Home server / personal cloud advice please

[CPC464 10]

I have an old netbook that I want to turn into a personal cloud / server for the purpose of viewing photos stored on it via an ipad.

 

At the moment I'm using tonido (http://www.tonido.com/tonidodesktop_downloads/) which appears to be exactly what i need, plus it even works if I'm not on the same network.

 

The only problem I have is that it's really slow to load images, even when the machines are connected over wifi.

 

I've also set the netbook up to share files a over the network which again works fine, but I can't find an ipad app that let's me browse the pics in a gallery / swipe able format.

 

So my questions are -

 

- is the slowness just down the crappy netbook (it's not really much use on its own anymore so I guess this could be the bottleneck)?

- anyone got a different suggestion for doing this - or an ipad app that will show a gallery view / swipe when viewing the files over wifi?

 

Remote access isn't essential, but nice to have - im mainly trying to get it running smoothly over wifi first.

[tzijlstra 11]

Try plugging the netbook into the network with a cat cable, that should improve things?

[CPC464 10]

Try plugging the netbook into the network with a cat cable, that should improve things?

 

Cheers - works much smoother now!

 

UPDATE:

 

Now that its working properly tonido is doing exactly what I want - very easy to set up but definitely use a wired connection from your 'server' machine.

We now have access to all of our photos on our ipads without having to store them all on there.

If you have an old laptop or desktop doing nothing then this is brilliant way to use it.

Edited December 30, 2013 by CPC464

[eatshmeat 10]

use dropbox. its free and can sync between devices

[CPC464 10]

use dropbox. its free and can sync between devices

 

Not what I want though.

 

I'm hosting the files myself, via an old laptop.

[denomis 10]

It's a bit overkill to be running a server just for photos, you would be better off getting a networked external hd.

[CPC464 10]

It's a bit overkill to be running a server just for photos, you would be better off getting a networked external hd.

 

It's just an old netbook that wasn't doing anything so just using that for now.

[Waldo 96]

Just be careful with these personal cloud things, that it isn't saving lots of extra data on your drive (for different versions of saved files etc). I gave AeroFS a whirl, before sussing it was taking up loads more storage on my SSD than I expected.

[CPC464 10]

Just be careful with these personal cloud things, that it isn't saving lots of extra data on your drive (for different versions of saved files etc). I gave AeroFS a whirl, before sussing it was taking up loads more storage on my SSD than I expected.

 

Yeah it seems to be creating a largish database file in each folder, although this seems to help with the speed.

 

Really pleased with it though, it's great having access to all out photos again via the iPads without having to store them on the devices themselves.