Looking for an alternative to Dropbox or Onedrive? Create your own private cloud storage instead!
20 Feb 2024, by Slade Baylis
When it comes to backing up your data, one of the more popular options that a lot of people have taken a liking to is cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s Onedrive. However, much like the realisations that many people are having about how expensive Azure and AWS really are, a lot of businesses are beginning to notice how much these public cloud storage services are hurting their wallets.
Another concern that many are beginning to have is around the security of public cloud storage services. Even though they use many methods to secure their data – including AES 256-bit encryption – data breaches have happened before and could theoretically happen again. For example, as reported by Cloudwards back in 20121, Dropbox was victim to a security breach that saw the emails and passwords of over 68 million users stolen!
With both of these factors combined, many people are looking for options for securing their data with as much ease as they’ve grown accustomed to, but without these risks and costs. The good news is that there are options for achieving similar results in private clouds that you control, in an economical way that scales well with large amounts of users.
What are cloud storage services?
To fully understand why cloud storage services have skyrocketed in popularity, we first have to briefly touch on how complicated backing up data used to be.
In most cases, if users wanted to create a backup of their data, it involved copying data to some form of external storage such as external hard drives, magnetic drives, CDs, DVDs, etc. That’s a fairly involved process in itself, but for those who wanted to be even more protected, this also usually involved taking that external storage to some secure off-site facility for storage, only to bring it back in the future to be replaced with new backups as part of a regular backup rotation.
The good news is that today the options for backing up data have become much easier to set up and continue with, requiring a lot less manual effort. For off-site backup rotations, similar to the approach described above, there are backup applications like Acronis and Veeam, which allow you to automate the process of taking regular backups and storing them off-site. However, for something more basic, where you just need a basic level of protection through having copy of your data offsite in case your device breaks, even easier tools were developed in the form of cloud storage services.
For those interested in Acronis and Veeam, we put out Deep Dive articles on both Acronis and Veeam which go into detail about each platform and when you should look to use each of them.
The idea behind cloud storage services was that it should be as easy as possible for users to be able to back up their data, without even needing to think about it. The approach that became standard for options such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and the others, was to install an application that adds a folder onto your computer that is automatically synchronised with a cloud-hosted service. This approach means that users are able to simply move the files they want to be backed up into that folder, and then the cloud storage service takes care of the rest!
As you can see, with it only requiring a very small change to how users work with their data, these services quickly gained traction due to the protection they offered. However, whilst they started off relatively affordable, over time these services have become more expensive - especially for those organisations that require a large proportion of their staff have access to the same data. As a solution to this problem, the good news is that there are options for hosting that data in your own private cloud storage!
NextCloud & Others - Open-source and privately-hostable cloud storage solutions
Whilst in the early days, the options for cloud hosting were limited, nowadays lots of competitors have emerged to rival those early breakout apps. In fact, due to how useful these applications and services were, free and open-source versions of these types of apps were developed by communities online. These alternatives gave people the ability to save money, as well as run their own environments from the ground up.
Perhaps the most popular and widely used of these alternatives is an application called NextCloud2, which bills itself as a self-hosted and customisable platform for file storage and office collaboration. Whilst they do offer a cloud-hosted option that is similar to other options – wherein you don’t need to worry about setting up or maintaining your own infrastructure – it’s that “self-hosted” feature that draws most people in.
Self-hosted (or self-hostable) means that you’re able to take the application and install it onto your own systems, whether that’s a physical server, a virtual machine, or even a virtualised container. Having that level of control means that you’re able to have complete control from top to bottom, as well as able to configure and secure your infrastructure as needed. Some clients need their systems to be significantly more secure than public cloud hosting solutions allow for, and with these “self-hosted” options, that level of security is achievable - in fact, it’s one of the things that NextCloud themselves focus on.
On their website, they state that governments are increasingly moving away from foreign cloud providers amid rising concerns about digital sovereignty. They also state that enterprise organisations are looking for alternative options to public cloud storage - especially so amid growing compliance requirements, increasing costs, and data leak risks. By utilising and self-hosting these open-source applications, organisations are able to keep all their data local and on their own servers, helping to avoid contracts with third-parties or complicated audit processes that may otherwise be required for compliance reasons.
In terms of other features that often come with services like Microsoft’s OneDrive and Google Drive, NextCloud competes well there too. As well as the standard file synchronisation features that we’ve already mentioned, NextCloud can also be configured to provide calendars, contacts, email, and even document collaboration features!
One other advantage of looking to self-host your own cloud storage solution is that you’re able to run it on your own hardware. For those who may have already invested large amounts of capital into hardware that is underutilised – for example, if your production workloads don’t require the full resources of that hardware - replacing leased cloud storage solutions with self-hosted versions on your already existing hardware is a good way to reduce costs, as well as make use of and get more value out of your existing investment.
Should you use NextCloud for your cloud storage needs?
With every advantage there is usually a trade-off in some form though, and with self-hosted applications that trade-off is usually that the responsibility for setting up and maintaining the environment falls to you as the user. Whilst you are able to avoid the cost of purchasing the software itself, the infrastructure will still have some form of cost associated with it, either for the hardware and/or virtual server resources, or the resource cost of employing or hiring someone to maintain and run the environment.
It’s for this reason, that we only recommend self-hosted cloud storage solutions for clients who can afford those minimum entry point costs. For organisations that have large amounts of users, being able to avoid the “per user” pricing model that most (if not all) that these cloud storage services follow, means that looking at NextCloud can save you a lot of money that could otherwise be spent elsewhere. However, if you are just a single individual, off-the-shelf cloud storage services are more likely to be more cost effective than hosting and maintaining your own environment.
Have any questions about NextCloud or want to get started?
If you have any questions about NextCloud or want to know what the next steps are for getting your own environment set up, let us know!
You can reach us by email at sales@micron21.com or via phone on 1300 769 972 (Option #1).
Sources
1, Cloudwards, “Dropbox Security 2024: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly”, <https://www.cloudwards.net/dropbox-security/>
2, NextCloud, <https://nextcloud.com/>