Recently I was looking in my box of useful bits when I came across two WD 2TB Red label Hard Disk drives. They were from a two disk NAS (Network Attached Storage) which I changed for 4TB drives because the drives were getting dangerously full.
As it happened that NAS had to go in the bin recently because its communication system was obsolete and no browser could communicate with it (though the file system still worked) so I had to look around for a replacement. I ended with a 4 Bay QNAP cheapie from Amazon which was on sale for less than the cost of the 2 bay version. I just transferred the two drives and left two bays empty and was quite happy with that arrangement.
Anyway when I came across these two old drives I wondered if I could use them in the two spare bays of this NAS. To cut a long story short I found I could and I could also add them separately to the first two so I did.
Now I have an extra 2TB of storage space and no idea what to use it for but that is the price you pay for inspiration and genius oh, and a box of useful things…
It’s basically a hard disk drive that is on my home network rather than in a computer and which has error correction, if one drive fails the data is not lost.
They also act as a server which enables one to watch a TV program, a movie or listen to music on any device in the house - like a private streaming service.
…and available from anywhere on the planet. As I say, my personal cloud.
Instead of being stored on someone else’s HDD my data is stored on mine and my server is accessible from anywhere via the Internet, the very definition of “The Cloud”.
I kind of like this idea too. I’d rather have my own stuff with me whenever I choose to look at it, as opposed to being at the potential whim of someone across the ocean who decides to withhold it for any reason. or the Cloud “bursts”
It’s not nonesense, you just haven’t got a clue what your talking about. Your not creating a private cloud environment, you have no virtualisation layer. It’s just a network with remote access.
I’ve got one (local network) here that I created but never use anymore.
What I meant was in my original post is why bother with local, physical storage when you can sign up to public cloud services such from providers such as google, amazon, apple and Microsoft ? It’s far cheaper, more convenient and way more reliable and scalable than having local infrastructure and home built security services. Much more of a burden to maintain too.
I have Tb’s of data in iCloud and Azure - I can access everything from anywhere in the world, from any device including my phone. It’s secure and costs peanuts a month to host. I also have MS Office 365 installed on all my devices, 3 x phones, 3 x MacBook Pro’s, 3 x Windows laptops and I can use a licence on any other machine temporarily if I need to do something when I’m not in the office or can’t do it on my Galaxy S22.
I can also move my data around in a click of a button and share it easily through business OneDrive.
Easy peasy. No infrastructure, no maintenance, no depreciation, always available, fully backed up, disaster recovery included, super secure and scaleable.
Now that the ill informed noise has died down I thought you might be interested to know how I can access my NAS(s) over the internet securely. I merely followed these simple instructions. The most complicated part is that it does involve two passwords.
oh, and a box of useful things…
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