the cloud storage price I appreciate more, however perhaps a NAS or something would be worth while just for quick access storage for computers in my network, games etc.. but when I share it from my PC the speeds are horrendous.

Potentially, but I would suggest you start by diagnosing why sharing from your PC is slow first. Obviously pulling data remotely depends on your servers connection to the router, the upload speed of your connection, the connection between your ISP and wherever the remote device is and the same on the remote side to the client.

 

[HEADRAT]

All my 'critical' stuff is in the Cloud, I have a NAS with RAID but that doesn't help if somebody breaks into my house and steals my NAS (+ flood, fire, pestilence, extended powerloss)

Pretty sure you cam build a NAS around a Raspberry PI, resources required for a NAS is quite low, from a 5 second Google search:

Radxa's SATA HAT makes compact Pi 5 NAS | Jeff Geerling

www.jeffgeerling.com

 

[Avalon]

All my 'critical' stuff is in the Cloud, I have a NAS with RAID but that doesn't help if somebody breaks into my house and steals my NAS (+ flood, fire, pestilence, extended powerloss)

Pretty sure you cam build a NAS around a Raspberry PI, resources required for a NAS is quite low, from a 5 second Google search:

Radxa's SATA HAT makes compact Pi 5 NAS | Jeff Geerling

www.jeffgeerling.com

As with most things Pi, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Pi's stopped being efficient and inexpensive - relative to other options - in many cases a long time ago.

 

[koolpc]

Tempted to go for Google cloud myself at the mo......dont need more than 1tb.... Max 2tb...

 

[whiskycycle]

As with most things Pi, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Pi's stopped being efficient and inexpensive - relative to other options - in many cases a long time ago.

Wish I’d nabbed another N100 box instead of a Pi5… way more useful and adaptable, and the N100 would have worked out cheaper in the end.

 

[HEADRAT]

My example of a PI was not supposed to be a carte blanche recommendation (as indicated by saying I’d Googled it for 5 seconds), more an example that cheap/local alternatives to Cloud Storage were available. Also as per my personal example I would see any ‘safe’ backup of critical info should include Cloud.

 

[whiskycycle]

My example of a PI was not supposed to be a carte blanche recommendation (as indicated by saying I’d Googled it for 5 seconds), more an example that cheap/local alternatives to Cloud Storage were available. Also as per my personal example I would see any ‘safe’ backup of critical info should include Cloud.

Running local <> cloud + backup that cloud and local to another remote.

My own Pi annoyance was I thought about doing something with the 5, then I’ve bought Argon case, SSD and HAT etc then realised I’m never gonna use it much… can’t whack spare UnRAiD licence on it.

It’s a browser machine on the back of a monitor now… booted to update every at often, but otherwise off.

 

[Avalon]

Wish I’d nabbed another N100 box instead of a Pi5… way more useful and adaptable, and the N100 would have worked out cheaper in the end.

Pi's still have a place in some usage scenarios, but honestly with the advent of cheap and widely available ex business uSFF hardware with conventional CPU/iGPU performance and expansion, along with the glut of cheap mini PC's, the prospect of buying, casing, powering and adding addons to make a Pi do a similar job in a half arsed manner lost it's appeal some years ago. I bought a 9th gen HP Prodesk 400 G5 mini with i5 9500, 8GB, 256GB NVMe and win 10 license for under £100 in 2023, the same year the Pi5 soft launched but you couldn't buy one. Oh, and a Pi5 8GB with 32GB SD card starter kit is £111 today.

My example of a PI was not supposed to be a carte blanche recommendation (as indicated by saying I’d Googled it for 5 seconds), more an example that cheap/local alternatives to Cloud Storage were available. Also as per my personal example I would see any ‘safe’ backup of critical info should include Cloud.

That's the whole point, your solution was neither cheap nor really appropriate when more capable solutions exist, for less money, that are far more expandable going forward, and simply better built/less janky. A Pi5 8GB is north of £70, a hat another 45, add a PSU and you're already past what a complete working N100 set-up costs with no real advantage to the Pi and around what an N100 based NAS board with 4x SATA would cost and have better expansion/actual NAS/server OS options. Again, just because you can shoehorn a Pi into a role, doesn't mean you should, and in this case you probably shouldn't.

 

[HEADRAT]

Again, just because you can shoehorn a Pi into a role, doesn't mean you should, and in this case you probably shouldn't.

OK my disclaimer of 'from a 5 second Google search' obviously wasn't enough (note to self, must try harder)

That's the whole point, your solution was neither cheap nor really appropriate

I said a PI was cheap/local, compared to other NAS solutions this is true, say if you compare it to a Synology NAS. I didn't say it was the 'cheapest' or 'most capable', your reading stuff into my post that wasn't there. I have absolutely no problem with you coming in with better solutions, you're obviously super knowledgeable in this area, I'd just ask you not to jump on my post claiming I said something I didn't say especially when I 'disclaimered' it

 

[joey1211]

Pi's still have a place in some usage scenarios, but honestly with the advent of cheap and widely available ex business uSFF hardware with conventional CPU/iGPU performance and expansion, along with the glut of cheap mini PC's, the prospect of buying, casing, powering and adding addons to make a Pi do a similar job in a half arsed manner lost it's appeal some years ago. I bought a 9th gen HP Prodesk 400 G5 mini with i5 9500, 8GB, 256GB NVMe and win 10 license for under £100 in 2023, the same year the Pi5 soft launched but you couldn't buy one. Oh, and a Pi5 8GB with 32GB SD card starter kit is £111 today.

Do you use an external caddy for extra storage?