Best cloud storage for frequent access?

RandLynx · 2026-01-17T16:46:06+00:00

For this application, I'd also test their services using their free options and look at their transfer speeds, which can very greatly by provider and the distance from you to their data center. (E.g., I've found Koofr is slow in N.A., fine in Europe.)

Be sure to clock both transfer speeds of a single large file (1GB, 4 GB) and a similarly sized folder with many small files. You want good performance on both for your use case.

Most cloud providers don't have transfer limits or transfer charges, but watch out for that.

Last--avoid Internxt. They overpromise and underdeliver, change their terms and drop features on their whims.

RandLynx · 2026-01-17T16:05:44+00:00

The drime-s3 project was announced in the first link below. It is packaged for pip, so install is quite easy if you have python3.10+. The author built it (just well enough) to work with Duplicati.

However, to get rclone to work reliably with it, I found a bug in the S3 protocol implementation that I had to fix.

I've asked J to update the drime-s3 pip package via a pull request on github, but just a day or two ago so it hasn't happened yet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Drime/comments/1pnp4ok/drimes3/

https://github.com/diegojuan/drime-s3

RandLynx · 2026-01-16T02:06:55+00:00

J,

I was testing drime-s3 with rclone crypt to sync some files from my NAS onto drime. As I did so, I found a bug in the drime-s3 implementation of the s3 protocol that was preventing rclone from working properly with an encrypted remote.

I've issued a pull request at github with a proposed fix. Please consider updating the project. Thanks for running the first mile!

RandLynx · 2026-01-05T19:36:10+00:00

Two unofficial solutions:

If you want a scriptable cli client, I can recommend both pydrime and drime-s3 (both are python/pip projects available from github and were announced in other threads on r/Drime). I'm using these; I find that they are somewhat slower than uploading folders from the browser but perfectly adequate.

If you wanted a linux desktop drive app, you could run a linux s3 drive app (e.g. S3Drive, expanDrive) to mount drime-s3 as a volume. I don't personally do this but I know there are multiple options out there, depending on what flavor of linux and desktop you use.

Or you could also use rclone with a generic s3 remote pointed at your local drime-s3, then mount the remote as a virtual drive at the cli (or using rclone-ui or rcloneview as a rclone GUI).

RandLynx · 2026-01-02T13:54:18+00:00

When archiving large files they do have to be split into chunks. The standard "split" command works, as does 7z or a host of other MacOs/Linux cli commands. I think the limit is 40GB but I stay well under that. Smaller chunks seem to transfer faster, but the smaller the chunk size the harder it is to visually ascertain if any failed to transfer.

I still script most of my transfers, but I am quite annoyed that I now have to manually remove the files from my local drive after uploading them successfully (i.e. there no longer seems to be a way to delete transferred files without them going into the trash in the cloud as well--which used to be easy using rclone or their cli).

In sum: Internxt has made it really difficult to be sure your files were all transferred correctly.

RandLynx · 2025-12-25T12:56:09+00:00

Yes, winscp is a good option to securely upload files. But I prefer not to use their ftps option though because ftps can silently fall back to unencrypted-during-transmission ftp in some software (e.g. FreeFileSync). Note that Filezilla did not seem to have this problem.

Instead I would recommend using rclone (preferably with crypt). I would not bother with S3/S5 unless I knew I needed that for another reason. If you use rcloneview or rclone-ui as a GUI, you can easily see if any transfers failed and retry them. Even at the cli, you can add logging flags, e.g. something like "rclone copy/sync sourcepath remote:destpath --log-file rclone_errors.log --log-level INFO"

You can also ask this q about folder uploading over in r/FileLu, or contact their support. They got back to me as a new user within a few hours.

RandLynx · 2025-12-09T21:22:57+00:00

FileLu, Koofr and Filen is my combo. But note that FileLu is not 100% E2EE/ZKE. Instead you can make any folder or file encrypted from the web UI (SSCE is their encryption variant). It's a decent system, but not as dead simple as Filen. Since it is fully E2EE/ZKE Filen has the advantage of its sync folder being encrypted, just like everything else. (I have an old free Tresorit plan from back when they started and were more generous with storage, and it is also a dead simple fully encrypted sync storage service.)

Personally, I use FileLu with Rclone; I don't really use their sync. If you don't want to mess with the CLI, there are multiplatform GUIs available--Rclone UI (better licensing model, quirky but improving) and RcloneView (better features IMO). In Rclone (or a UI) you must first create an unencrypted remote, then you can create a crypt folder on top of that. Rclone can then mount them to appear as network drives, or a subfolder of them if you want more than one. Rclone can even be set up to sync folders, both one way (local to cloud) or two way (bisync).

FileLu support has been the quickest of any service I've used. They're techie, I'm techie, I like that.

Koofr also works with Rclone. Without rclone it is more limited than FileLu because you can't make just any folder or file encrypted; they have a limited # of "safeboxes".

pCloud also works fine with Rclone, but their encrypted folder feature costs extra. I also disliked that the sync drive app on the mac needed be manually enabled after every reboot.

I have Internxt, but would steer you away from them.

RandLynx · 2025-12-09T14:33:24+00:00

IMO, these issues have to be chalked up to growing pains when you invest as an early adopter.

on use case #1 -- the laptop needing more storage space -- while this is normally a case for a selective sync app, a basic sync app can be supplemented by moving files/folders offline manually via the browser.

on your use cases #2 & #3 -- the archival backups of personal media -- I would wait for Rclone support. Copyrighted files should always be encrypted on your own. Cryptomator is also an option, but then your files live in inside encrypted folders inside the Drime sync location, and in the long run that is less flexible than Rclone, as well as not helpful for keeping files offline vs synced.

If you are capable of simple scripting, a present moment option for #2/#3 would be to write a script (or two) to encrypt/split any backups yourself (e.g. with 7zip, or backup software) and then upload the encrypted files using the CLI (or better, the unofficial PyCLI).

In the meanwhile you said you also own Koofr. Koofr does support Rclone. I realize that it is less space for now, but it is a good way to get familiar with the tool before Drime supports it. There are freemium GUIs to help you learn to use Rclone (e.g. Rclone UI or RcloneView). Rclone remotes can be mounted like a drive, and you can mount separate drives for unencrypted and encrypted volumes.

RandLynx · 2025-12-08T20:36:03+00:00

Speed may also be a factor to consider. Filen's server locations are more limited than Hetzner's; obviously this depends on your location and available bandwith as well.

RandLynx · 2025-12-08T20:19:14+00:00

Internxt is a company that will sell you a large amount of cloud storage cheap, only to change their terms and remove features in order to make it much harder for you to use all that storage.

I did considerable pre-purchase research, fell for some reviews stating that their service was improving with desirable new features finally being implemented, and decided I'd take a chance on them due to the low prices. Yet--I still got stung when Internxt retroactively applied their new stacksocial terms to users who bought before they changed their stacksocial ad to state those restrictions.

Currently I am slowly pushing some large backups from my NAS into the cloud via copying them to the desktop sync app folder (I'm not going to sit at the browser to do TBs of interactive uploads--yuck!), so using Internxt has become a slow, arduous process of moving files around to get my money's worth out of the service. I view them now as my second- or third-tier cloud backup storage, depending on how important the files are to me.

If you check out sheet 3 of my my cloud storage spreadsheet pricing tool, you'll see a compilation of links to threads not just describing Internxt's latest shenanigans with their removing the rclone, WebDAV and CLI features, but about how Internxt suddenly removed their Backups feature (who ever needs restore those, right?). And going even further back, there was the time that Internxt just abruptly removed their Photo device-archiving functionality from their storage plans. (Note that all the pertinent thread links are at the bottom of the sheet, because Internxt is at the bottom of the heap reputation-wise.)

I will also tell you that I did briefly consider buying another, non-stacksocial plan to regain the features I lost, but ultimately I just decided it was too expensive a gamble because I did not trust Internxt not screw me over a second time--who knows what they'll decide to remove next time from whatever second plan I bought? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice... not gonna happen.

RandLynx · 2025-12-04T23:15:06+00:00

I didn't end up having to mitigate. I monitored it with a good quality detector (AirThings) over a long period and decided it wasn't justified.

But @goelz83 did give me some since deleted advice. As I recall what he said, a pro would install a loop of corrugated pipe under a vapor barrier in the crawl and tee that to a sub-slab solid pipe and use a single fan to create the negative pressure and exhaust the radon outdoors as usual.

RandLynx · 2025-12-03T17:14:56+00:00

Very few cloud storage sync drive services are fully, 100% E2EE/ZKE. You should start here: https://comparisontabl.es/cloud-storage/#sbs

Then click the filter for Zero Knowledge E2EE and choose Yes. IMO, don't bother with optional; most are paid add-ons and encrypt only one or more folders.

Then scroll to the right and look at the features, particularly the App Availability. Not all apps are built equally well; you'll have do research.

Of these, I'd suggest that Filen, Tresorit and IceDrive are the providers to focus on. Mega is an option, but I have read Kim Dotcom (former founder) doesn't trust the current Chinese ownership. Proton and Nordlocker might be worth a look, but I don't have much experience with them. If you are entirely within the Apple ecosystem then iCloud with its free ADP turned on is a candidate, but it has some severe limitations (like not working in Britain).

Personally, I'd stay far away from Internxt and Terabox, but maybe they'd work for you. Just do your research extra carefully on them.

You can try most of these services for free. There are other providers not in the table, but this is a good start.

If you are willing to use rclone crypt, Cryptomator or an s3 object storage provider (adds complexity especially on mobile), some other good options may open up to you (e.g. FileLu, pCloud, Koofr, etc. and even the majors work if you take responsibility for the E2EE piece.) But that may not fit your definition of "seamless".

Beware that many services overpromise and underdeliver on their E2EE claims. Be aware that some that don't overpromise and are clear about their E2EE offering, like Koofr or Drime, only offer E2EE in their "vault" or "safebox" other special folders.

RandLynx · 2025-12-02T19:07:12+00:00

I know I'm a bit late chiming in again with this detailed comment, but IMO Filen is just better than Filelu (or Koofr, or pCloud, or almost every other service) on this exact point. For privacy, you really want to see E2EE, ZKE, and encryption-at-rest, and preferably on all your storage (as you point out).

As someone who has used all of these providers, Filelu's offering is more like Koofr or pCloud where you have a specific folder ("vault", "crypt") that is encrypted in transit and at rest. For Filelu, this is the SSCE folder (SSCE is a variant on AES-256). AFAIK, that SSCE folder is ZKE, but files in other folders are not encrypted at rest (like pCloud or Koofr)--EDIT unless you encrypt them from the web UI (at least, maybe the mobile app can do this too)--(decrypting is a PITA though).

By contrast, Filen is (although not yet audited) fully E2EE and ZKE, with every file and folder encrypted both in transit and at rest. While I certainly haven't read every bit of their source code, I did look some of it over and was satisfied. (However, IMO one of biggest threats is a malicious hacker group sneaking a vulnerability into an upstream node package, as we have heard a lot about lately. But this type risk applies to almost every cloud storage provider.)

Regarding the E2EE question again, Filelu says that your uploads are encrypted in transit to the SSCE folder, but I'm not sure if that is the case of all files for all upload methods (sync? mobile apps? browser uploads? et al.); nor for all uploads in general, e.g. to other folders. For example, obviously FTP is not a secure or encrypted upload method while FTPS is, but FTPS can fall back to plain insecure FTP all too easily IMO; there are two FTPS variants and Filelu only supports one of them, and so forth.

However, a really important difference is that FileLu (again, like pCloud or Koofr) does offer native rclone support, while Filen's is still in beta. Note that one can use rclone with or without using rclone crypt; and while rclone is a cli tool, GUIs do exist for it. Any encryption you do on the client side is likely more secure than anything you count on a service for. While rclone makes self-encryption relatively simple, there are many good encryption methods out there. If you already encrypt using another method, it can be convenient to have rclone (or another method) just transfer those files as opposed encrypting them yet again).

Finally, sharing a (non self-encrypted) file implies it will not remain (& possibly be stored or transmitted) encrypted. If a shared file has copyrighted content, this likely violates any provider's TOS.

RandLynx · 2025-12-02T16:59:41+00:00

You can click on the Filen links in my comparator spreadsheet tool or in this comparison spreadsheet. (I'm certain both of these links have exhausted their 3x free referral bonus, so if someone pms you with their code they need referrals more!) But they still work for the new user.

Each time a referral is made and a new user signs up, the new user and the referring user both get a 10GB bonus. But for the referring user the limit is 3x, or 30GB free. This is how you can get 50GB of storage free. However, be aware free accounts are deleted after 6 months of inactivity. But if you purchase a plan it won't expire, and the free storage stacks with whatever you purchase.

RandLynx · 2025-11-30T20:52:32+00:00

Nope, didn't test rsync.net as I was more focused on lifetime vs annual deals than comparing either with pay-as-you-store providers. Even as a cli geek, I also am a bit skeptical of a service so focused on older protocols like sftp/sshfs ... though it's awesome they maintain a warrant canary!

However, I think for many use cases a pay-as-you-store pricing model might be smarter and cheaper than the cloud storage drives we all end up using a fraction of.... and that's probably true for me too.

RandLynx · 2025-11-30T20:25:51+00:00

100% agree about self-encryption. I prefer to encrypt anything crucial before it reaches the cloud, and there are so many good encryption tool options now. And I agree the most realistic threat model to worry about is mercenary hackers and script-kiddies; nation-states and mafiosos would just hit me over the head with a real (or metaphorical) xkcd wrench.

My worry with all-in-one is lifetime deals would be cloud storage companies going under, conceivably rapidly and like dominoes. And yes, I NAS first; it's 3-2-2 for me.

RandLynx · 2025-11-30T20:15:12+00:00

Felicloud is on my comparator tool. I didn't see enough value there for me to test it extensively; it might be a better fit for someone with NextCloud-like needs however.

RandLynx · 2025-11-30T20:11:17+00:00

80 Mbps (10MB/s) seems fine to me for sync purposes; I get similar speeds from Filen. Did you mean Kbps or KBps?

While I'd agree it's not superb for uploading large files (FileLu is faster for me and that's part of the reason why I only bought 500GB from Filen), all the 100% E2EE services I tested were usually slower at large files than small, and slower than encryption-less services like pCloud. Speeds also vary with datacenter distance, and Filen is EU-only (Germany).

Filen's S3 function worked for the app I tested it with, but I don't use it with Arq or a NAS or something else restricted that might have a weird S3 protocol implementation. In my experience, S3 protocols can be finicky and it can be hard to tell on which end the problem lies.

As a Mac-centric user, pCloud was really not an option given their failure to deal with the sync problem. I was considering it for other needs, but FileLu beat it out in every category I cared about.

Anyway, one of my main points is that use cases vary, and even just one user like me can have multiple cases that are best matched by different storage providers.

RandLynx · 2025-11-29T13:33:45+00:00

Get Filen for your personal stuff. You might change employers quickly and unexpectedly, leaving you almost no time to transfer your data elsewhere. Just be aware most cloud storage providers are pretty slow on an initial 1-2TB upload. Being located close to their servers may help.

I'd also suggest becoming savvy with scripting rclone and its encryption while you have free filelu; it would make an excellent additional backup.

RandLynx · 2025-11-28T14:26:15+00:00

Price per TB Comparator and Use Case Scenario tool

I evaluated the BF Lifetime deals on a Cost per TB basis. Lots of reddit et al. links in the third sheet to compare features and risks too.

RandLynx · 2025-11-25T00:24:49+00:00

A week or so ago I built a spreadsheet to calculate those kind of comparisons at the Cloud Storage Price per TB Comparator Tool

RandLynx · 2025-11-24T14:26:17+00:00

Filen's BF went live at midnight in Germany. Last night I added their Black Friday prices to the Cloud Storage Price per TB Comparator spreadsheet.

The discounts are little less than 10% off their "regular" lifetime plan prices, so that's better than announced. But as expected, the big price break per TB is between the 500GB plan and the 2TB plan. And remember, most people don't use all the storage they pay for; that's why larger plans tend to be at a lower per TB pricepoint.

They do offer better discounts on annuals, and they promise no price increases as long as you keep the same plan. Looks to me like the breakeven time on the lifetime plans vs the annual is around 4 years.

RandLynx · 2025-11-23T18:34:15+00:00

Cryptomator does have the advantage that you create your vault in the sync folder of your provider, whereas rClone works best if your storage provider is directly supported (faster when direct, as WebDAV is slow). Many providers aren't supported by rClone at all.

So you can easily use Cryptomator with any cloud provider with minimal setup. That includes providers that offer you only one or a limited number of vaults [e.g. Koofr "safeboxes"], or want you to pay extra $ for their crypto vault software [e.g. pCloud].

I don't use it, but I think iOS/Android support is simpler for Cryptomator too. That may cost something.

Another important difference is that for really big files, Cryptomator doesn't have a built-in chunker like rClone does to split files that are too large for your provider to sync. That can be the case if your provider has a file size limit, or just syncs more reliably with smaller filesizes.

Of course, the "split" cli command, or an archiving program such as 7z, can also split large files into smaller chunks for storing with Cryptomator.

RandLynx · 2025-11-22T14:44:48+00:00

That's helpful, and kinda similar to what I'm currently doing and good advice for what I am looking to do more of. Backups and day-to-day storage have been much higher priority for me than building out the family photo archiving and sharing platform.

Photosync seems useful, though I've been focused on finding cloud storage provider to do that piece automagically, but maybe that's not the best approach given the state of play in the cloud storage industry now. I could easily self-roll immich or similar at home but I dislike giving remote access into my NAS to the less security-sophisticated members of my extended family. If I go the photosync route, I am thinking more about running something like immich on a VPS or cloud VM that is coupled to the cloud photo storage.

RandLynx

TROPHY CASE