I’m fairly new to self-hosting and privacy. I used to be all about Apple. I scanned all my important documents and stored them in iCloud. That worked pretty well, but because I tend to make my life harder than necessary, I switched from an iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS. It’s a hassle, but I’m happy with my decision overall. Unfortunately, my files are still in iCloud. As a Mac user, that’s not too bad, but not being able to access my files on the go is annoying.

I’m afraid to store all my important files in an LXC on my Proxmox server, even with daily backups.

Should I switch from iCloud to Nextcloud, Proton, or something similar? Or should I create an offsite backup—one encrypted in the cloud and one in my house? How are others handling this? Would an extra backup at a family member’s house be a good idea? Is paying for cloud storage common? I’d really appreciate any suggestions or ideas. Right now, I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Also, having 2 TB of iCloud storage made it too easy, since I didn’t carefully choose the files to upload. But paying 10 bucks a month feels a little stupid now that I don’t have the comfort factor any more.

  • a_fancy_kiwi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    5 hours ago

    I have a NAS with a couple of SSDs configured in a ZFS mirror that backs up to a Raid Z2 storage pool on the same NAS. Again, on that NAS, I run Paperless-ngx in a docker container. Finally, I use the iOS app Swift Paperless to upload documents to Paperless-ngx. All done over Tailscale.

    My load bearing NAS has a lot of redundancy but no offsite backups so I still keep some important documents in the cloud. I’m saving up for another NAS that I can keep at a family members house but prices are insane right now :/

    If you can follow the 3-2-1 storage rule without using the cloud, that’s awesome. However, the upfront cost can be expensive depending on how much you are storing. Just do the best you can using whatever you have available to you, even if that means using iCloud as part of your setup.

    • BennyInc@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      The cloud could be your offsite backup. Using restic and running a regular paperless export is the way I do it. Nightly export, followed by a backup to Hetzner.

      • a_fancy_kiwi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        How does Hetzner work? I just looked at their storage box prices, and it seems too good to be true? €40/mo for 20TB. And they break it down to €0.0651/hr. Does that mean I could run the backups only when needed and pay less than €40/mo?

        • BennyInc@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          4 hours ago

          It is a monthly price you pay for the storage, traffic included. Breaking it down to hours would make sense if you keep the storage for a short time only. A backup you want to keep indefinitely of course.

        • BennyInc@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          4 hours ago

          The script to trigger my paperless export: docker compose exec -T webserver document_exporter ../export

          This is run via a crontab entry every night, and exports to a mounted directory. Said directory then is included in my nightly restic backup, scheduled via resticprofile.