
Ask HN: Open source software to self-host 30+GB of photos and videos? - anderspitman
I have too much media to share with friends and family for free on the cloud. I would also like to retain control over the files.<p>I think the best way to sum up what I&#x27;m looking for is an open source version of Google Drive&#x27;s file browser that I can hook up to a hard drive and access over the web. Dropbox is also comparable.<p>Desired features (roughly descending importance): Loads thumbnails quickly, loads images on-demand as you scroll, allows larger photo previews, single file downloads, batch file downloads (as zip), video previews, light on resources (ideally will run on a small ARM computer), simple to deploy (preferably no php or web server configuration, etc), authentication, progressive jpeg.<p>I&#x27;ve tried OwnCloud, Seafile, h5ai, Expose, and Mediagoblin. Each was either difficult to deploy, didn’t include enough features, or was too slow&#x2F;would freeze.
======
rnovak
Can you elaborate on the problems you found with those providers?

I mean, I don't imagine running OwnCloud would be unfeasible on a Raspberry Pi
or anything (I can't speak to the performance of that), but you'd need to set
up Dynamic DNS if you're planning on running it from your home, as well as a
way to traverse the NAT. You'd also be limited by your upstream bandwidth, and
I think most ISP's actually "forbid" running a server.

as far as deploying it on a VPS (virtual private server, so like an Amazon AWS
instance, Linode, etc), you'd be limited by their TOS, etc, but I honestly
think that's the best option. OwnCloud looks to be pretty simple to actually
setup though, but I guess I'd have to try it out to checkout performance.

As far as I'm aware though, and as much as I could google, there's going to be
_some_ setup on your part.

So yeah, if you could elaborate a little more about what about each option
_didn 't_ provide, we might be able to steer you closer to something that's
acceptable.

~~~
anderspitman
I'm fine with handling devops on the server setup. It's also ok to do most of
the moving around of files directly on the filesystem, not through the web
interface. OwnCloud was just too fat and slow. The functionality I need in
theory should be runnable on a Raspberry Pi (although I'm using a more
powerful Odroid C1+). The only computationally heavy part would be generating
thumbnails which is an up front cost. Everything else is just coordinated file
serving.

~~~
rnovak
Were you trying to run OwnCloud on your Odroid (Neat looking device BTW, I
might have to try that out)?

I tried running that on a 20 dollar/month VPS from Linode, and it seems to
work/perform great.

We can continue over email if you'd prefer, since I'm also interested in
setting something like this up (me at robert-novak.com).

------
waystand
I look for something like this too. I have 100+GB of photos which need to
organized and some must deleted. I don't have time to organize this, so other
family members can do this from their computers.

~~~
anderspitman
This would be a nice feature.

------
kevinsimper
I know Google Photos is not open source, but would that be the solution if you
could get it on your own machine?

How would you upload the files? Through web interface? What about backup?

~~~
anderspitman
Uploading through a web interface would probably be too slow unless I'm on the
same LAN. I'm fine managing the filesystem manually. So web uploading would be
a nice feature but not necessary.

