Creating Home Based Private Cloud for Media & Personal Files

corepda on 21/01/2020 - 14:10

Hi Guys,
My one drive premium subscription is coming to an end. I have used Dropbox in the past but think it is too expensive for my needs. I have about 800gb type of data that I would like to acccess remotely from all my devices. I want to know if there is anyway you guys have been doing this? I have heard NAS but I am not sure if there is a cheaper option to do that. I have a NUC which has a Celeron and Windows 10 running on it. I was wondering if there is anyway I can attach my external SSD to my NUC and then connect it to my home Wi-fi and access my Media, Personal files(excel, word, pdf's) from remote location securely?

Appreciate if people can share their experience on how to build such a machine using NUC or if there is another option?

Thanks

Computing Cloud Storage

Comments

  • CC123 on 21/01/2020 - 14:22

    You could probably just attach all your SSDs to your NUC and share them to your network using Windows File Sharing & use TeamViewer VPN to access them remotely.
    1. Install Teamviewer on the NUC (has a built-in VPN server/client function)
    2. Install Teamviewer on your other remote PC and connect
    3. Access shares!

    TW VPN Info

    • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 14:53
      +1

      Thanks mate. This is definitely sounding simpler but I have used Teamviewer and it has not been very stable. Whats your experience?

      • destination on 21/01/2020 - 16:24

        From last few years I been using ScreenConnect to connect my home computer from outside. ScreenConnect is easy to use and never give any issues.

      • CC123 on 21/01/2020 - 17:43

        Haven't had any major issues with Teamviewer, mainly use it for WOL and remote control.
        Just tested it using 4G and my home internet, had no issues with accessing or mapping drives from PC 1 to PC 2 when accessed from a different internet connection.
        Probably the safest and easiest way.

      • p1 ama on 21/01/2020 - 19:08
        +1

        Teamviewer is fine for remote access, but it's not really for what you're trying to do.

  • Ryanek on 21/01/2020 - 14:28

    You could just buy a Synology NAS for a quick easy way to get started.
    If you want to use your own hardware you can install software like FreeNAS

  • p1 ama on 21/01/2020 - 14:29
    +5

    I don't like to preach (so I won't keep repeating this), but with 800GB of data, I think you need to be really thinking about your data management strategies unless they're just media files or easily replaceable things that you really don't care about losing.

    I would suggest building yourself a NAS. You can easily build one that can run FreeNAS for ~$400 or so if you've already got the drives. Let me know if you're interested and I'll do a parts list for you.

    From there, if you want to access remotely, you really have 3 options:

    1) You can open your NAS to the internet. I wouldn't recommend this because it's particularly unsafe.

    2) You can tunnel into your private network with a VPN. This requires some know-how to setup, but you can easily run a VPN in a jail in FreeNAS which makes it pretty convenient.

    3) You can install a solution such as Nextcloud or Owncloud which provides a "Dropbox-like" solution to accessing your files. Given that it's free, there's a bit of work involved in getting it running. If you don't have much experience with networking, it might take you a day or so, but once it works it works really well.

    If you want to just plug your external drive into a NUC and access it remotely, then you can just set up a VPN server on your network and a VPN client on the computers where you want to access your files and you should be good to go.

    • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 14:47

      Thanks mate for that comprehensive recom.

      I thought FreeNAS is free of charge, lol. I have 2TB drive from Seagate. Can I not connect it with my NUC and use Linux Media Server or Own Cloud and create a user profile to access the content remotely?

      • p1 ama on 21/01/2020 - 17:21

        I thought FreeNAS is free of charge, lol.

        The software is free. Don't run FreeNAS on a Celeron NUC, it's really not what it was designed for.

        I have 2TB drive from Seagate. Can I not connect it with my NUC and use Linux Media Server or Own Cloud and create a user profile to access the content remotely?

        Sure, if all you care about is being able to access your files remotely. You'll still need to set up a VPN server to tunnel into your private network from outside. Whether a Celeron NUC can operate as both a file server and also a VPN, I personally don't know.

        Like others have said, for the service that they're providing OneDrive/Dropbox/GDrive are all very fairly priced. They have the infrastructure that you would have to set up if you want a storage service that is somewhat comparable. Unless you have other reasons to be setting up your own system, usually it doesn't make sense from a cost perspective.

  • Porker on 21/01/2020 - 14:31
    +1

    What's your home internet like though?

    I invested heaps into my NAS synology setup, but the bottleneck is my internet (when away from home). I'm unfortunately still chugging along with ADSL2 and upload is literally 100kb/s on the best of days such that accessing my files and info away from home is a pain.

    • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 14:44

      My internet is bit above average. I live in an apartment so not a big space.

  • RockyRaccoon on 21/01/2020 - 14:32

    Seagate personal cloud see review here to see if that suits you.

    https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/seagate-personal-cloud-3tb

  • HeXo on 21/01/2020 - 14:37

    LinusTechTips made a video about Synology cloud NAS' a few weeks ago.

    Mind you, it was a paid promotional video, but it looked pretty great for your use case - accessing files remotely.

    May be a bit out of your price point, but a good look into the technology.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxBmxj5mP0

  • Gronk on 21/01/2020 - 14:49
    +1

    Have you looked at Owncloud / Nextcloud?

    • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 14:50

      I am starting to Gronk. It definitely seems a lot easier than anything else at this stage but I am just starting the journey.

  • boomramada on 21/01/2020 - 14:52
    +2

    Cheapest option, get a pi zero, attached a 1TB drive, network shared it.
    Then once a X weeks back it up and keep it in a remote location. (Worst case you lose one X weeks worth of data), Assuming that shared data is not linux isos.

    Expensive Option, NAS.

    • bazingaa on 21/01/2020 - 19:40
      +1

      At least 2 drives with RAID 1, if not bye bye to data. from my experience with old drives :(

  • Typical16-bitEnjoyer on 21/01/2020 - 15:05

    Do you have a backup solution currently?

    What type of media? Are you trying to stream movies?

    No offence but it sounds like you don't have any experience in this area. Honestly, you might be better use getting a O365 \ Google drive subscription. You'll combine cloud access and backup all in one.

    • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 15:12

      Yes i am a rookie in this but I am willing to learn Zeggie. If it is better than most of the cloud solutions and let you work with your own hardware why not one should learn it.

      Happy to know more and thats why we have this community to share and care.

      • Typical16-bitEnjoyer on 21/01/2020 - 15:16
        +1

        No probs. If you have the time to spare then I encourage you to do so. Just make sure everything is backed up securely first.

        None of the suggestions above are better than O365/Google as they lack encryption (unless you add this through other means), no offsite backup, limited by your home internet connection and require time and patience to get running and keep running.

        If none of the above phases you then I recommend NextCloud.

        • corepda on 21/01/2020 - 15:25

          I like nextcloud. Do you have this connected with the local HDD/SDD at home? Can you please flick a good tut to set this up from ground zero? Ta

          • Typical16-bitEnjoyer on 21/01/2020 - 15:36

            @corepda: I don't run it. I ran OwnCloud a while ago but switched back to O365 as it requires absolutely no effort on my behalf :)

  • [Deactivated] on 21/01/2020 - 16:56

    I'd go anydesk.com over teamviewer.

    pcloud.com is a more affordable dropbox alternative.

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