[JohnFen]

This.

I do all of this (except 6) on my own servers and don't rely on service providers for it.

> But it is not hands-off and will never really be as hands-off as what google offers

True, but it's also not a lot of work. I think I spend, on average, about 2-4 hours per month on maintaining my setup.

[altmanaltman]

Yeah if you know what you're doing, its not really a chore. Or I don't see it like that since I enjoy doing it and know my way around my system well.

But if you're coming from a non-technical background, its very different since there is also a learning curve and the fear that you might accidently do something bad to your system (and thats a problem if it contains important things like family photos etc).