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Hello All,
This is an idea that I can’t stop thinking about and wanted to reach out here for feedback.
Many of us here have the same goal of protecting our data and providing redundancy. Of course you can accomplish this via several online backup solutions capable of syncing data from our NAS. I don’t know about you but I am tired of 98% of every solution to a problem requiring a paid subscription. I am probably showing my age a little when I say I miss the old days of buying software on disc and owning it forever. We live in a time where even that is long gone (cough…cough…Adobe, MS Office, the list goes on and on) I will stop the rant there. The subscription creep in our lives today is brutal and sometimes you want to draw the line based on principle if you can find a viable alternative.
I simply want to backup critical data from my NAS offsite in case of disaster. I feel strongly against using a 3rd party service to accomplish this due to several reasons. Some of these reasons include public data breaches, Google training their AI with your photo content, what if 3rd party is acquired by another company or stops service/raises prices. Some of these things feel like a privacy violation and potential variable I do not want to worry about. Many of us here have made the investment in hardware, have available bandwidth, and have the needed expertise for an alternative to these online solutions.
Here is where you ask…”Where does the FREE come in”. Why does every service need to have a monetary cost? I am not going to start a business with that tag line but you get the point. I want to accomplish a goal of secure offsite backup and not pay a penny for it which is likely also the goal of other technically inclined folks with some spare capacity. The solution is barter and linking up like-minded people that have the same goal of protecting their data. Those of you with a technically inclined sibling or family member should be setting up something like this together.
If you look at just what you need to backup offsite like documents, photos, video, memories, work or the things that cannot be replaced you may have a smaller amount to store offsite than you think. It may not be necessary to worry about that multi-terabyte movie collection in a backup solution.
How can we solve this problem by working together? I might have 750GB that I want to make sure it is backed up offsite and not use a traditional service. I would try to find someone that has a similar amount they would like to store in an offsite backup. Once an agreement is made between two parties the how kicks in without any funds changing hands. We all have similar tools/hardware to pull off something like this. In the event one of the participants wants to store more than the agreed amount they have some options.
This is an idea that I can’t stop thinking about and wanted to reach out here for feedback.
Many of us here have the same goal of protecting our data and providing redundancy. Of course you can accomplish this via several online backup solutions capable of syncing data from our NAS. I don’t know about you but I am tired of 98% of every solution to a problem requiring a paid subscription. I am probably showing my age a little when I say I miss the old days of buying software on disc and owning it forever. We live in a time where even that is long gone (cough…cough…Adobe, MS Office, the list goes on and on) I will stop the rant there. The subscription creep in our lives today is brutal and sometimes you want to draw the line based on principle if you can find a viable alternative.
I simply want to backup critical data from my NAS offsite in case of disaster. I feel strongly against using a 3rd party service to accomplish this due to several reasons. Some of these reasons include public data breaches, Google training their AI with your photo content, what if 3rd party is acquired by another company or stops service/raises prices. Some of these things feel like a privacy violation and potential variable I do not want to worry about. Many of us here have made the investment in hardware, have available bandwidth, and have the needed expertise for an alternative to these online solutions.
Here is where you ask…”Where does the FREE come in”. Why does every service need to have a monetary cost? I am not going to start a business with that tag line but you get the point. I want to accomplish a goal of secure offsite backup and not pay a penny for it which is likely also the goal of other technically inclined folks with some spare capacity. The solution is barter and linking up like-minded people that have the same goal of protecting their data. Those of you with a technically inclined sibling or family member should be setting up something like this together.
If you look at just what you need to backup offsite like documents, photos, video, memories, work or the things that cannot be replaced you may have a smaller amount to store offsite than you think. It may not be necessary to worry about that multi-terabyte movie collection in a backup solution.
How can we solve this problem by working together? I might have 750GB that I want to make sure it is backed up offsite and not use a traditional service. I would try to find someone that has a similar amount they would like to store in an offsite backup. Once an agreement is made between two parties the how kicks in without any funds changing hands. We all have similar tools/hardware to pull off something like this. In the event one of the participants wants to store more than the agreed amount they have some options.
- Ask the sync partner if they’re willing to accept more data and if they have a need to store more data.
- Find a new sync partner that has the capacity, (downside is a new initial sync is required)
- In any case where you do not have balance in the amount of data stored the person that has the overage would need to make it right with the person providing the additional capacity. Some potential easy alternatives would be Crypto payment, Amazon gift card, or other potential barter. Maybe the person has a business and can provide a service for the other to make up the difference.
- We all have similar hardware in place with the same base functionality.
- HyperBackup and HyperBackup Vault over a direct VPN with client side encryption enabled in the backup.
- Most people that would use a solution like this have a high bandwidth connection 1gb symmetrical would be ideal but would work with less.
- The permissions on the NAS to enable this could be set easily to segregate the user so they do not have any other access on the NAS.
- Firewall permissions can also be set so the user connected via VPN does not see any other devices on the network.
- I have also looked into a potential alternative to HyperBackup that could play nice with other hardware vendors…..Syncthing. Some nice things about that potential solution is that it could potentially work without a VPN over UPNP. Although client side encryption for this is currently in beta. It is worth exploring further though.
- I thought about potentially have a website that links up storage providers and storage consumers.
- In the long run we will have better options for online storage than a typical centralized company. These solutions will still cost something but I feel it will be easier to pull off an idea like this with decentralized data storage and possibly integrated payments. Some of these solutions could consist of Storj, Sia, Maidsafe and several other emerging crypto/blockchain technologies.
- User quotas can easily be used to make sure the sync partner is not going over what has been agreed upon.
