July 29, 2022

HOWTO: Free Peer-to-Peer Cloud Backup

How to use The 2hO Network to create your own personal cloud backup.

To do this, ideally you would have two different physical locations. E.g. Home and Office. You can also do this if both computers are in the same location. But for the ideal backup, your data should be off-site.

Then install the 2hO software on each computer. Now, both computers will be able to see each other as if they are on the same physical LAN. Of course, you can have more than 2 computers. But the process of setting it up is the same.

Then create a share on the disk you want to use as the backup folder. This is done using the network sharing feature that is part of your operating system.

E.g. On Windows…

Share the Backup folder

• Right-click the folder you want to share.
• Then click Properties, Advanced Sharing.
• Click Share this Folder, give it the name Backup, click Apply, Okay.

Then, on the second computer…

Connect to that folder

• Open the File Explorer
• At the top, type \\mycomputer.myaccount.2ho.ca
• Login with your credentials on the other computer

You now have an online shared folder on your other computer that you can access from anywhere in the world. You can copy your files or use whatever other backup software you like. The main feature here is backing up to another location is no different than backing up to another drive.

This procedure is pretty much the same whether you use Windows, MacOS, Linux, or any combination of them.

In fact, If you have a Linux-based NAS device such as QNAP or Synology, you can install the 2hO Client for Linux and access that from anywhere. Any device running the 2hO Network software will appear to you as if it was on a local LAN. This private LAN is always there.

If you are using The 2hO Network for non-commercial purposes… there is no cost for this solution. It’s a free service limited only by how much space you have on the other computer.