VPN + Mail + Storage setup

Astro

Last few hours of deals left so I thought I'd get some feedback. I was about to take a plunge into ProtonMail Visionary plan but then realised that meant putting all my eggs in one basket.

So which one would you pick and why?

1. Proton Visionary plan that includes storage, mail and VPN
2. OVPN + Mxroute/Mailbox.org + Filen
3. Or setup everything on your own on a dedi

Just looking for opinions from the great folks here before I take the plunge.

Nekki

No to 3. If you think you're going to manage to get mails delivered without outside assistance, imma gonna laugh in yo face.

Proton Visionary is the pricier option, but if you suffer from FOMO be aware it may never turn up again. ProtonDrive is very much feature lacking at the moment though, so if you get that it's one for the feature. Mail is great, VPN has been great but has had a few issues of late they're not rushing to fix.

I don't know what OVPN you mean (self-hosted or the commercial OpenVPN?) but you won't go wrong with MXRoute. Not sure how much I'd trust Filen given they've apparently just broken their website.

Astro

@Nekki said:
No to 3. If you think you're going to manage to get mails delivered without outside assistance, imma gonna laugh in yo face.

Proton Visionary is the pricier option, but if you suffer from FOMO be aware it may never turn up again. ProtonDrive is very much feature lacking at the moment though, so if you get that it's one for the feature. Mail is great, VPN has been great but has had a few issues of late they're not rushing to fix.

I don't know what OVPN you mean (self-hosted or the commercial OpenVPN?) but you won't go wrong with MXRoute. Not sure how much I'd trust Filen given they've apparently just broken their website.

What part of filen is broken? Working fine here

Also ovpn.com - fast and no logs. Everything stored in RAM on their servers. Proven in court too.

tarasis

@Nekki said:
No to 3. If you think you're going to manage to get mails delivered without outside assistance, imma gonna laugh in yo face.

I can attest to that, part of why I stopped self hosting after a decade. Doesn't matter what hoops you jump through some big servers just won't take your email (fine as I don't send much)

BUT if you use MxRoute or say AnyMXRelay https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/4891/anymxrelay-smtp-relay-pre-black-friday-2022-sale#latest you could self host receiving and leave the delivery to them.

Nekki

@Astro said:

@Nekki said:
No to 3. If you think you're going to manage to get mails delivered without outside assistance, imma gonna laugh in yo face.

Proton Visionary is the pricier option, but if you suffer from FOMO be aware it may never turn up again. ProtonDrive is very much feature lacking at the moment though, so if you get that it's one for the feature. Mail is great, VPN has been great but has had a few issues of late they're not rushing to fix.

I don't know what OVPN you mean (self-hosted or the commercial OpenVPN?) but you won't go wrong with MXRoute. Not sure how much I'd trust Filen given they've apparently just broken their website.

What part of filen is broken? Working fine here

I can no longer logon via their website, something prevents me from entering the full 2FA code.

Also ovpn.com - fast and no logs. Everything stored in RAM on their servers. Proven in court too.

I'd go Mullvad for VPN. Same price if paid via BTC and you can pay monthly rather than a year upfront.

chimichurri

It might be easier for us to give you advice provided you describe both your expectations and usage patterns for the email, storage and VPN, as well as the exact specs and pricing of the deals you are considering (lifetimes?).

Without any further details on your part, assuming the storage part would be indeed just for storage (and no CPU intensive tasks):

1. Unsure how expensive this is - it's a legacy plan? Some old Reddit posts suggest this might be 3TB for 18 euros per month - not that cheap if you ask me. Plus it seems you can't use external clients such as rclone, so encrypting your files before the upload might turn out to be problematic (if you care about such things in the first place).

2. OVPN: I presume you mean https://www.ovpn.com/ (edit: it is ovpn.com) - I've looked into them, they seem legit in terms of no logging, but I guess this is worth only if doing intensive torrenting (downloading/uploading low seeded torrents with port forwarding). If you happen to be a light user (e.g. would be using this just for unblocking US Netflix or occasional torrenting on public trackers), then consider going for one of the lifetime deals such as FastestVPN or KeepSolid - @Ympker is yo' man (take a look at his LTD lists/threads). (edit2: I heard good things about Mullvad in terms of port forwarding and no logging as well, but they were slightly more expensive than OVPN last time I checked)
   Filen: Just like Proton, they do not seem to be offering WebDAV/rclone access, implying storing Linux ISOs over there might be risky (plus AFAIK they are a relatively young company, so there's a higher risk of deadpool, if compared to let's say Dropbox for example)
   Mailbox/MXroute: Haven't used either, but I guess both of these should be fine? At the very least, they surely are not fly by night operations

3. Due to the already mentioned issue of outgoing mail issues, IMHO managing your own email account isn't worth it (unless you're planning on working as a sysadmin in the field).
   As for storage, are you sure you need a dedi for this? If this is not going to be some IO-intensive hardcore torrenting setup, in terms of bang per buck per TB of storage, perhaps consider getting storage VPS from Hosthatch, for 2TB+, it's less than 2 dollars per month per TB if going for the triennial option (outside APAC, slightly higher pricing in HK/SG), alternatively 2 dollars per TB per month from Servarica (Montreal). All of these are RAIDed storage, implying they should be more reliable than your average dedi (unless you setup your own RAID, which unfortunately would in turn even further worsen the $/TB ratio in comparison to storage VPS)
   Finally, for VPN, of course you could setup Wireguard/OpenVPN on the dedi/VPS too, but if you don't just want to hide your IP, unless you get a 'DMCA ignored' server, you most likely won't be able to use it for torrenting (and for Netflix, you'll most likely end up being unable to proxy any geoblocked Netflix content), so you might need to get something else too, e.g. the aforementioned FastestVPN/KeepSolid deals

TL;DR Although I'm usually not a fan of self-hosted setups, assuming you'd be fine with command line access to your files via rclone, in this case my personal recommendation would be a mix of 2+3: get external email, a HH/Servarica storage VPS (from the OGF/LES BF sales), and perhaps a LTD VPN too (unless you need port forwarding, then get OVPN or Mullvad)

Ympker

@chimichurri said:
It might be easier for us to give you advice provided you describe both your expectations and usage patterns for the email, storage and VPN, as well as the exact specs and pricing of the deals you are considering (lifetimes?).

Without any further details on your part, assuming the storage part would be indeed just for storage (and no CPU intensive tasks):

1. Unsure how expensive this is - it's a legacy plan? Some old Reddit posts suggest this might be 3TB for 18 euros per month - not that cheap if you ask me. Plus it seems you can't use external clients such as rclone, so encrypting your files before the upload might turn out to be problematic (if you care about such things in the first place).

2. OVPN: I presume you mean https://www.ovpn.com/ (edit: it is ovpn.com) - I've looked into them, they seem legit in terms of no logging, but I guess this is worth only if doing intensive torrenting (downloading/uploading low seeded torrents with port forwarding). If you happen to be a light user (e.g. would be using this just for unblocking US Netflix or occasional torrenting on public trackers), then consider going for one of the lifetime deals such as FastestVPN or KeepSolid - @Ympker is yo' man (take a look at his LTD lists/threads). (edit2: I heard good things about Mullvad in terms of port forwarding and no logging as well, but they were slightly more expensive than OVPN last time I checked)
   Filen: Just like Proton, they do not seem to be offering WebDAV/rclone access, implying storing Linux ISOs over there might be risky (plus AFAIK they are a relatively young company, so there's a higher risk of deadpool, if compared to let's say Dropbox for example)
   Mailbox/MXroute: Haven't used either, but I guess both of these should be fine? At the very least, they surely are not fly by night operations

3. Due to the already mentioned issue of outgoing mail issues, IMHO managing your own email account isn't worth it (unless you're planning on working as a sysadmin in the field).
   As for storage, are you sure you need a dedi for this? If this is not going to be some IO-intensive hardcore torrenting setup, in terms of bang per buck per TB of storage, perhaps consider getting storage VPS from Hosthatch, for 2TB+, it's less than 2 dollars per month per TB if going for the triennial option (outside APAC, slightly higher pricing in HK/SG), alternatively 2 dollars per TB per month from Servarica (Montreal). All of these are RAIDed storage, implying they should be more reliable than your average dedi (unless you setup your own RAID, which unfortunately would in turn even further worsen the $/TB ratio in comparison to storage VPS)
   Finally, for VPN, of course you could setup Wireguard/OpenVPN on the dedi/VPS too, but if you don't just want to hide your IP, unless you get a 'DMCA ignored' server, you most likely won't be able to use it for torrenting (and for Netflix, you'll most likely end up being unable to proxy any geoblocked Netflix content), so you might need to get something else too, e.g. the aforementioned FastestVPN/KeepSolid deals

TL;DR Although I'm usually not a fan of self-hosted setups, assuming you'd be fine with command line access to your files via rclone, in this case my personal recommendation would be a mix of 2+3: get external email, a HH/Servarica storage VPS (from the OGF/LES BF sales), and perhaps a LTD VPN too (unless you need port forwarding, then get OVPN or Mullvad)

Thanks for the mention. As you already said it entirely depends on OP's intended usage for VPN. A lifetime VPN like Keepsolid/Ivacy/FastestVPN can be a more economic alternative if you are what you have described as a "light" user (streaming, unblocking, dls...). I assume some people would also use Keepsolid/FastestVPN/Ivacy for torrenting, given that they at least all suggest they are "the best VPN for torrenting". Of course, this is a marketing term, but still I can imagine that they are not necessarily all that bad in that field either. Can't speak from experience since I am not torrenting, though.

https://www.ivacy.com/blog/torrent-vpn/#WhatisthebestVPNfortorrenting

https://www.vpnunlimited.com/help/torrents / https://www.vpnunlimited.com/blog/download-torrents-securely

https://fastestvpn.com/blog/why-fastestvpn-is-best-for-torrenting/