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  • Cloud Storage and Backups

    From Lars Poulsen@3:633/280.2 to All on Wed Apr 30 05:20:47 2025
    [Apologies for this article being off-topic due to not being about the
    distant past. Is there a better USEnet space for this type of talk?]

    ZDNET had an article today about "The best cloud storage services:
    Expert tested". It seems that all of the services described are either
    strictly for backup, or they implement "shared folders". While shared
    folders are good for many use cases, and also provide backup for some designated folders in your file system, I was a bit disappointed that
    the 2-5 TB space offered by iDrive, OneDrive or iCloud seemingly cannot
    be configured as a "remote NAS", that can be mounted as a drive to
    Linux, Windows or Mac. Instead, they seem to communicate via proprietary protocols with a provider-supplied sync application that runs on the
    client.

    I think my ideal cloud drive would have a client-end module that
    presents to the OS as a block device (disk drive), wrapped in a container
    file on the cloud end. You could then format the file system of your
    choice, and the blocks would be encrypted/decrypted as they are shipped
    to the cloud service, and the server would never have access to the
    keys.

    If nobody has built this yet, why is that?

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    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From John Levine@3:633/280.2 to All on Wed Apr 30 05:59:16 2025
    According to Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com>:
    ZDNET had an article today about "The best cloud storage services:
    Expert tested". It seems that all of the services described are either >strictly for backup, or they implement "shared folders". ...

    Yup, that's what they tested. They're a consumer publication, they test
    stuff consumers are likely to use.

    I think my ideal cloud drive would have a client-end module that
    presents to the OS as a block device (disk drive), wrapped in a container >file on the cloud end. You could then format the file system of your
    choice, and the blocks would be encrypted/decrypted as they are shipped
    to the cloud service, and the server would never have access to the
    keys.

    There are cloud NAS providers (try "cloud NAS" in a search engine.) If you connect via iSCSI I'd think you could do your own encrypted file system, although SMB or NFS is likely to be easier to set up.

    Here's a few:

    https://wasabi.com/cloud-object-storage/cloud-nas https://www.buurst.com/products/softnas/


    Another that seems aimed at bigger customers:

    https://solink.com/resources/nas-vs-cloud/

    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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    * Origin: Taughannock Networks (3:633/280.2@fidonet)