I quit paying for storage by building a Raspberry Pi cloud backup system
Android Police 2026-06-22 13:30:12
Context: A tech content specialist, Oluwaniyi Raji, was frustrated with paying over $100 a year for Google One's 2TB tier, which he wasn't fully utilizing. He decided to build a home cloud using a Raspberry Pi 5 he already owned, to back up his phone's camera roll and access it from anywhere, thus avoiding monthly charges and gaining control over his personal photos. This project allowed him to self-host his digital life, starting with a simple and easy-to-use solution.
Key Facts
- Oluwaniyi Raji, a tech content specialist, was paying over $100 a year for Google One's 2TB tier, but was using less than 350GB of storage, prompting him to seek an alternative solution.
- Raji used a Raspberry Pi 5, which he had previously purchased, and chose Nextcloud as the open-source software for his home cloud, allowing him to back up his phone's camera roll and access it from anywhere.
- The total cost for the project, excluding the Raspberry Pi 5, was around $270 for a CanaKit Essentials starter kit, $20 for a Pimoroni NVMe Base, and $160 for a 1TB NVMe SSD, which was a significant cost due to an industry-wide NAND shortage in 2026.
- Nextcloud's features, such as auto-backup on a per-folder basis, file syncing across devices, and a Memories feature for photo and video timelines, met Raji's needs, although it lacked some AI-powered features like Magic Eraser and AI photo search.
- By building his home cloud, Raji gained peace of mind knowing his personal photos were stored on hardware he controlled, and he was able to cancel his Google One subscription, having already moved his drive contents over to his new system.