# Cloud storage (aka Onedrive will suck so need to find something else)



## Frick (Nov 24, 2015)

So, I will have to move away from Onedrive, which is sad because it's frankly the best free cloud storage I know of. But as someone said: "Microsoft realized they accidentaly made a great service." and they'll change it so that starting soon this will happen (the things that affect me anyway):

100 GB and 200 GB paid plans are going away as an option for new users and will be replaced with a 50 GB plan for $1.99 per month in early 2016.
Free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15 GB to 5 GB for all users, current and new. The 15 GB camera roll storage bonus will also be discontinued. These changes will start rolling out in early 2016.
This is so much crap. I use the free version and yeah $1.99/month I probably could afford, but it still SUCKS. Seriously, I usually don't get the MS hate, but this is a poop-poop move.

So I need something new.

Dropbox is out. Too tiny. Google Drive might be an alternative, but I'd rather not, for ... reasons I can't remember right now.

What I need:

something like 15GB storage or so.
Automatic photo uploading from my phone (Android)
Preferably an actual app for Android (yes I know you can setup ES File Explorer and the like but that's usually pretty cumbersome)
The simplest solution I'm actually leaning towards is just to give up and get a 100GB plan now (current 100/200GB plans will not be affected, in the future they won't be avaliable to new customers), but that's the easy way out.


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 24, 2015)

I havent found anything I like better than OneDrive. I have 1TB on my plan.


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## PHaS3 (Nov 24, 2015)

Google Drive is probably your best bet for your requirements, especially automatic photo upload. 

Other alternative with decent app - Box - https://www.box.com/en_GB/personal/store-files-online/

Hope that helps


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2015)

I'm looking as well and I hope I can still keep my bing bonus!


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## RCoon (Nov 24, 2015)

Frick said:


> Dropbox is out. Too tiny



Wah? I have 26.2GB free space on my Dropbox, and I don't pay a cent.






EDIT: I have no idea how this happened. I swear I don't pay Dropbox any money, but right there on their site it says 2GB. I don't know how this happened.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 24, 2015)

I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.


 Very true. nearly every NAS vendor offers some sort of cloud service as well.


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## Frick (Nov 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.



This was an idea as well, but I thought the uploading and whatever would be cumbersome, but if it works well this is defintely an option.


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## P4-630 (Nov 24, 2015)

https://service.asuswebstorage.com/store/?vc=W110


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## silentbogo (Nov 24, 2015)

To circumvent the limitations of free services I was using JoliCloud for a while. It is basically a cloud storage aggregator, which works with all major providers, like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc.
Then I got a 1 year promo code for Dropbox Pro and used that until it expired. Now I just don't need it, so I'm quite content with a free 2GB Dropbox basic account + some spare space on my DigitalOcean droplet.

I also tried ASUS webstorage on my laptop, but that did not work well. Sync speeds were awful even with my old 30Mbit/s connection. Maybe it works better in US?


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.


that app isn't free to select directories...  also in its current state is useless as a free app... any other recommendations?


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## cdawall (Nov 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.



I have had a cheap 2TB seagate NAS for several years now, phone auto dumps to it, linux based box, has an app for android and apple. Just do your own I am 100% with newteckie on this.


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2015)

thing is I'd like to have an offsite backup for prtg backups and my review/beta testing files. those are taking up about 35GB on my onedrive.


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## Aquinus (Nov 24, 2015)

A shared core VM and 100GB of SAN storage at Google on Compute Engine costs just under 18 USD a month. From there you can run FTP or SFTP. You have to factor in network ingress/egress but all in all, it's a good option if you're comparing it to >20USD/mo options, it gives you as much flexibility as a server with storage costs remaining relatively low (4 USD/mo for 100GB of SAN storage.)

This gets you a backup off site, on the internet, and managed by Google. Should your VM ever fail, your data is still safe on Google's SAN. It also gives you a presence with a static IP on the web.

https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator/#id=f0ac26ab-6916-4ca1-a625-23407480d327

You have to manage the cloud server but, it gives you more flexibility IMHO. It's something I'm considering doing for offsite backup and simple web presence.


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2015)

Nice, too bad I can't afford that right now


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## theJesus (Nov 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I just created my own.  Simple enough to setup up an FTP server on a machine at home using Filezilla.  I use an app called AutoUploader to upload all my pictures from my android phone to it.  I use a program called WebDrive on all my computers to get the FTP to just show up as a drive with a drive letter any everything.  So on the PCs I can save and open files from the FTP just like it was a drive attached to my computer.  But if you don't want to pay for WebDrive, you can always just use the Filezilla client, which is free.


I created my own with Pydio running on a LAMP server.

Also, some Chinese cloud service called Weiyun was offering like 1tb or something ridiculous like that for free.  Not sure if they're still offering it or not since I got it a couple years ago.  I remember I had to follow a guide showing me where to click to get registered with the promo since I couldn't read the Chinese characters.  From what I recall though, the UI is either available in English or has intuitive enough symbols to be used regardless.  Performance was terrible though and I got lots of complaints from people I shared files to.  That was actually when I decided to build my Pydio server.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 24, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> that app isn't free to select directories...  also in its current state is useless as a free app... any other recommendations?



Oh wow, I actually just went back and looked at it, and they have massively locked the program down and added a bunch of micro-transactions.  What a crock, it used to be a decent free app.

I've actually been using AndFTPPro to do all the syncing from my android.  I didn't recommend it before because AutoUploader was free, AndFTPPro costs $5.  But since AutoUploader is now a micro-transaction filled POS, the $5 for AndFTPPro is worth it.

WebDrive isn't free either, it's $60, but that is a one time price.  So it isn't that bad for what it does.  The $60 covers 1 year of updates as well, and they want you to renew, but I haven't.  In the year I paid for, all the updates were just to add new services and adapt when a service changed and stopped working.  But FTP doesn't change, so if you are using it like I am, the updates are useless.  And like I said too, you can always use the free Filezilla client too.  It just isn't as integrated.  You have to manual download every file, then open it, then re-upload.


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2015)

hey, send me the old apk and I'll give it a test


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## newtekie1 (Nov 25, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> hey, send me the old apk and I'll give it a test



All I've got is the latest AutoUploader.  I've never even installed it on this phone until now, I switched to AndFTPPro when I still had my old phone.


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## remixedcat (Nov 25, 2015)

aww


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## Solaris17 (Nov 25, 2015)

I use own cloud

https://owncloud.org/

comes with an app like google drive.

shits amazin.

https://owncloud.org/install/#


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## theJesus (Nov 25, 2015)

I tried owncloud before deciding on Pydio.  I can't remember what I didn't like about it.


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## Rhyseh (Nov 30, 2015)

Google drive sounds perfect tbh....

Is this primarily for backup purposes?

If so a NAS syncing to AWS S3 is probably the cheapest option. Dropbox uses S3 as it's storage back-end and AWS have it synchronising all over the world for true resiliency. You can also setup retention policies to auto-archive content into Glacier and save even further, just bear in mind glacier has a lead time before you can access anything. It also supports versioning and all sorts of cool things. It will end up much cheaper than Google's Compute engine, however you will need to either address it with API calls or an application. S3 browser is a great free tool. Also Synology have in-built applications for this kind of thing.

You may even be able to setup something like multcloud as the front-end.


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## RejZoR (Nov 30, 2015)

I hate OneDrive ever since they changed sharing options and removed the option to share entire folder globally. Now users have to strictly use the link you provided. Before they could browse your entire account if you shared any folders this way.

Only thing that sucks is that my entire blog is tied to OneDrive with links so migrating to anything else will mean breaking of all download links and that will suck. Or changin them all one by one


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## Rhyseh (Dec 1, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> I hate OneDrive ever since they changed sharing options and removed the option to share entire folder globally. Now users have to strictly use the link you provided. Before they could browse your entire account if you shared any folders this way.
> 
> Only thing that sucks is that my entire blog is tied to OneDrive with links so migrating to anything else will mean breaking of all download links and that will suck. Or changin them all one by one



Sounds like a job for Xenu Link Sleuth:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

Won't fix all the links, but it will help you find them.


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## akira (Dec 3, 2015)

Could be worth looking into the cloud servers from 1&1, I've used them before and been satisfied


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## Frick (Dec 12, 2015)

I got so tired of this I dropped it for a bit there, but thanks for the discussion!



Rhyseh said:


> Google drive sounds perfect tbh....
> 
> Is this primarily for backup purposes?
> 
> ...



That the files are backed up (that sounds so wrong) is just a bonus, it's mainly a dumping ground for stuff I want/need access to in various places, and sharing large files (mainly proper Windows .isos to relatives). I do have hardware lying around, I could make a decent fileserver, but the main problem is where I would put it. I live in a single room apartment (the kitchen is seperate and huge though) and I can't think of a place where it wouldn't annoy me. Except for some cupboard in the kitchen (which contains mostly electronics and computers anyway ), but then I'd have to have cat6 running there and I have grown so incredibly tired of all cables.  Wireless would probably be out as if I did this it would serve as local storage as well, so I'd need it to be wired. In short, anything requiring a machine running 24/7 is probably out. For now anyway, if I can afford to build a fanless system it might be interesting, but right now it would probably be an old Dell tower or something, requiring active cooling.

Anyway, they seem to have backtracked a bit. I get to keep my 30GB's and that should be enough. I am tempted to get the subscription anyway just to give me room to expand, but I'll probably make do with 30GB. For now anyway. If I need serious space I will probably do some sort of server/NAS.


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## Athlon2K15 (Dec 13, 2015)

https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/


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