I set up two kinds of personal storages in my server recently. They are owncloud and Seafile. After using them for a while, I find some interesting properties for each of them. Keeping both of them in my workspace can satisfy most of my need.
First about owncloud. Actually, I started using it long before, dating back to probably 4 years ago. At that time, it is still not very stable and has lots of bugs. Now it becomes much better. But I still don’t very like it. The interface is not nice, and it don’t have any special feature. But it does do its job – storage and sync. I now find it most useful for static storage, like for my photos, and viewing online. It can also handle huge file size and huge file number.
Then about Seafile. It is light weight and fast. Doing everything almost like the owncloud. It is especially good at sync and version control. Thus, it is good for document editing and storage. The problem is that the open-source version has limited function, such as no selective sync, no folder upload, making it unsuitable for storaging large amounts of compressed files and photos. Besides, the storage is encrypt, that means you probably cannot recover those files if you lose the server program. That is a concern. Sometimes, I like backup of the original unmodified files such that I can still keep the data without having to keep the server.