Let’s discuss cloud storage solutions!
- What’s your go to solution thah you recommend to others and why?
- What unique features does your solution have?
- Which is best for security?
- Which is best value for buck?
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I swear at One drive all the time, like why the fuck are you preinstalled on my OS and why can’t I remove you?
I understand that hating on OneDrive is popular here, but 1) you can remove it using the registry editor, and 2) if you don’t log in and tell it to sync, it doesn’t do anything in the background.
Because editing the registry is super normal to uninstall apps…
Fair enough , but on the other hand; I don’t want to bother doing things I shouldn’t have to do.
It shouldn’t be normal that I need to debloat a product I have paid for. Neither that I have to deselect what I don’t want to share with Microsoft.
Sure I can do most of that in the registry, but I shouldn’t have to.
It’s far easier to uninstall the toy OS it comes with and install a real os
I’m quite happy with Backblaze B2 for my backup storage. I think I pay like $3/mo for a few hundred gigabytes though they did recently change their pricing. Iirc it wasn’t going to affect me much. On top of their security settings like encryption and deletion locks, I use local encrypted backup tools like restic that make it dead simple to worry less.
Great choice , I also use Backblaze as my backup place great service.
My synology NAS at home
How are you handling off site backup? I use Backblaze, but my first line of backup is a Synology at a family members house.
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you’re paying for the software
Heaven forbid
I think it’s worth it in this case. Synology platform (as you must know) is far more than a storage solution and basically runs my entire home.
Can I get free versions of all of the tools included in DiskStation? Of course. Will I? Heck no
Obviously, it’s just kinda funny how many weirdos will hear about the company and immediately say “yeah well I can do it myself for cheaper!” and I’m like “ok cool have fun spending hours on that while I play video games”
Yeah have really considered this recently. Would prefer it for the sake of total control.
If you can selfhost - Nextcloud, if not - ProtonDrive
Even if you selfhost, having a cloud provider can still be a good option to maintain 3-2-1 without hosting a second server offsite (at parents or friends etc).
I backup to backblaze b2
Not “a good option” but a necessary one of the data has any value to you. I’ve got loads of personal data on mine, and stuff I can’t just redownload. So I encrypt and shop to b2 and replicate snapshots to an external disk.
- Large files I don’t care if I lose (perhaps videos of popular things): NAS. Hard drives are cheap, not worry about losing it, I can download it again if needed
- Storage with frequent access and security compliance: Wasabi. $6.99 per TB per month, free egress. Compatible with S3. SOC2 and PCI compliance. I use this for work as a backup to S3 for website images.
- Files I need to store cheaply, redundantly, and access often: Backblaze B2. $6 per TB per month for storage. You can download 3x the amount of storage you have per month for free, or connect Backblaze to a CDN partner like Cloudflare for free egress through them. It’s also AWS S3 compatible, so you can just the AWS SDK/CLI or tools that work with AWS S3. I use this for hosting image files for my Mastodon server. Note that Backblaze B2 also has SOC2 compliance and US region available now, so it should be as secure as Wasabi at slightly lower cost if you don’t have a ton of egress.
- Cheap long term backup storage: AWS S3 Glacier. $0.0036 per GB per month (so $3.6 per TB). Upload your files to S3, and add a lifecycle rule to migrate them to glacier. Glacier is cold storage, extremely cheap and great for a redundant backup. I use this for backing up photos and other files I’m going to want to store forever.
For anything I’m hosting, multiple backups. Home NAS is usually the first backup, followed by cloud storage. So if I need something now, I can get it from my NAS. If there’s a problem with my NAS, I can get it from cloud (though with a delay for Glacier)
Not sure if it’s something I’d swear to, but out of everything I’ve tried, I still think
is the best for me.
It’s not perfect - I have my frustrations about it - but it’s the most convenient and reliable service I’ve had especially for backing up local files and folders.
My job is in a hybrid setup so I have my work files in a portable SSD. I have some folders there that automatically back up to the cloud whenever I plug my SSD to my laptop at home. I also have folders in my laptop and hard drive that are backed up.
Backup (upload and download) stops when I shut down my PC, and automatically resumes on boot. And the upload and download speeds are fantastic.
The feature I love the most is Rewind. Basically you can go to any day and time within the past month and find all the files your cloud drive has on that day. You can then restore or download those files or folders.
This thing saved my dumb ass several times recently, when some important folders disappeared from my local storage. I went a day and time I thought I had the most recent version of the files and downloaded them back. And poof, problem gone.
Their
is good, too. I’m on the monthly plan for 2Tb storage because that’s the most reasonable for my needs. Compared to others I’ve tried, their pricing is the best for the storage capacity and features.
In terms of security, I think they have encryption features but for an additional cost. Haven’t had security issues for my use case without it.
I’d warn you about their lifetime plans tho. I haven’t tried it but I’ve read several bad reviews in their subreddit. Apparently pCloud can and will delete files or revoke your membership if you have pirated materials uploaded to a lifetime account. You can look up the pCloud sub for more good and bad user feedback.
I hope this helps!
Thanks for the insight! ✨
I’ve been really impressed by pcloud too. I opted for the lifetime subscription through a black Friday deal - for triple replicated redundancy it’s an absolute steal.
I don’t swear by any one service for anything. Currently I use OneDrive because it’s cheap and comes with what amounts to free MS Office forever. Once that changes or my needs do, I’ll switch instantly to the best thing at that time. Brand loyalty is for suckers.
I use rsync.net, because they offer real cloud storage, not just an service+app to push and pull files.
You connect by Unix-native SSH, so you can mount this and use just like if you had a real disk in your computer. I even have some programs installed on it.
Technically it is possible to do it with services like Google Drive or Mega, but they require to use hacky bridges and are not as flexible.
I was not aware of this! Thanks for the insights 💪
I use my own NAS at my homelab. Prior i liked nextcloud but i had regularly new problems with it and switched to just my own NAS and syncing with syncthing. My NaS gets backupped nightly onto a big backup-drive which gets backuped too. Then encrypted and stored another backup on degoo (sucks ass but i have a lifetime 3tb-acc so…).
So when me or my SO snap a pictures, it’s instantly at home (and locally deleted) and a day later supersafe. Best circumvention of SDcard-lack in stupid “modern” phones.
Not bad, quite like this! also had a few issues with nextcloud previously, but that is a long time ago, have heard it has improved quite a bit since.
Maybe. I thought about retrying it. But it was really annoying last time. Every other update and something stopped working. Wifey pissed coz pictures not syncing and whatnot. I ended up just killing it. Maintenance should not be that high, it’s private, that’s not a job 😁
The secret to running your own nextcloud is: Don’t install the latest major version.
Yeah but… It’s an open wound in a sensitive local setup. Shouldn’t one apply the latest stitches to be safe? I fear zero-days. But why risk having three-months-ago-days?
But ok, considering there aren’t many alternatives…
Last three major versions receive security patches, so you do install updates, but you don’t update to the latest major, there’s a difference.
I’d love to have a setup like this someday. Hard drives are so cheap nowadays that it’s probably stupid not to.
Also, I greatly appreciate your username.
Oh it’s pretty cheap. Relatively. That particular server is an i5/32gb normal desktop. Hdds are very cheap. Got 2 6tb for main backup and accumulate everything to #1 over the day, and a CC of 1 to 2.
Os is win2019 and backup Software is macrium reflect (simple, reliable, fast and with incremental backups and if you need something restored you click on the date and it will be a drive. Choose your stuff, restore, eject drive, done. Love it)
Nothing complex or expensive. And if It was only for that it could’ve been a cheap 100 buck used desktop.
And yes. There’s totally no reason not to backup to hdds. I haven’t used a cd/bluray for 2 decades now. As long as u backup your backup (hdds just suddenly die…) it’s fine for home-use.
Oh thanks. Guess noone would know the reference anyway 😉
I can only speak to price and compatibility as key values, but I’ve been endeared to OneDrive, specifically from the Office365 family plan.
For about $100 a year (USD), you’re given six Office365 subscriptions that includes 1TB of storage each. A good value even if you don’t care about the office suite itself.
As a bonus OneDrive is supported on iOS and Android for photo backup. I use that to protect some family members’ phones and keep an extra account as added storage for myself.
It’s also handy for streaming and sharing your media: Doesn’t require account registration and has good download rates.
OneDrive signs itself out, crashes, backs up blank files, and doesn’t reliably work on mobile devices, otherwise I’d agree with you. But working for an MSP with clients using one drive and dealing with all the problems it has, I don’t trust it with my sensitive data, but I am glad to hear someone out there actually endorsing it. Because in my experience its a flaming pile of shit.
Yea, at my job its an uphill battle with automating OneDrive’s maintenance and security. There are consistently new failure types and event IDs that I have to update the event viewer client reports almost as often as I run the audit.
But for personal use, particularly since I’m already so familiar with the service, I can’t say no at that price.
If it works for you then that’s great. Personally I don’t touch either Microsoft or Google anymore for privacy reasons.
1TB is ok for documents, but if you deal with photos and videos it goes very quick.
Backblaze
I also have my 160tb home server for anything not vital.
Another Backblaze user here. I use rclone to sync with my TrueNAS core server.
Self-hosted nextcloud with on local NAS with a minimum of 2 drives in raid 1 configuration and Twingate to access it. I has the unique feature of not costing me a monthly subscription other than my energy bill. It’s as secure as I can make it and use Twingate on my devices to access it and sync. Not sure if it’s good value because it takes work to maintain etc, but that’s a win in my book. Would only recommend to people who are into doing stuff like this. Everything else I recommend one drive just because of it’s availability, easy of use and compatibility with pretty much any device.
Proton Drive is what I use. The mobile (Android) app is a little buggy but it gets the job done.
Just wish they prioritised Linux more… 🙃
Self hosted raid arrays
Screw raid. ZFS. Superior in many ways, probably only drawback is ram consumption.
