[SOLVED] Best cloud storage solution

[NJackson7]

Hello all.

I am currently doing a project that is trying to determine how useful a personal cloud storage device would be for a business compared to using options such as Onedrive (as well as how economically viable it would be). As part of this project, I need to determine which would be the best option to use for the following 3 catagories:

1. The best Operating System to use for a personal cloud storage solution
2. Best personal cloud storage software
3. Required Security software to protect data on this device

To that end, I have recently purchased a Raspberry Pi 4 model B and have started looking for such software, Initial research from varying websites shows me that the Pi works with Most Linux OS' whilst also able to host a windows OS , along with Raspbian, and so far it looks like the best option would probably be Ubuntu using either nextcloud or owncloud, but if anyone else has any recommendations, that would be greatly appreciated. As far as security software goes, i haven't found any specific software yet, so any and all suggestions for this would also be amazing.

Thanks to anyone who can help

 

[Math Geek]

cloud services offer plenty of options but price is usually determined by a combo of factors.

1. amount of space used
2. type of drive (hdd, ssd's of various speeds)
3. amount of input and output for the drives

these seem to be the biggest factors for the various cloud services i have used if you want to stay completely with a 3rd party cloud service. they are easier to secure than a home made one sitting behind your isp router though.

you need to define your needs a lot more specifically before deciding on your options. how much space, speed needed, security needed, how many users, how much is the data accessed? and anything else you can imagine needs to be considered to truly make a list of options.

 

[NJackson7]

cloud services offer plenty of options but price is usually determined by a combo of factors.

1. amount of space used
2. type of drive (hdd, ssd's of various speeds)
3. amount of input and output for the drives

these seem to be the biggest factors for the various cloud services i have used if you want to stay completely with a 3rd party cloud service. they are easier to secure than a home made one sitting behind your isp router though.

you need to define your needs a lot more specifically before deciding on your options. how much space, speed needed, security needed, how many users, how much is the data accessed? and anything else you can imagine needs to be considered to truly make a list of options.

The device would be on a per person basis i.e. there would be one device per employee, preferably in a small-medium sized business. It would also only be used for text based documents and images, so I was considering using an SD Card (above 16gb preferably). Currently, I am considering the data to be accessed on any day of a standard work week, and for the security, so far all I can think of is a backup system (preferably one that could handle automatic backups in case of power failure to the device), a firewall, and perhaps an antivirus, particularly as the idea of the project is based around the device being used by people who may not be very used to using much technology.
I'm sorry I don't have much specifics as this is all the information I'm currently trying to look up, the project still being in its early days and involves quite a bit of writing.

Thank you for giving me this information though, its given me something to consider and a bit to write about.

 

[NJackson7]

Oh also i don't know whether I made this clear (probably not), but the Raspberry Pi itself is where things will be backed up to, i.e. the device could be left at the business (maybe even turned on or off remotely?) so that work could be accessed from home or from a location far away from the office and still be able to send and receive files. I did something similar to this with FreeNAS at university, but it wasn't very advanced and required the computers I was sharing files between to be on the same network (wired in and using 3 vmware machines, one as the nas, one as the router, and one using Ubuntu)

 

[USAFRet]

Also, have to figure in:

Cost. If something were very "secure", but $200/month per person.
Frequency of access. If something only allows access once per quarter for a particular user, you might want to rethink that one.

Lots of factors to consider.

 

[USAFRet]

Oh also i don't know whether I made this clear (probably not), but the Raspberry Pi itself is where things will be backed up to, i.e. the device could be left at the business (maybe even turned on or off remotely?) so that work could be accessed from home or from a location far away from the office and still be able to send and receive files. I did something similar to this with FreeNAS at university, but it wasn't very advanced and required the computers I was sharing files between to be on the same network (wired in and using 3 vmware machines, one as the nas, one as the router, and one using Ubuntu)

Oh, this is not an actual cloud, but rather something you build and is hosted inhouse?

A commercial NAS box. No question.
Roll your own with a Pi....too much hassle.
QNAP or Synology has all that functionality built in.

 

[NJackson7]

Oh, this is not an actual cloud, but rather something you build and is hosted inhouse?

A commercial NAS box. No question.
Roll your own with a Pi....too much hassle.
QNAP or Synology has all that functionality built in.

I'm sorry I'm not explaining this right, here's the way i described the project to my supervisor:
the premise of the project is to compare a personal cloud storage SBC to see whether they are an economically viable and equally secure alternative compared to cloud storage options provided by major corporations (such as microsoft OneDrive) for a small to medium sized business' employees.
I am fairly sure the answer will be a no due to the resources available to these bigger companies, most offering the service for free, but its based around the idea that some people dont trust companies like Amazon and Google and are more likely to want to use their own cloud storage device.

Really sorry for being confusing, I have struggled with the concept of this idea since I started it.

 

[USAFRet]

For a small business, you can set up your own, rather than Microsoft/Google/Amazon.
I'd strongly recommend a QNAP or Synology rather than a full roll your own.

But you'll still need a mostly full time IT person to manage this thing.

 

[NJackson7]

For a small business, you can set up your own, rather than Microsoft/Google/Amazon.
I'd strongly recommend a QNAP or Synology rather than a full roll your own.

But you'll still need a mostly full time IT person to manage this thing.

would it not be possible to have each SBC doing something like this? https://thepi.io/how-to-set-up-a-raspberry-pi-owncloud-server/

That way each employee has their own personal storage which they control?

 

[USAFRet]

would it not be possible to have each SBC doing something like this? https://thepi.io/how-to-set-up-a-raspberry-pi-owncloud-server/

That way each employee has their own personal storage which they control?

In my QNAP, each user can have their own dedicated space...home folder. Under their full control (and of course whoever the overall admin is).
All in one physical box.

If you want to set up an individual Pi for each user, you just increased the admin responsibilities manyfold.

 

[NJackson7]

In my QNAP, each user can have their own dedicated space...home folder. Under their full control (and of course whoever the overall admin is).
All in one physical box.

If you want to set up an individual Pi for each user, you just increased the admin responsibilities manyfold.

That's really helpful, i hadn't considered how this could have impacted elsewhere in the business. I suppose my current way of doing the project would (as you said) lead to more admin work being required, which could potentially lead to the admin staff needing more pay, and the idea of using QNAP could be part of the "future improvements" section of the project.

Thanks a ton

 

[USAFRet]

That's really helpful, i hadn't considered how this could have impacted elsewhere in the business. I suppose my current way of doing the project would (as you said) lead to more admin work being required, which could potentially lead to the admin staff needing more pay, and the idea of using QNAP could be part of the "future improvements" section of the project.

Thanks a ton

If the concept of "each user has their own Pi cloud thing, and you have to manage all those"...I'd:

1. Give whoever said that a big stinkeye.
2. Run away laughing. Knowing there are much better solutions.

The little QNAP I have over on the other side of my living room has 50+TB drive space in or attached to it. It could easily handle 10-20-50 individual users, each with their own dedicated space. And automated backups of that data to other physical drives.
It is its own actual Linux based server. Along with built in malware scanning, data verification, etc, etc.

There is ZERO reason to try to roll your own with a whole bunch of Pi things. Beyond 2 people, that becomes unmanageable.
They are good as a hobby project. But it is no way to run a business, even a small business.

 

[Math Geek]

considering the low amount of storage it seems you need, then something like one drive would be the simplest. privacy is a concern for sure that way, but a simple encryption program will easily keep stuff private other than the intended owner. i don't trust those companies either but i do have some stuff encrypted and stored in google drive for simplicity sake.

but data that is important to me that needs to be portable, i have on an external drive that is also encrypted.