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Cheapest way to allow customer file storage...
- Thread starter waloshin
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Take a look at the free community edition of Pydio! If you're already paying for a hosting package with enough space, traffic-limit, PHP, MySQL, SSH and preferably SSL, just install it there. Make sure that the provider doesn't forbid self-installed file-sharing services.
If configuring a NAS at home with dynamic DNS, Pydio, a bundled file-sharing or a simple ftp solution is going to make sense, will heavily depend on the speed of your internet connection and the users habits and expectations.
If configuring a NAS at home with dynamic DNS, Pydio, a bundled file-sharing or a simple ftp solution is going to make sense, will heavily depend on the speed of your internet connection and the users habits and expectations.
I've no experience running Pydio on a NAS. I just made installs in shared hosting and development environments. As shared hosting usually has quite limited computing resources for each user, I'd expect that even the cheapest recent Synology would somehow work for average needs. For the enterprise edition of Pydio a 4 core processor is recommended.
As Pydio is AFAIK no standard package for Synology, there might be standard solutions for Synology that are more common and easier to set up. Nevertheless there are users on the Pydio Community Forum that managed to run it on a Synology NAS.
Look up ownCloud.. easy to setup in a *nix environment and might be just what you are looking for.
To clarify, it can certainly handle more than 1000 clients. I don't think it is a good idea to try pushing that many clients on a single server instance ( home and/or small business ( local ) setup ).
https://owncloud.org/
[doublepost=1476238293][/doublepost]What is your use case for 'clients access to files online such as photos'?
I've created hosted websites for professional photographers / artists, but the client hit rate is very low. Less than 1000 views an hour. Hosted sites are simple and very inexpensive, you can throw some wix stuff or wordpress plus plugins for next to nothing. Custom builds can cost quite a bit more, but give that personalized customer experience and the best thing is the backend is customized for you. Plugins can look great to the customer, but are often hell on the proprietor.
There are many ways to handle your needs.
PS. It was the combo of photos and files that created my 'ownCloud' thought thread.
For such an online order/download system why not use a dedicated online shop software? Magento for example should be able to sell downloads. Set the price to zero for the first 100 images. If there is an easy way to restrict a certain file/folder to a certain client/group you'll need to find out.
If NAS or PC noone can answer. It depends on your favor. NAS - as easy as possible / therefore limited possibilities. Linux-PC - easy if you've got the skills / almost unlimited possibilities.
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