Self-hosting after 2 months: An update!

Two months ago, I announced I was going back to self-hosting my important software stacks. Here's an update!

These are the things I've currently managed to get done using my "local" cloud:

• Google Drive is empty
• Dropbox is empty
• All important documents/photos/notes/tasks are in 1 place

Basically, I've put all my eggs in one basket. One place for everything: Nextcloud.

So, all your eggs in one basket… is that a good idea? Yes, I think it's one of the best choices I've made when it comes to storage and productivity in a long time. I never have to wonder where I stored a certain piece of information, it's all in one place, right at my fingertips.

Backups, backups, backups

But what if something goes wrong and you lose all the data?

That was definitely one of the things I was most nervous about when starting this process. However, I soon figured out how to create (reliable) backups of everything in case of a disaster.

All data is backed up to BOTH another machine in the same network, and cloud storage. The data is stored in 3 different mediums: SSD, HDD, and S3-compatible storage. If one of the places fails, I still have 2 other places I can go to get my data. By choosing 3 different mediums, I'm attempting to spread the risk of data loss due to faulty hardware.

So am I comfortable putting all my eggs in 1 basket? You bet!

In the past 2 months, I've emptied my Dropbox account and my Google Drive. All this data, along with data from several external hard drives (yes, slight hoarder, I know), now lives in Nextcloud.

You'd think gathering all this data in a single place was the most time-consuming part of it. Nope, organizing it all was.

So organizing this data was very time-consuming, but it was also a lot of fun! You get to relive a lot of moments, all while getting rid of blurry photos and screenshots from years ago. It feels like a burden being lifted from your shoulder and your mind being cleared up.

Not just cloud storage

Besides moving all documents and photos to Nextcloud, I've made a few more changes.

Notes

I've migrated my note-taking to Nextcloud as well, through their notes app and plugin. I migrated from Google Keep to Nextcloud Notes. That was quite a difficult change in the beginning, because I really like the simplicity of Google Keep. However, my new notes app is both simplistic and has some nice organizational features to keep me from having to scroll through all my notes to find the right one.

Tasks

When it comes to tasks, I've replaced Todoist with Nextcloud tasks. Again, I'm a huge fan of Todoist. I really enjoyed using their app for my projects and keeping track of my progress. If you're looking for a tasks app and don't want to self-host anything, I can't recommend Todoist enough.

So why migrate? Nextcloud Tasks does everything I need. I get to organize tasks in lists, add due dates, add priority, and tags. It does everything I require, so why not be in control of hosting it too?

By migrating all of these productivity apps to one single place, I've felt more at peace. I know exactly where to go if I require a document, create a few tasks, and look for that document I required for my task.

Thoughts

So am I still happy with my choice to move away from "the cloud" after 2 months? I couldn't be happier. Fewer moving parts, a calmer mind, that's what it is all about after all.

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