a very old (and more public) approach was the piratebox: https://piratebox.cc/android
maybe there's been some forks or related tools?
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
43 points (95.7% liked)
Android
31366 readers
26 users here now
DROID DOES
Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules
1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.
2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.
4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
Community Resources:
We are Android girls*,
In our Lemmy.world.
The back is plastic,
It's fantastic.
*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.
Our Partner Communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
You can use mixplorer (6$ google play store) to quickly launch a local ftp or smb server. attach a hdd or ssd to the charging port, buy a dongle (<25$) that allows data transfer, charging, and ethernet. And you basically just made a nas. You could even port forward the ftp to make it accessible outside your network (i dont recommend this unless you are hosting a vpn).
do not expect good transfer speeds but as far as a persistant redundant secure storage this is a great solution. The phone used would optimally have usb c for better data tranfer speeds. But the phone itself may limit these speeds refer to your phones specifications data for that (just google it).
The phone might overheat so maybe slap a usb fan on it and remove the case. If possible make it "float"(put rubber feet on the phone or smthn idk) to allow airflow on both surfaces of the device.
Very cool Idea. Please make an update post and link it in this thread if you make it and test speeds <3
Edit no idea how i forgot to mention this, but ADB can also be used to send commands directly to the device over the network you have alot of fine tune control over the device, you can run, close, install and uninstall apps, run scripts, remove default unessary bloat and even the launcher! After setup you may never have to touch the phone again, barring power loss etc. If that seems like alot there are also methods of remote desktopping into the phone. But in my expereince those solutions are laggy and slow. But if you just need it for simple tasks this might be optimal for you.
Any phones that can run from the socket without the battery installed? Like Samsung game mode when it bypasses the battery and just feeds the processor directly when it detects you're gaming while charging?
I was assuming that the user would be using an older phone that would otherwise become ewaste (most phones have built in batteries now), some phones do clock down when at low battery but if you are consistantly plugged in it shouldnt be an issue. Alot of modern devices will draw from wall power before battery, but that doesnt solve the battery issue entirely since the l-ion batts are kinda dangerous when overheated or punctured so unless you have the skills to remove the battery and wire a bypass you are taking a minor risk. but imo ive used phones as permenent gps or as a wifi reciever and in those applications, i did not encounter battery expansion and or major overheating.
What would be super cool is to remove back cover, cut out a hole, and put a heat sink on some of the components, literally just buy the cooling stuff for raspberry Pi. Hot rod phone NAS!
Dont forget the speed lines, flames and arbitrary number for the extra horsepower!
in all seriousness though the heatsink could attach directly to the backplate with thermal cement. since alot of phones are designed to disapate heat from there, great idea!
I just discovered CopyParty. This video does a good job of explaining it.
Internet access is more difficult and less secure than LAN access. It can be done with a VPN hosted from a device on your LAN, but it's not trivial.
Port forwarding may also work, but be very careful with security. Opening ports to the internet is generally not recommend.
Wow copyparty is insane!
Copyparty has been great for me for the less than a week or so I've used it. I copied a 44.8gb virtual machine there to get it to another machine earlier tonight just because I wanted to test a larger file. Came down on the other machine and worked fine. (Clearly this would have been easier to do by just making one folder shared on the receiving device or using a flash drive, but I was curious.
Maybe you might like syncthing
Well I've tried once using a mini PC with 1 hdd being connected to it through USB as a pilot test if it works, but the OS consistently shut off or didn't want to boot at some time, cause the HDD got voltage issues. But maybe it could be different for a phone, who knows.
EDIT: For clarification. My pilot test was for seeing if a HDD can be ran through an USB 24/7 without any issues, rather than buying a proper PC and inserting said HDD into it's intended SATA port. The HDD got undervoltage issues from the terminal, because the USB port couldn't supply enough voltage to the HDD, which is not only unreliable for a 24/7 NAS solution, but also may damage the HDD (or the USB port I don't remember anymore) whilst trying to run it under it's required voltage. Also I set my HDD to be auto mounted on boot, and as a safety mechanism Rocky Linux doesn't boot if it has undervoltage issues for one of it's components.
Ok, so I'm confused here... I get why you would attribute the issues you were having to a faulty HDD - that much makes sense - but I'm kind of at a loss as to why you seem to think any of that would apply to OP making a phone into a 'private cloud' for himself?
Hes saying that a HDD or SSD draws too much power for the usb port to handle on his mini pc. This would not be an issue if the drive was externally powered or, for example of he used a dongle that has a power input, the usb hdd or ssd "should" (maybe check the specs of the dongle) draw power directly from the wall and transfer data to the phone, so it shouldnt be an issue. This is actually very useful input even if the user does not plan to boot off the hdd. Definitely could have been worded better tho
Ah, ok, I see. I guess I just got it in my head that OP intended to just throw a high-cap SD card into the phone and call it a day (prolly because I'm lazy and this would be my solution lol) for some reason as opposed to using the phone as more or less a controller for some usb external drives.
Thanks for the clarification, my wording was awful.