Storage Solutions Home Server

Now that I think of it, my Android phone is ON all the time. Can I keep files in it and allow other home users to access it ? I have PC, tablets and smart phones to deal with. If possible I would like to restrict access through a password.

Is it possible to do so ? Saves a lot of hassle of keep the PC based server cool while running 24x7.
 
^ you can't share anything from Android. No samba support in it.

Get a celeron or core i3 Nuc like I did and get a 4 bay usb3 expansion Bay for 3.5" HDD or 2.5" HDD according to what you have. You can install Linux Mint or Ubuntu on it use your choice of media server like Plex too stream media to everything. Plex supports Intel Nuc. You only need extra 4-8GB ram and a 32GB sdcard to install Linux to the Nuc. Serviio is like Plex but does not use internet for transcoding. It just directly streams to the device. You need to setup your own config in it though.

Serviio supports password access too.

http://serviio.org
 
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I saw an old article which talks about Servers Ulitmate app. Looks like that's the perfect match for what we are trying to do, turns Android to home server.

Now you can run a Caddy, CVS, DC Hub, DHCP, UPnP, DNS, DDNS, eDonkey, Email (POP3 / SMTP), FTP Proxy, FTP, FTPS, FTPES, Flash Policy, Git, Gopher, HTTP Snoop, ICAP, IRC Bot, IRC, ISCSI, Icecast, Lighttpd, LPD, Load Balancer, MQTT, Memcached, MongoDB, MySQL, NFS, Node.js, NTP, NZB Client, Napster, Nginx, PHP, PXE, Port Forwarder, RTMP, Remote Control, Rsync, SIP, SMB/CIFS, SMPP, SMS, Socks, SFTP, SSH, Server Monitor, Styx, Syslog, TFTP, Telnet, Time, Torrent Client, Torrent Tracker, Trigger, USB/IP, Unison, UPnP Port Mapper, VNC, VPN, Wake On Lan, Web, WebDAV, WebSocket, X11 and/or XMPP server!
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Start a server easily on the 'Simple' tab or go advanced and add users, allowed IP's and more! Multiple servers can be run at the same time! No root needed, exceptions mentioned below.
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It is a paid app @ ₹ 690 on PlayStore.

Source : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapps.serversultimatepro&hl=en[DOUBLEPOST=1508072479][/DOUBLEPOST]
6pack said:
Get a celeron or core i3 Nuc
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What is an Nuc ?
 
NUC - https://www.amazon.in/gp/aw/d/B00XPVQHDU/

Edit: don't waste money on that app. Even desktop CPU like Celeron goes to 50+% usage if we install servers on it. Phone cpu is designed for limited memory limited storage and low power usage.

I'm not saying it will not work, it may work but don't expect it to work encoding or streaming without major stuttering if it does start. The power usage will go through the roof for the device and the battery might fail due to heat even if it's attached to a charger all the time.
 
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If you have the Android phone as a spare and don't mind it connected to a charger all the time, go ahead. But it would be more better for you to pickup a used Android box and run with it, if you want to use Android. Else, a NUC is a better option, but I still would suggest to opt for a DIY setup, you can build a used one for less than 5K.

SMB should work as long as you are limited to single user on Android. No transcoding is done, so that not an issue.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
Actually, most of the ISPs do not give a public IP, instead giving a private IP. Thats why, its better if you ask for a static IP rather than trying with dynamic DNS, which could be a hit or miss, because they also block most ports.
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Both bsnl and airtel give public ip. Is handing out private ip a trend with other ISPs?
 
rajil.s said:
Both bsnl and airtel give public ip. Is handing out private ip a trend with other ISPs?
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Most private ISPs especially local ISPs. That way, they need to pay only for the small IP pool plus, it allows them to infinitely add subscribers without needing to worry about IPs

An important point - later on, they refuse to even give a public IP, even if you are ready to pay for it.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
Most private ISPs especially local ISPs. That way, they need to pay only for the small IP pool plus, it allows them to infinitely add subscribers without needing to worry about IPs

An important point - later on, they refuse to even give a public IP, even if you are ready to pay for it.
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Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. These ISPs should be avoided like the plague.
 
rajil.s said:
Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. These ISPs should be avoided like the plague.
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Not really. These guys are getting help from some big guys, who are helping in deploying the ISP backbone and etc. They give torrent caching, peering and etc, and they are pretty cheap.

So, these chaps are best for consumption majorly scenarios, and they also have extremely good speeds to Google - I get speeds upto 100Mb/50Mb which is extremely great. Youtube, anything Google hosted is fast. Pretty sure the same extends to Akamei, but have not had enough time to look into it, and its not across the entire Akamei network.

And coming to the public IP - its not entirely rejection, but hit and miss. @cyberwarfare got it, my ISP refused as he did not have, and pretty sure he did not want to take an entire subnet - or he does not have the IT team to redo the routing, or might want to even bother :p

So, if it were up to me, I would get 2 ISPs, one for monitoring and etc, which would also serve as my backup and the other (from the guy above) as my main line.
 
meetdilip said:
What do you think of Raspberry Pi ?
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I've been using my Raspberry Pi 3 as my HTPC for a year or two now, and it can play content on my TV, as well as stream music to another device without any problems. I've been using the Pi for all my torrents as well.
I recently installed Nextcloud on it to sync my contacts and calendar.
For file sync, I've been running Seafile on my PC, but I'm going to install it on the Pi, and see how that goes.
So far, its been running smoothly, with no slowdowns. But then, there's hardly ever any load on the device. There's just me and my wife in the house, and not much syncing, or streaming going on.

An old PC used to do the same job as the Pi before. But I got tired of the constant fan noise. The Raspberry Pi may not be fast, but if there isn't going to be much load on the server, it'll get the job done. And you won't have to hear those tiny computer fans all the time.

Do not buy an external HDD unless you're constantly backing it up. If the controller fails, or the drive develops problems, and can't be used in the external casing, all your data will be lost, even if the drive works okay when you insert it into your PC.
 
I imported all my contacts and calendars from Google, and am using Nextcloud instead of a Google account on my phone. It has file sync as well, but the performance was terrible on my desktop, so I used Seafile for syncing my files, and for auto-uploading my photos.
The Pi doesn't need any cooling, but sometimes it gets really hot while playing x265 content. It's not powerful enough to do that, so it overheats and skips frames. It can get as hot as 85 degrees.
My Pi usually runs at about 55 degrees, and I haven't bothered with any active cooling or heatsinks.
 
ch@ts said:
I've been using my Raspberry Pi 3 as my HTPC for a year or two now, and it can play content on my TV, as well as stream music to another device without any problems. I've been using the Pi for all my torrents as well.
I recently installed Nextcloud on it to sync my contacts and calendar.
For file sync, I've been running Seafile on my PC, but I'm going to install it on the Pi, and see how that goes.
So far, its been running smoothly, with no slowdowns. But then, there's hardly ever any load on the device. There's just me and my wife in the house, and not much syncing, or streaming going on.

An old PC used to do the same job as the Pi before. But I got tired of the constant fan noise. The Raspberry Pi may not be fast, but if there isn't going to be much load on the server, it'll get the job done. And you won't have to hear those tiny computer fans all the time.

Do not buy an external HDD unless you're constantly backing it up. If the controller fails, or the drive develops problems, and can't be used in the external casing, all your data will be lost, even if the drive works okay when you insert it into your PC.
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What case are you using for the Pi, I have a Pi3 too and it seems it gets hot soon[DOUBLEPOST=1508793415][/DOUBLEPOST]
tommy_vercetti said:
What case are you using for the Pi, I have a Pi3 too and it seems it gets hot soon
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@ch@ts, ignore you already answer my query
 
ch@ts said:
I imported all my contacts and calendars from Google, and am using Nextcloud instead of a Google account on my phone. It has file sync as well, but the performance was terrible on my desktop, so I used Seafile for syncing my files, and for auto-uploading my photos.
The Pi doesn't need any cooling, but sometimes it gets really hot while playing x265 content. It's not powerful enough to do that, so it overheats and skips frames. It can get as hot as 85 degrees.
My Pi usually runs at about 55 degrees, and I haven't bothered with any active cooling or heatsinks.
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Why would you use Nextcloud instead of Google? or Microsoft?

Coming to the filesync capabilites, if using SMB, then its going to be bad, I used webdav instead while testing owncloud.
 
I used the Nextcloud client on my desktop and phone. It worked fine for a couple of days, and then went downhill from there. It began using 100% CPU while syncing and some files couldn't be deleted.
I've been using Seafile for a couple of months now, and it's good as Google Drive/Dropbox/One drive. Photo auto-uploads are as trouble free as Google Photos, and the process doesn't hog my bandwidth. The only thing missing is folder sync in Android, but I could create a WEBDav folder and use that. I just need a FOSS file manager that can do that.

Why would you use Nextcloud instead of Google? or Microsoft?
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I think we hand over far too much information to the big tech companies. And with AI and big data, they know more about us and our world than any private, for profit corporation, should. They extract information from our photos to map the world - Facebook now has the most detailed maps of the world, with photos of almost every street.
They know every website we've visited - You'll be hard pressed to a find web-site that doesn't connect to Google, Facebook and Twitter in the background.
They also know exactly where we've been in the real world, because everyone's got their GPS on, and wants to either share or save their location.
We know that their platforms can be used to engineer regimes changes - look at the last US election.
And now with Aadhar, India, IMO, has become the ideal candidate for identity theft.

I like using maps, sync, and backup. But I like having some privacy even more. I decided to take back control of my data, and it was easier than I thought. And I didn't lose much in the process.
I run Debian on all my computers, Lineage OS and only FOSS apps - excluding banking apps ( No GAPPS) on my phones, and while I haven't deleted my files, contacts and calendars from Google, Microsoft and Dropbox, I now sync only to my home server.
 
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