Create your own “cloud” storage with Syncthing

I have been using Syncing for years now and had assumed eveyone had at least heard of it. Apparently not. When I do mention it people seem to think is is an impossible thing. It isn’t and it is really easy to setup.

What the heck is Syncthing?

It is an open source (fully) privatem decentralized file system that uses torrent technology to share files between multipe machines/devices. There is no “middleman” to cut the connection so running Syncthing between your own devices really is your own private cloud. It comes with a great GUI and is very easy to use.

Why Syncthing?

Traditional cloud storage is cleap enough that the cost is not prohibitive for most people, at present. In my case most of my backups are for files I won’t look at for years – maybe even decades. A LOT can change in a decade when it comes to online services. Anyone who ever used Panoramio can tell you about the milions of user-uploaded pictures Google simply decided to delete. Point is backups for personal docs, pictures, etc are YOURS and nobody else should be able to decide on how or if they will be stored.

Syncthing allow you to use multiple devices to provide redundancy. If a hard drive on one device fails, you still have copies on other devices. It is also a lot faster than using a cloud service because typically you are only transferring files locally on the same network, although you can share files with any device anywhere in the work if you want to.

Setting up Syncthing on Ubuntu

sudo apt install curl apt-transport-https;

curl -s https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt | sudo apt-key add -;

echo "deb https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing release" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list;

sudo apt-get update;

sudo apt-get install syncthing;

# replace username with your own system username
sudo systemctl enable [email protected];

# replace username with your own system username
sudo systemctl start [email protected];

Once you have completed the commands above you can open the syncthing GUI in your browser with http://127.0.0.1:8384