Hey all, I've been doing a bunch of research on selfhosting the last few weeks as I'd love to lean on more open source projects for my daily productivity & entertainment. My main goal is to backup all my personal documents, photos, and videos (around 1tb so far over ~5 years, so not too demanding) and host a few services to access files on local storage (Immich, Jellyfin) and personal (paperless-ngx, homeassistant, morss). Although I'm not afraid to mess around learning Docker, I'd like to prioritize low maintenance in balance with relatively low long-term cost so that I don't run into an issue that takes more than a day to restore access to my files/backups. I'd rather save that time for the fun stuff, like endlessly configuring HA automations.
All that said, I figure a decent solution would be to run a local NAS in RAID 6 with a cold storage HDD to swap whenever I transfer a bunch of files from my camera for local backup, and a remote backup at either my parents' home or maybe eventually on another friend's NAS. The main thing I'm wondering right now is if a prebuilt NAS (Synology, Asustor, etc.) is worth it in comparison to a custom built system for simple maintenance, reliable and low-bandwidth remote backup and recovery, and solid file sharing options for friends and family? I've heard SFTPGo is a great project for file transfers if going custom built, so I'm not completely worried about the last point, but it'd still be a nice bonus to not have to worry about another service.
My greatest fear is having to explain to my parents what a terminal is, so I'd like something reliable with a good price which I can hopefully maintain without crossing that bridge. I know most prebuilt NAS systems aren't as cost effective or flexible for hosting a bunch of services also, so if I did go with a prebuilt, I would probably pick up a micro PC like a NUC or an old Dell Optiplex to network with the NAS for Immich, and maybe use some internal storage to keep some movies to stream with Jellyfin (unless there's a limitation I'm not considering). Any advice?
I went down the rabbit hole a while back, I have the space so I went with an old Dell R720 server rack with 24 cores/48 threads, and like 128 gigs of ram for 300 dollars off eBay.
I flashed the raid controller to IT mode using this guide
The perk of going this route is that I can run UnRaid which has an awesome web interface for creating docker containers and content servers.
At the same time you get the ability to add drives over time without having to rebuild your array. I started with a cache, parity, and storage. Over time I have added an additional parity drive and 6 more storage drives.
With this setup and similar you also can use SAS drives. Used helium filled enterprise drives are around 80 dollars for 10tb.
I run a plex server with mostly 4k content, game servers, Wordpress, pihole, media grabbers (aars), seedbox, home nas and countless other containers basically 24/7.
It works incredibly well especially for the price, but it is large. If you have space I highly recommend it. I run mine in an insulated crawlspace lol.
Damn that R720 sounds like a great all-in-one solution. Is the power draw manageable?
Also woah! Helium filled drives? What's the lifespan/risk on those if they've already gotten their lifespan cut short?
My R720xd is fully loaded with 12 HDDs, 2 SFP+ DACs, 2 SSDs, 2 SD cards, 128GB RAM, and 2 of the higher end CPUs available for the platform. Running ESXi with a bunch of VMs including TrueNAS, pfsense, and plex + arr stack, I average at about 250W-320W, and it's loud as hell.
Average draw would be similar to the other person 200-300 watts under load. And 140 watts idle. My server is really only super loud on boot. The noise levels are a none issue for me.
Most the drives I get I scan the smart data and most have nearly no usage on them. The drives are cheap enough and running parity I am not too worried about data loss. I have been running the server for 2.5 years now and I have yet to lose a drive.
I run these guys and with a ssd cache I really have zero complaints. Like I said my main priority was 4k video and they handle even the largest file steaming without issue. Although I try my best to avoid transcoding and using a shield to minimize that.