This free Google Drive alternative keeps your files private - and local

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I've tested and used many a storage option over the years. Although I've spent the bulk of that time using Google Drive as my primary storage service, I've slowly started to migrate away from that, especially for files and documents that are of a sensitive or important nature. Why? For one, I don't want my work used to train LLMs. Another reason is privacy.

When you're storing files that contain sensitive information (such as bank accounts, wills, contracts, etc.), you might not want to save them beyond your LAN.

Also: Should you build your own NAS, or buy one?

You could attach an external drive to your machine, but that limits you to accessing those files from one particular computer. You could share that drive to your network, but some sharing protocols can be slow and insecure.

Another option is to install a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution on your LAN. Such solutions make it possible to not only store important files, photos, media, and more in a centralized repository, but some options even allow you to add different tools (even AI) to the platform.

One such option is ZimaOS, which is a lightweight NAS solution that was created to be used on either Zima's own hardware or off-the-shelf x86 computers. You can install ZimaOS on a spare desktop computer, a Raspberry Pi, or even as a virtual machine. ZimaOS is as easy to install as any Linux distribution, and you can have it up and running in a few quick minutes.

Zima even has desktop clients for MacOS, iOS, and Windows (a Linux client would sure be nice, given ZimaOS is based on Linux).

Also: Done with the cloud? This NAS takes only 10 minutes to set up - and is the easiest network storage I've tried

The big question you might be asking yourself is: How easy is ZimaOS to install?

Keep in mind that the installation is text-based. Even so, the installation is a matter of:

Once the installation is complete, you will be presented with the necessary information on accessing ZimaOS. In my case, it was a simple matter of pointing a browser on my local network to http://192.168.1.62. I then had to accept the license and create a local account to finish the installation.

Once that was complete, I found myself on the ZimaOS dashboard, where I could start customizing the platform to fit my needs.