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Umbrel – Personal Cloud

umbrel.com

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Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#61

Post by wrxd »

It's always good to see some movement in the self-hosted space but I'm wondering who is this for.

People like myself are all in and enjoy the technical aspects of running Proxmox/NixOS/Docker/Kubernetes on our own hardware, building the systems exactly as we like and (hopefully) with a sound backup strategy and without a dependency on a company providing an appliance-like experience.

Running services is not trivial and solutions like this help with getting started but not with the really hard aspects on how to operate services safely with little risk of data loss.

I'm wondering if this would be more accessible and safer to operate if instead of relying on users having their own hardware it would require users to bring their a VPS (removing the need of managing hardware) and object storage (for managed backups).

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#63

Post by layer8 »

turtlebits wrote: post #46

Downtime and backups is why I don't take self-hosted more seriously. If I could easily be up and running after a hardware failure or software upgrade failure, I would pay for that in a heartbeat and ditch the comparable SaaS. As for now, I run Immich but keep Google photos around as I'm afraid to upgrade it and don't have confidence on restoring it if my server dies. See how long and full of warning messages their ba…

This would be relatively straighforward to solve with encrypted cloud backups and matching "restore" software. Of course, the cloud backup part would have to be a subscription, similar to offerings like Apple's iCloud.

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#64

Post by bastawhiz »

I am uninterested in purchasing proprietary hardware running a proprietary operating system that'll work (maybe) for some amount of time. Sure, it's technically self hosted. But you can't extend it (without their proprietary app store). It doesn't seem like you can write your own apps without registering, or side load them. Details are extremely thin on the site, so let me know if I'm wrong.

Hell, all the compelling software isn't even theirs! They're just running other OSS apps, and god knows whether you'll be able to manage or upgrade it.

Arguably, this is the worst of all worlds: you're paying the overhead of closed hardware, running closed software that you don't control, and sort of just crossing your fingers that they don't pull the rug out from underneath you. You'd be infinitely better off buying a comparable NUC and spending an afternoon loading up Docker on it. Shit like this is genuinely insulting to the demographic of folks who should be the target audience.

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#65

Post by bastawhiz »

rsolva wrote: post #23

This is a hard problem. Offering autonomy and ownership of data to non-techy people is HARD. Although I'm not at all convinced Umbrel is the right answer, they seem to be on the right track. Can they empower regular people to own their data without causing havoc down the road if they run out of money and go out of business? I'm sceptical, but I do respect them for trying to tackle this head on. But having skimmed the…

> Can they empower regular people to own their data

Unless they make their software fully open and make the devices hackable, no.

I'm glad to pay for cloud hosting because at least I know my money is getting me some degree of service in return. The risk that my iCloud data will be lost in the next five years is very low. The risk that this company will disappear in the next five years and I've got a $500 paperweight is exceedingly high.

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#67

Post by agentifysh »

nacs wrote: post #6

Looks like they're selling an N150 based "Mini PC" for $500. You can get a very similar 16GB RAM, 1TB storage Minipc in the same form factor from Amazon for around $260 so looks like you're paying almost twice the price for the NAS-type software?

any recommendations for non-Chinese products ?

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#68

Post by Computer0 »

I must be missing something but $500 for an N150 mini PC pre-loaded with a 4tb nas and a custom OS is a terrible value proposition. And I have multiple form factor N1xx based machines running 24/7, so this is the exact type of thing I would be interested in. Could it have been priced in a more compelling manner without the NVME?

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#69

Post by reachableceo »

catapart wrote: post #26
pedrozieg wrote: post #12

A decade of “personal cloud box” attempts has shown that the hard part isn’t the hardware, it’s the long-term social contract. Synology/WD/My Cloud/etc all eventually hit the same wall: once the company pivots or dies, you’re left with a sealed brick that you don’t fully control, holding the most irreplaceable thing you own: your data. If you’re going to charge an Apple-like premium on commodity mini-PC hardware, you…

Sorry, isn't this running an open-source OS? The header has a link to a github with a non-commercial license[0]. If so, couldn't you just use the OS on non-premium-priced mini-PC hardware and never have to worry about them locking you out of your box? I guess maybe it's concerning if you're being forced to update by the OS? I've never actually run a system like that, but was considering umbrel OS (didn't actually kno…

I run umbrel in a VM . For non fiat finops stuff.

I also run Cloudron on a VPS.

I wish both of those solutions had more mindshare. They save me so much time and effort. Especially Cloudron!

Re: Umbrel – Personal Cloud

#70

Post by linsomniac »

nacs wrote: post #6

Looks like they're selling an N150 based "Mini PC" for $500. You can get a very similar 16GB RAM, 1TB storage Minipc in the same form factor from Amazon for around $260 so looks like you're paying almost twice the price for the NAS-type software?

>You can get a very similar 16GB RAM, 1TB storage Minipc in the same form factor from Amazon for around $260

Not apples/apples, it looks like the Umbrel at $500 comes with 4TB, you're pricing out a 1TB above. A bare Samsung 990EVO 4TB is $328, on a straight $/TB that's an extra $246 putting your total build more like $500.

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