Whatever you do, make sure you setup firewall properly and enable automatic updates for your software. People say this last part is bad advice, but I'd rather have software break from an update than get ransomware'd.
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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Really depends on what you have, what you're trying to store, etc, etc.
Like we need more info.
I've been running a windows desktop as my "server" for years, with a large data drive, that's backed up by Crashplan.
It stores all our phone stuff - pictures, downloads, app Backups, etc, that get their via Syncthing and Foldersync.
I'm currently in the process of switching to a Raspberry Pi to handle a few things: Tailscale (mesh network), PiHole (for home network), Syncthing. It's data drive (however I decide to do that, direct connected or some kind of NAS) will be backed up to a service like Backblaze B2 or something like it.
The power draw if that desktop is massive compared to the Pi. Granted the Pi lacks horsepower, but it should be fine for what I need it to do.
Sorry for the lack of clarification. I'm mainly into backing up personal and device data and the ability to add media through Plex. I'm also exploring the idea of self-hosting Bitwarden for password management, allowing access to data from anywhere through the internet. Although both Raspberry Pi and NAS are options, privacy concerns lead me to favour Raspberry Pi over NAS.
I think Pi will struggle with Plex. Maybe the latest version does it better, I'm not sure. Hit up a Pi forum or a Plex forum. I've seen it talked about.
There's also mini PCs, that have real graphics, but have idle power draw of maybe 10 watts. More than idle on some Pi's, but I believe RPi 4 idle is like 5 watts? 8 watts? I forget. Those mini PCs start around $100. They can run with a monitor or headless. You'll see them talked about in Plex and Jellyfin forums/communities.
For everything else, you're looking to do what I'm doing.
I just finished PiHole and Tailscale (mesh network, so all my mobile devices can now connect to home from anywhere with a transparent encrypted connection).
Bitwarden and Syncthing are next. And I'm looking to switch to dockers for this stuff.
Enabling SSH on RPi (basically you create an SSH file on the boot partition) https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-ssh/
Latest versions of RPi use nmcli command line for managing network interfaces, just an FYI.
Instructions for Tailscale on RPi https://tailscale.com/download/linux/rpi-bullseye FYI, requires a reboot after setup.
Syncthing on RPi https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-syncthing/
Here's instructions for a PiHole Docker (I haven't tried this, my PiHole I installed directly.) https://pimylifeup.com/pi-hole-docker/
I can only speak from my personal experience. But I knew nothing about self-hosting and went with a Synology NAS over three years ago and never looked back. I essentially replaced all Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, Evernote, music/video streaming, and per-PC backup services, with one device. LOL
Yes, the initial cost up front was not cheap. Yes, the cost of getting large HDDs is not cheap. But I broke even a while ago, and I'm actually saving money by self-hosting now.
You need lots of debodated wam