Ditching Google Drive for self-hosted storage

I've been a dedicated Google Drive user for years. It was always the easiest option to back up my important documents; it made sharing files easy, and I never had trouble with anything disappearing. Even though I blew past the free storage limit long ago, I was perfectly fine paying the monthly fee for the convenience of using the file storage system I was used to.

Over time, though, little things began to give me pause about trusting years of critical files to one service. I started seeing horror stories about users being locked out of their accounts seemingly for no reason, Google kept pushing more and more toward AI scanning, and I finally started noticing just how much I was paying for storage. When I started seeking out alternatives, I wondered why I hadn't looked elsewhere before.

After some research, I settled on Nextcloud. It's free, open-source software that's available on almost any platform, including iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. You host your files on your own, private server, so you will need an old laptop or an external hard drive, but that's all.

The notion of self-hosting might seem intimidating at first -- it did for me, and I'm fairly tech-savvy -- and the support instructions might appear daunting. However, as long as you can follow these step-by-step instructions, it's not hard to set up your own Nextcloud server. Nextcloud is easy to use.

If you're familiar with Google Drive or OneDrive, it's going to look and work exactly like the storage you're used to. I use the mobile app most often to access my files, but the web browser works just as well. Storage is limited to what's on your computer or attached external hard drive, but you can get a 2TB drive for under $150, so it's not a huge investment for a lot of space (that's the route I went).

And the good thing is, once you buy that, you're buying it for good rather than paying Google a monthly rental. The biggest advantage of Nextcloud is that I'm entirely in control of my own data and files. I don't have to worry about a tech company tracking my data or scanning my personal files; there's no worrying about price increases for storage, I can access my files from any device, I know I won't be arbitrarily locked out of my files, and I have a stronger level of security that my files are going to be there.

You shouldn't make Nextcloud your only backup. Physical storage can fail, especially over time, and you don't want to end up losing important files. This is a scenario where the standard 3-2-1 storage rules apply -- three storage locations (two additional backups), two different types (a local drive and cloud), and one off-site storage.