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.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    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:

    • RPi5/8GB: $135
    • m.2 dual hat +case with active cooling: $75 (saves a bit)
    • 2x 512GB OR 1TB: $200 / $300
    • 45W Power supply: $50

    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.

    • Synology DS223j 2xbay: $200
    • 2x 4TB HDD: $200

    $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.

    • BCsven@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 hour ago

      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