Ask HN: Where and how do you store your important files (photos, docs, etc.)

[skwee357]

Hey HNs!

I used to use Google Drive. But out of fear of getting locked out of my account for whatever random reason, I decided to migrate everything off Google to an external SSD/HDD

I (try to) do backups once a month, so everything that I've accumulated during that month (photos I took, invoices/payrolls/other docs I received) are being moved off my laptop to an external SSD. An encrypted incremental backup is then made and stored on another external HDD, and copied to Backblaze. This gives me 3-2-1 backup strategy.

So far, so good.

However, this poses an inconvenience. I'm not always carrying the SSD with me, and sometimes I need/want to access some data on the go (from either laptop or mobile phone). While important documents can be kept in iCloud, I'm not yet committed to pay for a higher tier of iCloud for photos/videos.

I don't have much data. Out of the 1TB of the SSD, about 780GB are occupied by everything I need to preserve.

While researching this topic, I came to the realization that many people self-host document and photo management applications that are writing data to a NAS server, and then they compliment with an external and offsite copy to follow the 3-2-1 rule.

Here's the catch. I don't own an apartment, I rent. Moreover, in the past year I've left my home country, travelled across 3 countries, relocated to a 4th country where I once again rent. A NAS could have not survived such trip. I have no place to put a permanent NAS. Parents rent as well, and in any way I'm now far away from them, so if something breaks with VPN to a potential NAS at their place, I won't be able to fix this.

What are my options? Should I just succumb and pay Apple for 2TB while keeping the 3-2-1 ritual once a month?

[al_borland]

I get why traveling a lot would make a NAS difficult, but I don’t understand why being a renter matters. I was a renter for about 20 years. I would sign a rental agreement for 1 year at a time. I ended up moving every 1-3 years. Moving a NAS was not a problem. I had a Drobo for several years when I was renting. It was fine. I have a Synology NAS now and bought it when I was still renting. I moved it several times. It’s offline for a few days during the move, but has never been a big deal. No different than a computer.

I use iCloud Photos as well, mainly so I don’t have to manage photos and storage on my device and it can just take care of itself. However, I’ve been worried about lockout or other data loss. I’ve been thinking I need to create a backup on my NAS (which then gets backed up to the cloud).

Apple alone won’t really solve your backup issues anymore than Google. So if you were uncomfortable with Google, I’d expect you to have a similar feeling about Apple.

[skwee357 → al_borland]

Yeah, I get what you are saying. But I guess I'm living in "survival" mindset, and realize that at any moment I might have to move, meaning I'll be able to take only important things with me. A NAS is usually not important, nor convenient to take.

However, as I was writing this, I thought that I could use a Mini PC with an additional HDD or two (for raid redundancy), and in case of whatever reason I'll have to move, I can just take the hard drives with me.

As for Google/iCloud. iCloud is easier to take out your data, it's literally a folder on the machine, in addition to the fact that Google ruins the metadata of photos (it took me a few days to fully merge it back with a help of some script off GitHub).

[al_borland → skwee357]

Some stuff in in folders, not all the stuff. If I bring up the Files app on my phone, there isn’t a folder for Photos. That is a separate service, which likely has a DB (or several) sitting in the cloud somewhere. I think if I want to get my photos out in an efficient way, I’d need to use Photos on the Mac to download everything, then open the photo library package, and find the Originals folder… or export everything through the UI. Other things, like bookmarks, app settings, etc are all hidden away somewhere.

The metadata is an issue. If you are using Apple products, it makes much more sense to use iCloud rather than Google.

I picked up a little micro PC off Amazon a while ago to mess around with. There was space in it for 2 drives. If you had to move, I’d take the whole thing, not just the drives. The whole package is pretty small (it can fit in a jacket pocket). You’re not going to save much space by just taking the drives, you’ll just complicate things for yourself down the line. You may not see a piece of hardware as important, but it’s the data you’re taking.

[eternityforest]

I use several different systems.

I have an external drive, which I back up to using Vorta. Vorta is nice because it deduplicates and compresses.

I use SyncThing to sync some small important things, and my music collection, across all devices.

I use GitHub for my code.

And I do in fact sometimes use Google Drive, along with pretty much all Google's other apps.

Lots of redundancy, offsite backups, and I don't have to self host anything.

I would like to get a NAS one day, but by "A NAS" I'm thinking the smallest pico router that can do SFTP, and some USB drives, used only on the LAN, in addition to the cloud, not as a replacement for it.

[sp332]

Are you using Backblaze's desktop app, or B2? B2 could store your data for < $20/month, and you can periodically sync folders using rclone. Depending on your needs, B2 has an S3-compatible API, so you could spin up a minimal file or photo server that would normally be backed by an S3 bucket, and point it to your B2 bucket instead.

[skwee357 → sp332]

I use B2, because It's only for encrypted incremental backups from restic