Technology

I run everything on a lean Ubuntu server install. My Ansible playbooks then take over and set up ZFS and docker. All of my hosted services are in docker, and their data and configs are contained, regularly snapshotted, and backed up in ZFS.

I run basically all of the Arr stack, Plex (more friendly to my less tech savvy family then my preferred solution Jellyfin), HAss, Frigate NVR, Obsidian LiveSync, a few Minecraft worlds, Docspell, Tandoor recipes, gitea, Nextcloud, FoundryVTT, an internet radio station, syncthing, Wireguard, ntfy, calibre, Wallabag, Navidrome, and a few pet projects.

I also store or backup all of the important family documents and photos, though I haven't implemented Immich just yet, waiting for a few features and a little more development maturity.

About 30TB usable right now.

I have one Synology DS220+ at my parents house which I use for offsite backup of the computers and phones mostly. But it also runs Synology Photos which does face recognition which I then use to once an hour to fetch 20 pictures of pictures with the family on to show on the TV in the living room. I have pictures there dating back to 2004 which makes it a very cool walk down the memory lane. And I can use the TV as a big interactive picture frame when nobody is watching anything but we're at home.

With a similar script I also post pictures like "Today n years ago" in two of my family chats which is even cooler because there my siblings and parents also can one picture from n years ago every day in the morning when they wake up.

Here is the script, the bad part is that it has to have access to the postgresql database on the NAS, so it's a bit tricky to set up but once it runs it's awesome! https://github.com/jeena/synology-pictures

I built my own, use XigmaNAS and RaidZ3 across 15 2TB disks for 22TB usable. Backup is now my main PITA - I lost a previous array with RaidZ2 by losing 3 disks trying to rebuild, so while I should have known better, RAID is not a backup. However, finding large external disks with any sort of reliability seems hard - so many bad reviews of 12TB etc disks. For now, I'm actually only using about 3.2TB and so can backup to jottacloud, but it's slow with my internet. I think the first full backup tool 3 months or something. Luckily I use something that is all incremental after that, but I probably actually need to set up a 20TB disk or something to just make full copies over to occasionally.

I used to have a NAS, ended up moving towards a mini server instead. The flexibility has been really worth it for me, and I run a JBOD enclosure for extra disks so that I can handle backups and media files.

I'm running an ASRock Deskmini. It has a variety of flaws, but it works surprisingly well and has been basically stable. It's tiny, and it can get a decent heatsink and fan upgrade on top. I'm running a Ryzen CPU in it. It runs all of my self-hosting stuff.

I have a Synology DS 918+. I run just their apps for photos, surveillance station & as file sever. Separately I run promox on Intel NUC for services need more resources than the NAS has such as Plex (with transcoding), home assistant & another AI like NVR called frigate (with TPU). Overall it’s a good low power & stable setup but the fan on NUC can be annoyingly loud at times.

I have an Ubuntu VM running on my Proxmox server. It just exports some folders over NFS that I mount from my laptops and PC. Then I have Nextcloud running in a separate VM so my phone can upload photos. The NC storage is all the NFS mounted folders from the NAS. Simple and works.