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A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

blog.golivecosmos.com

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Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#101

Post by lukevp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #98
datadrivenangel wrote: post #89

Security and cost tend to be less of a win locally than you might expect. I'm a huge advocate for going local and owning your stuff, but it depends on circumstances. 2 TB from dropbox is $120 per year. A 2 bay Synology is $448. Brand name 2TB harddrives are ~$50, so all in you're looking at $550 for a reasonably nice home NAS. That will probably use around ~20 watts on average, or 1 kwh per 2 days, working out to 175…

I setup storage and replication for my father between Florida (primary) and a midwest state (secondary) using two Synology NAS devices. 30TB (VMs and install images because he likes to tinker with tech being retired, as well as lifelong personal data) corpus he was carrying with him on external drives, ~50TB usable after accounting for RAID whatnot. To store this in Backblaze B2 was going to be $180/month ($6/TB). He…

Synology is mostly web based configuration or ssh… maybe install Tailscale so you can remote admin it easily?

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#102

Post by toomuchtodo »

lukevp wrote: post #101
toomuchtodo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I setup storage and replication for my father between Florida (primary) and a midwest state (secondary) using two Synology NAS devices. 30TB (VMs and install images because he likes to tinker with tech being retired, as well as lifelong personal data) corpus he was carrying with him on external drives, ~50TB usable after accounting for RAID whatnot. To store this in Backblaze B2 was going to be $180/month ($6/TB). He…

Synology is mostly web based configuration or ssh… maybe install Tailscale so you can remote admin it easily?

Indeed, we use Headscale [1] to maintain a Wireguard mesh. Synology NAS devices can act as Wireguard endpoints, but we also pick SMB routers that can do the same. I'm partial to Glinet at the moment (GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) [2]), but the recent HN thread on the UniFi Express [3] has me keeping an eye on it (no Wireguard support I believe).

[1] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale

[2] https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt3000/

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38504027

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#103

Post by lukevp »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #99
mortify wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the home NAS, Assume a 5-6 year lifespan for the drives so in those 10 years you will spend another $100. Of course this assumes you just need storage while a NAS can provide other services allowing you to consolidate calendars, shared note-taking, password managers, etc.

Are the economies of scale really that aggressive here? A feature-rich cloud solution ending up cheaper than self-hosted by around 10% just using napkin math?

No one would spend $450 on a NAS and then put 2 TB drives in it. My NAS was $450 and has 3 18TB drives with another slot not yet used. The drives were $250 each or so on sale. So for $750 + $450 I have an always-on home server that runs my home automation, DNS Adblock, local webservers, media server with hardware transcoding, ip cam to HomeKit adapter, a Nintendo switch homebrew e-shop, a software controller for my Omada network, a Tailscale node to access my home network from anywhere, and many more services, AND it has _36 TB_ of storage with parity so it’s safe from a single drive failure. I replicate everything important to an 18TB external drive on a PC with Backblaze Personal which gives me offsite backups of 18TB+ for $60 a year. Nothing is really competitive with this if you have a lot of data you want to keep (my wife has a lot of video content for her work.)

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#104

Post by vel0city »

cm2187 wrote: post #79
RajT88 wrote: post #16

My local setup - please critique as you like. For NAS, I am running Windows Server 2022 (I have a rational reason for this). It hosts many things. * IIS, for my local browser start pages, I configure with "new tab redirect" plugins * JellyFin - Basically a personal Netflix for all my ripped media * DokuWiki, thumbdrive version - for documenting house stuff * Twonky - Because it's the least-bad DLNA solution I've used…

Do you store stuff on multiple disks? I struggle with windows as a NAS. Windows storage space sucks hard (particularly their RAID5 style parity which has unacceptable performances, but also I had it failing without reporting it, and it doesn't handle parity with column size >8). The native windows software raid is deprecated, and can't handle disks of different sizes. I use stablebit drivepool for a secondary backup…

I've got nearly 30-year-old optical drives that still work fine today. I can plug a 3.5" floppy drive into my Android phone and it still works. Sure, there's a chance in a decade or so SATA ports disappear, but USB adapters still work. Do you really think in 10-15 years it will be hard to find a device that still talks USB?

ZIP drives had a number of mechanical issues (click of death). That's probably the biggest reason why they're challenging to try and use today. But as it stands right now, I can take a CD-ROM drive from the 90s, use a cheap USB adapter, and plug it in to a USB port on a brand-new Linux or Windows or MacOS device without issue.

And even then, so what. In 25 years when I'm an old man I'll need to plug in my last optical drive into my 8 year old computer to read the disks and move that data off into the four dimensional hypercrystal storage mediums we'll all be using, and then I'll go into my cryogenic storage chamber to sleep for another 100 years and then transfer my data to the next media format when I wake.

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#105

Post by teslabox »

cm2187 wrote: post #79
RajT88 wrote: post #16

My local setup - please critique as you like. For NAS, I am running Windows Server 2022 (I have a rational reason for this). It hosts many things. * IIS, for my local browser start pages, I configure with "new tab redirect" plugins * JellyFin - Basically a personal Netflix for all my ripped media * DokuWiki, thumbdrive version - for documenting house stuff * Twonky - Because it's the least-bad DLNA solution I've used…

Do you store stuff on multiple disks? I struggle with windows as a NAS. Windows storage space sucks hard (particularly their RAID5 style parity which has unacceptable performances, but also I had it failing without reporting it, and it doesn't handle parity with column size >8). The native windows software raid is deprecated, and can't handle disks of different sizes. I use stablebit drivepool for a secondary backup…

I have an mdisc drive, and a few mdisc DVDs I haven’t burned yet. Someone on/r/datahorder noticed they don’t sell real mdiscs anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33593967

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#106

Post by lapcat »

salad-tycoon wrote: post #63
deepmauka wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your elegant and versatile setup. A thought for the discs and safety deposit boxes, I live in a rural area and have an account with a credit union that service several labor unions. They’re rooted in the community, profitable, and I don’t see them changing anytime soon. 3”x10” boxes are $20/yr.

To expound on safety deposit boxes since GP was asking for critiques. From what I’ve read they can be prone to accidents, theft, damage and are a big reasons to have them is for showing off. My understanding, which entirely comes from this NYT article, is that banks hate them. Safe Deposit Boxes Aren’t Safe, NYT, 2019: https://archive.is/NfnL6

This risk is a bit overhyped. Things can happen, yes, but it's pretty rare, and if you're doing regular weekly offsite backups to your safe deposit box, you're not going to suddenly discover that it's gone.

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#107

Post by [deleted] »

teslabox wrote: post #105
cm2187 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you store stuff on multiple disks? I struggle with windows as a NAS. Windows storage space sucks hard (particularly their RAID5 style parity which has unacceptable performances, but also I had it failing without reporting it, and it doesn't handle parity with column size >8). The native windows software raid is deprecated, and can't handle disks of different sizes. I use stablebit drivepool for a secondary backup…

I have an mdisc drive, and a few mdisc DVDs I haven’t burned yet. Someone on/r/datahorder noticed they don’t sell real mdiscs anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33593967

[deleted]

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#108

Post by crabbone »

j7ake wrote: post #88
crabbone wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So now your house is on fire. How do you retrieve your datas from the melted local NAS ? Or a buglar come and empties it. I fully expect my possessions and my data to be perishable. Losing it in a fire is still better than giving it to others. I will cry a little, when that happens, but as a consolation to myself, I'll say: at least it wasn't stolen from one of those big companies and won't be used to harm anyone.

Why is losing data better than “giving” it (an encrypted version if you care about privacy) to others?

Who says it's going to be encrypted? The service provider may screw up in more ways than one...

The data that may be plausibly stolen from me alone doesn't have a lot of impact if I'm the only victim. It starts to matter a lot more if it's stolen as a part of a larger heist. Eg. if someone knows I'm saving money to buy a particular brand of car, then it doesn't matter really, but if someone knows that among a million people 3KK want to buy that particular make, they may have a valuable insight about making investments into car manufacturing industry. Of course this isn't limited to cars and investments. Suppose, someone stealing data discovers a trend in health problems which would increase demand for a certain drug... same idea.

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#109

Post by stef25 »

tallanvor wrote: post #84
stef25 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah here https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665398-Backi... > Backblaze will backup external USB and Firewire hard drives that are detached and re-attached as long as you remember to re-attach the hard drive at least once every 30 days. If the drive is detached for more than 30 days, Backblaze interprets this as data that has been permanently deleted and securely deletes the copy from the Backblaze data…

I mean, they also email you after two weeks and then again at 21 days, so it's not like they're hiding this from you.

They email about "missing computer", that I'm aware of and is fine but I'm not aware of them mentioning deletion of data of the external disks. Fully admitting I may have missed it.

Re: A case for moving away from the cloud and embracing local storage solutions

#110

Post by stef25 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #69
stef25 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah here https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665398-Backi... > Backblaze will backup external USB and Firewire hard drives that are detached and re-attached as long as you remember to re-attach the hard drive at least once every 30 days. If the drive is detached for more than 30 days, Backblaze interprets this as data that has been permanently deleted and securely deletes the copy from the Backblaze data…

It's because the service is billed as a "backup" not as "cheap cloud storage". If they allowed people to back up unlimited USB drives and networks shares, /r/datahoarder would be all up their business with 1PB storage. This is why they limit it to only stuff you're actually using. If you want generic cloud storage with infinite retention, they have B2

They mention in their docs that this is why they forbid (not limit) NAS. Afaik you could still connect as many 8TB USB drives to your machine.
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