Unraid

Below is some general info about Unraid and why I chose it.

What is Unraid OS and why does it get an entire section on my website?

Unraid OS is a Linux based Network-Attached Storage (NAS) operating system for people who don’t know how to setup a NAS. It “allows you to have ultimate control over your data, media, applications, and desktops, using just about any combination of hardware.”

My Unraid NAS is using my old components for the first gaming rig I ever built. I added a new SSD for a cache pool, I used an old 4TB HDD for my first parity drive (I will be adding a second one), and then I currently have a 3TB HDD and 4TB HDD used for array storage. I have Unraid OS running on a 64GB Samsung BAR Plus USB 3.1 Flash Drive.

Why did I want a NAS?

I have been paying $9.99 for 2TB of iCloud Storage monthly for the last few years. I don’t like subscriptions. When this article about iCloud photos showing up in other people’s libraries popped up, I decided I no longer wanted to use iCloud. This instance of iCloud data leaking out is not the first time that we have seen vulnerabilites in iCloud, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

So, I went out looking for privacy focused, free alternatives for iCloud. You’ve probably heard the saying, “if the product is free, then you are the product.” That is most likely true, especially when it comes to data storage. So my “free” solution was to set up an Unraid NAS using my old gaming components.

iCloud Alternatives

My intial plan was to use iMazing to handle backups of my iPhone and iPad, considering I would no longer have 2TB of iCloud storage to handle backups. iMazing costs $49.99 for three devices. I was willing to do that. My device backups get off of the (at the time) un-encrypted iCloud Backup for the price of five months of iCloud storage. Truthfully, this is something that I might look into in the future again, but for now I went with Nextcloud.

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is a free and open-source software (FOSS) alternative to something like Google Workspace. My main goal with Nextcloud was to migrate off of Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Photos, and all of iCloud.

I am using the linuxserver Docker image on my Unraid server. Once I got Nextcloud setup, everything just worked. There are community plugins for Nextcloud that connect to Google Drive and Dropbox and handle the data migration for you.

I imported my photos and files from both of those services and at the time of writing this, I have had my Nextcloud instance up for roughly three months. It has been stable and I have had no issues. I will be removing all of my files permanently from Google and Dropbox in the coming weeks and deleting my accounts.

iCloud Photos Alternative

Figuring out how to handle automated backups for all of my iOS photos was pretty tricky. There are a lot of solutions out there.

Here are a few I have found in my research.

• You can use iCloud Photo Downloader set up on a cron job, but then all of your photos still have to go into iCloud.

  • I used this to download all of my iCloud photos for the initial backup. It works quite well and I would recommend it for a quick and easy download of your photos and videos in the highest possible resolution.

• You can use the aforementioned iMazing’s Photo Transfer Tool.

  • I have not used this, but am interested it in as an option.

• You can the native Nextcloud iOS app.

  • This is currently what I am using, along with PhotoSync (see below).

  • The Nextcloud iOS app has an auto-upload feature that should kick off every time you plug your phone in.

    • I say should because iOS background processes for apps is historically bad, but it has been working for me so far.

  • From what I can tell, if you have “Optimize iPhone Storage” enabled in your iOS Settings, this will upload the lower quality photos.

    • New photos should upload in the original quality, though I have not verified this yet.

• You can use PhotoSync.

  • This is what I am using in parallel with Nextcloud. I will eventually pick one or the other, but for now I am testing out both.

  • A lifetime Premium purchase for PhotoSync iOS is $24.99.

    • If you need auto-upload, you have to get Premium. Otherwise, the Pro option is $5.99 for a lifetime purchase.

  • You can setup auto-upload through the PhotoSync iOS app

    • For Unraid, this has to be setup via SMB transfer. PhotoSync offers documentation for setting up SMB transfer that can be found here.