Anyone use ownCloud?

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SpeedyVV

Supreme [H]ardness
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Just found out about owncloud, downloaded it and installed it with not much problems.

Has anyone tried this?

I really like the idea of having my own cloud storage and not using iCloud, dropbox, OneDrive and like.

I understand the pros and cons of hosting something myself, so I am really just looking at what you guys think of ownCloud as a DIY solution.

Are there any other solutions like this out there that I don't know about?
 
I've never used it. But lots of commercial NAS boxes come with many different types of 'personal cloud' applications. And most external hard drives these days from western digital, Seagate, etc have similar applications. Personally, while it's great to have your own storage, I find the data redundancy capabilities of services like crash plan to be nice peace of mind.
 
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I have an owncloud server but I haven't actually used it for a while. The major issue was actually the client - cpu usage spiked quite high because they hadn't optimized indexing.

I also had early problems with filename issues on the server, mainly due to a mashup of japanese filename encoding in some old files.

I'm thinking of going back and trying it again - it's been about a year since I played with it.
 
teh_chem said:
I've never used it. But lots of commercial NAS boxes come with many different types of 'personal cloud' applications. And most external hard drives these days from western digital, Seagate, etc have similar applications. Personally, while it's great to have your own storage, I find the days redundancy capabilities of services like crash plan to be nice peace of mind.
Click to expand...

No argument from me regarding crashplan. I use it to backup my stuff to a friends house 200 miles away and vice versa.

That is what made me look for a private cloud service. I really do not like my files being stored by some company. Sure, a bit tin foolish, but also the geek in me like setting up stuff like this ;)
 
kahm said:
I have an owncloud server but I haven't actually used it for a while. The major issue was actually the client - cpu usage spiked quite high because they hadn't optimized indexing.

I also had early problems with filename issues on the server, mainly due to a mashup of japanese filename encoding in some old files.

I'm thinking of going back and trying it again - it's been about a year since I played with it.
Click to expand...

Good to know, as I have not tried the client functionality yet. I will give that a try and check on performance.
 
Happy owncloud user here. Been using it for a few months now and happy with it. Syncing all my devices to it. No need for google, dropbox, etc. Couple if issue:
1. The Android client needs some work. You cannot specify a folder to sync so you can't really backup your device. Other users have recommended foldersync, but I have not tried it yet.
2. I have an issue with caching of large files (over 2gigs in size) which I have not been able to solve. I ran out of disk space once due to the excessive caching. Fixed this by setting a cron job to clean up the cache directory.
3. Recurring calendar event get screwed up when an end date is set. Seems to be some weird date offset somewhere. This only happens with Lightening in Thunderbird. Have not noticed it on my mobile devices. It has not been a much of a bother to hunt down the problem.

Otherwise, things have been running great.
 
Another Happy OwnCloud user. Been using it for about a year now and so far so good.

- As ezno_matrix mentioned the Android app does need some work but it's come a long way since I started using it. It still doesn't have the functionality to sync directories but I use FolderSync and it works great. Makes for transferring tunes to my phone just about as easy as it gets.
- A major plus I've found is that I can specify which folders I want to sync with the flexibility to select locations on both ends. I use this feature to sync OpenVPN config directories across all my computers (home, work, laptop, android).
- I can easily share files with friends without having to upload to dropbox or google drive first.
- You have as much storage as you want to build out.

imo, you've got nothing to lose by getting it going. It's free.
 
I use it in place of Dropbox. Syncs well between the server and my iOS devices. I'm working on moving my calendars and contacts from Google across to it.
 
I gave it a go because I wanted to get away from using commercial cloud services, and I wanted to sync photos and videos off the Android phones that are mine and my wife's, onto a basement server.

The MS One Drive client will upload photos and video, right after being taken, on Android. Gloriously simple and usable. But - I don't want to use a third party service, MS in particular won't encrypt anything, treats all content as subject to their terms, subject to DMCA takedowns, etc. and isn't treated like private storage at all.

So I gave ownCloud a try. The Android client is utter weaksauce. You can get it free from F-Droid, they charge for it on the Play Store. It only auto-uploads photos, not videos. You can't sync folders either. It's clunky, and you have to upload files individually, and the interface is very drab. I tried to sync Android calendars and contacts using ownCloud as well, but if you're trying to use SSL with self-signed keys, pretty much none of the Android client-side connectors will allow this, in any reliable manner.

It's surprisingly entrenched in the ecosystem for us to use commercial offerings instead of running our own servers. For now, Google owns my contacts list and calendar, and Microsoft owns all my family photos and videos. I wish this were easier.
 
We use it rather successfully as an FTP replacement at work. Relatively easy GUI, we set it to auto-expire share links after a week, wrote scripts to email managers what files in their employee's user accounts to make sure users don't put sensitive files there, and can allow anonymous/auth free uploads as needed rather than our previous anonymous FTP server.

It's not without it's bugs here and there but it's really not too bad, even with a lot of users (probably 50 with 10-15 heavily active). By far and away the biggest flaws are with the sync applications but we don't use them nearly as much as a file-drop.
 
Anyone using OwnClound on a raspberry pi, or thoughts on using it on one? I have some FTP space via a USB drive on my router, but an RPi with OwnCloud would be more powerful. However, maybe it wouldn't be enough horsepower for a lot of files?
 
the_b_man said:
So I gave ownCloud a try. The Android client is utter weaksauce. You can get it free from F-Droid, they charge for it on the Play Store. It only auto-uploads photos, not videos. You can't sync folders either. It's clunky, and you have to upload files individually, and the interface is very drab.
Click to expand...
Yes, this is a major complaint. I really hope there will be some traction for the feature requests. A lot of users are satisfied with filesync as a suitable replacement.

the_b_man said:
I tried to sync Android calendars and contacts using ownCloud as well, but if you're trying to use SSL with self-signed keys, pretty much none of the Android client-side connectors will allow this, in any reliable manner.
Click to expand...
What device and connectors had difficulty with self signed certificates? I have been using self signed certificate and all devices, connectors and clients I used worked seamlessly. Even after changing my CA after the heartbleed fiasco was mostly effortless. Thunderbird and Firefox automatically prompted for the new certificate. The mobile and desktop client stopped synced with an error (can't recall the specific error). Once the error was acknowledged, they prompted for the new certificate after which syncing was restored.

I suggest going to the owncloud forum with your issue for assistance.
 
I have tried ownCloud and pydio on VMs in my home ESXi server. I have always had problems.

For instance, ownCloud is not able to handle very nicely that your files are not actually placed in ownCloud, but on a NAS. Pydio was difficult to install, and once it was installed, the administrative user could not log in.

First of all, I find these products somewhat immature. Second, I don't understand who they target. For instance, who would set up their own 24/7 home cloud solution, without having a NAS as their file storage "back end"?
 
I use the Synology DSM interface running in a VM as a front-end for my data.

I get the DS File which lets me access all my files in a web browser, and share public file links, and they have an app for iOS and Android so I can access my files there.

It also has DS Audio so I can stream music to web browser and mobile devices.

Also it has Cloud Station which is basically like Dropbox, they have Windows and Mac support.

And finally it has Photo Station which is a nice place to store, upload, and manage my photos and share albums to friends and family.
 
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