Sure, but you don't necessarily have to use it like that, you can provide your own decentralized storage using it. Put some cheap devices (old RPis w/ large SD cards) at friends'/family members' houses and have them pin your most important stuff. If they get broken/lost, NBD, you probably have another copy somewhere else.

If a lot of your data isn't critical and you're willing to gamble a bit (e.g. movies or something you can re-rip), then IPFS could be a perfect fit, just like torrents are (though IPFS probably isn't great for large media like movies, but hopefully my point makes sense).

I'm not saying it's perfect or anything, just that it exists and is in this domain. A lot of similar projects compare themselves to IPFS, so understanding what it is and isn't is useful what evaluating alternatives.

Eh, sure OP could do that. Does seem a bit over the top for OP to pursue the most complicated backup solution possible Maybe as a strange experiment to see how it goes, not as a trusted backup solution. (like you said not for critical data)

IPFS would also require more bandwidth vs just about any other solution since it has to constantly talk to other IPFS nodes. And more finicky, last I used IPFS the client would run into memory leaks and other weirdness requiring restarts every now and then (hopefully it's more stable for long-term runs nowadays).

"personal" and "trustless" seem sort of at odds here. you want personal data, so you want personal storage.

what I recommend, if you have the time and energy, is to find another self-hoster you trust and be "backup buddies" with them. set up remote file storage on both your networks and send your backups to the other person's server.

if you can't find another self-hoster, then find a friend or family member you trust and mail them your backups on a physical disk.

If you set up something like Garage with borg with a bunch of other people you could create a network where you essentially swap hard drive space to ensure you’re all backed up.

But I think Garage assumes very high trust with your fellow hosts, so this doesn’t scale beyond direct social connections.

Got a link for that? Searching for "garage backup storage" doesn't really get me anywhere...

I’m thinking of using Storj because I’d like a trustless solution. Are there any other good alternatives in the decentralized or Web3 space?

Siacoin.

They're saying that torrents are a form of decentralized cloud storage, not that torrents would be a viable means of decentralizing your own personal backups.

Don't use storj. I used to recommend them, but they have instituted a $5 minimum charge to have an account. The tl;dr is that they are interested in B2B, not individuals.

I've moved over to Tigris.

Announcement:
https://forum.storj.io/t/new-minimum-usage-fee-starting-july-1/30057/1

Here's a follow up to the drama:
https://forum.storj.io/t/a-follow-up-on-the-new-minimum-usage-fee-and-a-request-for-feedback/30089

Hit up the /r/storj for more drama if you dare to look at Reddit again :puke:

That is not what that term generally means. Somebody COULD be running their own cloud platform, but if you're speaking to a large group of people and you say "Cloud deployed", they understand that to be deployed to a Cloud Provider on a secured platform and location (AWS, Google, Azure...etc).

We don't say "cloud" in engineering anywhere without meaning this. We may refer to a non-colocated deployment of something as "edge" or "off-site", but never "cloud". There isn't a single engineer on this planet who would ever confuse "deployed to cloud" to mean somebody's basement.

I’m thinking of using Storj because I’d like a trustless solution. Are there any other good alternatives in the decentralized or Web3 space?

I really wanted sia to take off. I wouldn't trust it yet though.

I’m thinking of using Storj because I’d like a trustless solution. Are there any other good alternatives in the decentralized or Web3 space?

Don't forget to encrypt your backups before sending them, just in case... Better be safe than sorry

The name cloud comes from depiction of "somewhere on the internet" in network diagrams. I don't know what corporate environment you're in but you're using the term incorrectly.

Siacoin.

Thanks for your advice! I'm interested in trying Siacoin. Was it expensive?

Lol, okay, bud. Not only are you absolutely wrong and seem to have no professional experience with this whatsoever: search engines, engineering blogs, Wikipedia, history, and every other known source of truth on this disagree with you, yet here you are arguing anyway. Amazing.

Filecoin showed promise as a nearly free option. I used to be a storage provider. Met a lot of other storage providers at conventions. The people involved were pretty alright. I haven't interacted with the community in a few years though. Biggest problem I saw back then was a lack of a user friendly means of storing and retrieval. That might have changed now.

Whatever option you pick please make sure you encrypt your data before you send it off.