I want to manage my own data, yet I want all the features of many modern cloud services. The question is how do I even get started? Fortunately I have been thinking about this for awhile and already have a primary tool that I want to test; Nextcloud.
Fortunately, Nextcloud appears to have been created to solve my primary dilemma, the ability to control my own data.
I am not going to waste my time re-writing what Nextcloud has already documented. I suggest perusing their site to understand the potential of the tool. For now, let us just say it claims to do what I need. And it appears to allow me to control all of it. It checks all the correct boxes, fully open source, dropbox like functionality, and it supports all the devices my family use. To be honest it is more then I hoped for!
Ok so how do I start? You can look on their website and find cloud base services which provide a Nextcloud instance or out of the box hardware solutions you can purchase. These solutions all look great, they appear to be secure and reasonably priced and may be the way to go (in the future I might even suggest some of them). But due to my desire to control and understand this technology I will be utilizing a self-hosted solution.
This means I need a server (yeah, an actual box in my home), and based on my experience, Ubuntu will be the OS and therefor I need a computer/server to run it on. For a myriad of reasons (I’m cheap) I will use my old Windows 7 desktop and upgrade it with larger hard drives, possibly even raid drives to make sure they are reliable. Setting up this home server will be the topic of the next few posts.