Rpi3 as local NAS with Cloud Backup

With new policy in place for Google Photos storage, I almost ran out of the Google storage.

One of the option was to purchase Google One storage. Plan was affordable but similar issue was popping up with iCloud and OneDrive. Better solution would have been proper NAS storage h/w running locally with RAID backup. But it is not cheap.

Then I planned to repurpose my rpi3 (which I purchased for experimentation purpose) for storage of media from my devices. I came across open source NAS application OpenMediaVault which is compatible with rpi3 system. It is not as heavy as FreeNAS application and can easily perform with low end rpi3 / rpi4.

Here is a great article to get started with the setup.

I can even access it outside of LAN using port forwarding on the router (at least my internet provider i.e. Comcast does not block it). You can go one step beyond and use free service like DuckDNS to use your own domain for the service.

Screenshot for the OMV running on rpi3 and accessed via Browser over the internet. I can even attach 2TB flash drive to rpi3 and expand my storage to almost unlimited storage.

Nothing is complete without the cloud integration. OMV provides mechanism to integrate with cloud storage for regular backup. I used rclone to integrate with storage folder and push the daily backup to Azure. (Daily is not optimal and I need to optimize it - TBD)