Yours. Private. Permanent.
How many years, decades, generations
will you pay
to look at your own photos?
cloudHWS turns a small device in your home into a private photo library for the whole family. Your memories live on a drive you own. No company holds them. No AI trains on them. And you'll never pay a subscription to look at photos you took yourself.
No new habits
One photos app. Just like the one you already use.
Open the cloudHWS app. Tap to view. Swipe to scroll. The same grid, the same gestures, the same simplicity.
Nothing new to learn. The only thing that changes is where your library actually lives — on a drive at home, not a server you'll never see.
Photos
Today
Why cloudHWS
You shouldn't rent access to your own memories.
Your photos live on a drive in your home. Not leased access that expires when a subscription lapses. Not files held at someone else's discretion. When you stop paying — you don't, it's a one-time purchase — nothing happens. They're already home.
Your photos. Your house. Your rules.
No cloud servers touching your library. Your kids' faces aren't training data. No automatic face scanning, no AI inference, no quiet policy changes you find out about from a support thread.
What leaves your house: nothing.
Photos you take today will still matter in 2076. At today's price, a lifetime of iCloud 2TB is ~$6,000 — and cloud prices won't stay at today's prices. cloudHWS is a one-time ~$270 build. Your memories outlast any rental plan.
Break-even: year 2.5. Then pure savings.
Price is the consequence. Ownership is the point.
How it works
Set it up once. Then it just runs.
Install on a device at home.
Have a Raspberry Pi or any small Linux box sitting around? Run the cloudHWS installer and you're up and running in minutes.
Works on Pi 4, Pi 5, or any 64-bit Linux.
cloudHWS server
Pair your phone.
The cloudHWS app finds your home server on WiFi automatically. Scan a code. You're in.
No accounts to create. No cloud sign-up.
Forget about it.
Photos and videos back up in the background whenever you're home. Live Photos, originals, location, the works.
Backups resume automatically when WiFi returns.
What you need
A Pi and two drives. That's enough.
One drive holds your photos. The other backs them up. Anything that runs 64-bit Linux works. Below is our ideal setup — pick the exact parts, or swap any of them for what you already own.
Base variant
≈ $190 totalThis setup keeps only one copy of your photos. If the SSD fails, your library is gone. Fine for trying it out — not what we'd run for irreplaceable memories.
The brain
Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB)
Runs the cloudHWS server. 8GB is the sweet spot for photo processing.
Feeds the Pi
Official 27W USB-C Power Supply
Pi 5 is picky about power. Use the official PSU or you'll chase ghost bugs forever.
Boots the OS
microSD card (32GB, A2)
Holds Raspberry Pi OS and the cloudHWS code. Photos go on the SSD.
Where your photos live
Samsung T7 SSD (1TB)
Fast, reliable USB 3.2. 1TB stores ~200,000 photos at iPhone quality.
Make it the ideal setup
+$80 → ≈ $270Add a second drive. cloudHWS rsyncs to it weekly so a single drive failure doesn't take your photos with it. This is what we actually recommend.
Weekly backup drive
WD Elements 2TB External HDD
Cheap, reliable second drive. cloudHWS rsyncs to it weekly so you survive an SSD failure.
Connects SSD to Pi
USB 3.0 cable (USB-A to USB-C)
Most SSDs ship with a short cable — a longer one makes cable-routing easier.
For rock-solid backups
Ethernet cable (Cat 6, 6ft)
Optional but recommended. Wired network never drops in the middle of a video upload.
Alternative storage path
save ≈ $15Swap the Samsung T7 for a bare Samsung 870 EVO plus a SATA-to-USB adapter. Slightly more setup, longer warranty, better thermals for 24/7 duty. Pick one or the other — not both.
Replaces the T7
Samsung 870 EVO SSD (1TB)
Same Samsung NAND and controller class as the T7. 5-year warranty instead of 3. Bare drive runs cooler and has a published 600 TBW endurance spec. Needs a SATA-to-USB adapter (below) to connect to the Pi.
Connects the 870 EVO
SATA-to-USB 3.0 adapter cable
Required if you picked the 870 EVO above. Plugs the bare SSD into any of the Pi's USB 3 ports.
The math
Base variant: ~$190 one-time.One copy of your photos.
Ideal setup: ~$270 one-time.Two copies. Drive failure survives.
iCloud 2TB: $119.88/year forever.
You break even in year 2. After that, every year is pure savings.
Features
Everything the cloud does. None of the rent.
Built for households.
Family accounts, day one
Each person gets their own private library. Admin invites family in seconds.
No quality compromise.
Live Photos & video
Full motion, full quality. The app preserves Live Photos end-to-end — including the audio.
Web portal included.
Browse from any laptop
Open your cloudHWS in a browser at home. Login, scroll, download, upload. No app required.
Forgiving by design.
Trash, not delete
Deleted photos sit in trash for 30 days. Misclicked? Restore in one tap.
Reclaim your phone.
Free up space, keep the photo
Same Google Photos pattern: photo lives on cloudHWS, removed from your phone storage.
Resilient by default.
Offline-first
Lost WiFi? The app keeps working with what's already on your device. Re-syncs when you're back.
Get cloudHWS
Coming soon. We'll tell you when it's ready.
In active development for Raspberry Pi and other 64-bit Linux devices. The companion app for iOS and Android ships alongside.
Waitlist
Want to know when it ships?
FAQ