SpaceDrive might offer a more comprehensive and better-maintained version of this, though it is not primarily advertised for this kind of use.

https://v2.spacedrive.com/

In fairness, you can also have that experience with Microsoft OneDrive.

What experience?

A recent (last year?) Windows update moved a lot of people's Documents folder into OneDrive, without asking. In some cases people lost data, in others it was a nuisance as all sorts of embedded or saved paths broke.

> A recent (last year?) Windows update moved a lot of people's Documents folder into OneDrive, without asking.

Something similar happened to my Dropbox on Mac: the change to the macOS File Provider API meant that a lot of my locally synced files became cloud-sync only. Not cool when I was expecting limited internet access.

I still have no idea how to redownload and keep everything local while synced with cloud.

Yup, they managed to get my Dad on this. When he uninstalled it, they give you a small warning "oh you might lose some data" - when it is 100% guaranteed if you were over their 5gb limit.

Absolutely insane, glad I had Backblaze to restore from, but it even remapped his Documents and other home folders to a new place, so using restore didn't immediately make the files appear.

Don’t count on Backblaze to back it up anymore either. They don’t backup Dropbox directories or other cloud sync products. It wasn’t broadly communicated just a line item in release notes.

I’ve now decided to move on from BB. They changed that without notice or workaround and my files (which I pay for long term versioning) are gone from their backups too.

If anything I would have expected my files to be retained, no new syncing of the directories. Not simply disappear (which could be because it appears deleted if the client is skipping them) - even then though my long term versions should take over.

Did that really happen? Like existing and populated with existing files /user/Documents content had been moved automatically to the /user/OneDrive/ without asking? No offense, but I have a hard time believing it.

If if was a new setup and people accidentally started using OneDrive dir as a primary folder and then something broke, then yeah, that may happen. Or if the users got conned into enabling automatic backups for folders. That's also possible. The problem is that backup setting is off by default. But automatically copying or moving files from outside of the /user/OneDrive without any prompting?

Vibe coded / sloppy projects

There are plenty of reasons to criticize OneDrive and I personally would not use it. But I think comparing it with a weekend vibe coded self hosted project is a bit of a stretch.

I don't.

Microsoft has zero goodwill from me with regards to software quality or pro-consumer business moves.

I will forever assume that microsoft product is 1) technically broken 2) trying to upsell and 3) probably required by some esoteric software suite, which is the only reason a sane human would put up with it.

I think many people are just looking at the outcomes. Slop is now being retroactively applied to human produced software as well, as a new adjective for software generally.

There is also sentiment / understanding that Microslop has been pushing their devs to do the ai thing and that it is resulting in more downtime and bugs. This is not limited to one company and more an artifact of the hype cycle. If anything, it's worse with the corporate product because there should be more checks and balances, but here we are.

Hey buddy, you're out of line. Microsoft has clearly had experiences all along.

What do you think Windows: ME stood for? Miserable Experience

In absolute terms, as far as we know, as of today that vibe-coded app is still more reliable than OneDrive.

Why wouldn't I trust a SaaS app that is charging me and selling my important data?

...most of the software industry is one rung above back alley smack dealer when it comes to the kind of business they run.

Most software developers are bartering for food and shelter. They're not curing cancer or building an essential new bridge for a community.

Because you can self-host it all and validate the source yourself!

How can I practically verify 2TB of a life's worth of files while guaranteeing I won't have data loss due to some edge cases and race conditions that delete my data.

Every time I've created my own backup script I realized knowing what to delete and when is not easy. IMO the practical solution to this is to just pay for more storage (within reason).

How can you guarantee you'll have access to your 2TB Google Drive when they ban your Google account for breaching terms or accidentally tripping a circuit breaker across one of their offerings?

Yup, pay more but get 2 providers.

A backup is not something I fear of losing access to because by definition it’s a copy.

However I am more afraid of my data being exfiltrated and imo there is a more risk of that with a “vibe coded 1 person 1 week old” app rather than any of the major providers.

This is unironically why I do not depending on google for products this important. I do have premium google drive as I needed barely over 15gb, but my main cloud storage is dropbox. A YT comment I made 10 years ago can't break Dropbox's TOS, and since premium storage is their whole business, they will take the product more seriously.

I also have a 14TB RAID 5 NAS at home. And my Desktop PC has 6TB of RAID 5 (had that first, mostly used for video games these days).

Or just get a 2TB hard drive for $30 and put your data there. For the cost of storage, you might as well buy three of them.

Look at it this way; all those reel to reels of grandpas and VHS tapes of dads are in the trash now.

They too thought they were storing important history. Only for their heirs to bin their stuff in order to focus on their lives.

Be less needy. No one cares anyway.

I'll never forget when my Grandpa died 20 years ago, the first thing my dad did - even before telling us - was look for photos. His siblings did the same and they came up with a collage of around 30 photos I had never seen before that gave me a small glimpse of the highlights of his life.

My other grandpa, controversially used a big chunk of their wedding money on a good camera. They traveled the world and lived abroad for several years right before and after my mom and aunt were born. Because of this, we are all able to see such a fascinating and meticulous glimpse into their lives. Each photo tells a story even if the story is boring, but I really appreciated the small details. Even random pictures of cars that my Grandpa thought were cool. Or the mean guard dog they had in Taiwan while it was still a puppy. Or my mom on the Trans Siberian Railroad in the middle of the Cold War.

These stories and my own appreciation of photography have made me realize how valuable every photo I have is, and I'm willing to put in effort to save them. When I'm old and dying of dementia, I'll be able to look back at my life in incredible detail one last time. Even the dumb meme's I decided to save will tell a story.

I still have a deep appreciation for living in the moment and knowing not everything should be captured, but we live in an era where I have a really good camera in my pocket at all times, and the ability to store all those photos forever cheaply.

How can you practically verify that OneDrive won't do this either?

I will never use one drive even if they paid me. I use Dropbox + Homelab NAS with RAID 5 + old desktop PC with a RAID 5 drive. I have a lot of RAW photos to keep.

> How can I practically verify 2TB of a life's worth of files while guaranteeing I won't have data loss due to some edge cases and race conditions that delete my data.

Same with literally every other backup software. Have two, and test restorations regularly. It's not easy, but nothing worth it when you need it ever is.