So I’m quite new to the self hosting world, and not the most tech savvy, but I’m looking for a way to expand and increase the reliability of my file storage. I used to just use cloud storage but got concerned about privacy and environmental impact and whittled down all of my data to about 200GB including all my music, photos, movies, backup files, etc. I have a laptop, phone, and mp3 player and currently use synching to sync all of my files across all three devices. This works great, I love how seamless, cheap, and automatic everything is. But I want to expand my storage abilities and include a backup that isn’t with me / in my apartment. I was thinking of getting a couple raspberry pis with m.2 ssds, one to leave at my sisters house (small and unobtrusive little plastic box connected to power and her wifi) and then one at my apartment to act as another node, freeing up space on my phone so that all my files are in at least 3 different devices (3:2:1 rule?). this feels like an fairly easy project to set up, but I have a feeling there is probably a better way to go about what I’m trying to achieve.
Someone down-voted but I agree, and this from actual experience doing stuff similar to OP.
Flexibility, compatibility, and power consumption are significant considerations for a self-hoster.
I’ve run ST with Pi, and while Pi is great, it’s non-standard so doesn’t have the benefit (yet) of ubiquity. While it’s low power consumption is fantastic, mini PC’s and even SFF (Small-Form-Factor) desktops are in the same range for similar costs (in the used market) while providing orders of magnitude more performance per watt and much more hardware compatibility.
A Pi 5 today is in the $120 range - for a device that on it’s own will idle at about 4 watts, with peak draw at 15w. This without any storage yet, and no case.
A mini PC will idle about the same - but can house a large, standard drive so be a much better package for OP’s intended use-case, and cost less on the used market.
I’d maybe add an online backup for the device you’ve chosen to be the authoritative data source to achieve close to a 3-2-1.
The downvotes here are from people who have no idea what in the world actually works best, and just FEEL a certain way about things 🤣
Kinda the mantra of this entire sublem.
I’m honestly not even talking about a Minipc. I’m talking a cheap ass dual bay NAS. Let’s do a price breakdown:
So at the bare minimum that’s going to be $460 or $510 for the 1TB variant per device. Then you need to fuck with all the software side of things as well.
$400 and you’re done. All the software is ready to go, you’ll have automatic rebuilds of your array if you need to swap drives, and a simple interface to work with everything in.
I’m not even here simping for Synology, because QNAP and others have similarly priced solutions. I’m here pushing for SIMPLICITY and cost effective solutions.
As a counter point you can grab an old Pi for cheap and install OpenMediaVault OS and have all the NAS tools you need managed from a GUI.
There are Plugins for tons of self hosting options, and GUI docker management for your own add ons. (New versions dumped portainer, in favor of their own GUI tools).
Pi3 is fine Pi4 would be better. Wattage is between 4-7
I used to host this way till I found a fanless heatsink case for a ITX board.
Idle wattage is 15, and 23 for processing heavier tasks