I’ve been researching NAS and am figuring out how one can play into my current home setup. There’s a lot I don’t know even after researching. Best I explain to clear things up.

Currently, I have a home server running NextCloud, accessible only via my LAN network. It’s run along with a VPN on a Raspberry Pi 4B running Ubuntu Server. The data is on two 512 GiB external SSD drives. One drive is primary & the other is backup of the primary drive via rsync each day.

I’m looking at a NAS for more backups (Ex. 1 day, 3 days, & 1 week at least) since I have sensitive data on the drives. I want to feel more secure about my home setup with the ability to rollback changes if I mess up something. I also want the NAS to be able to run more services other than just NextCloud eventually, like Grocy/KitchenOwl, etc.

I have some more questions about NAS given my info:

  • Do I have to use a special NAS-specific OS to make use of the NAS hardware? Like to do snapshots and stuff?
  • Kinda related: what if I install something like Debian/Ubuntu on it? Can I still use the NAS hardware in the same way?

I looked into some solutions like TrueNAS and Synology. I prefer an OS that’s free software so I have control over what I’m doing and not held hostage if they want to increase prices, force upgrades, enshittify things, etc.

  • Objects in SpaceEnglish
    4•10 months ago

    I found TrueNas scale to be what fits my needs but I tried unraid (trial) and open media vault first. Also not this is not my first rodeo as I’ve done “from scratch” Ubuntu, and bsd.

    I just built a server from older parts off eBay. An i7 2600, Asus p8z77, a Silverstone c382 nas case, 32gb of 1333, a pny P600 video card and a 9200+8i hba card. Then I used TrueNas on an SSD and another SSD for docker containers and cache.

    4k Plex streaming no issues, system is fast and the only issue I had was the old Asus boards don’t use pwm fan control.

    Open Media vault just confused the heck out of me, I ran it for a few months and donated money to the team for their effort but it was too restricting for my needs. It was definitely a capable nas os but it didn’t feel like it fit my style which is more hands on.

    TrueNas has snapshots and replication. I run 4 12tb disks for my live data, striped raid 1’s. Then I have two more 12tb’s in a raid 1 for my replication read only. It’s not enough space if I filled my live drives but I havent needed more yet for the backup. And I can always expand my backup set.

    I also have a qnap tr004 das with some random drives in a hardware raid 5. That’s my third copy I do every so often.

    The funny part is I didn’t want to pay for a Synology but ended up spending more on parts. However it’s incredibly powerful for what it does so I’m using that as my “happy little mistake”. It’s going to last a long time and run as many services that I could possibly want as a home user.

      • Objects in SpaceEnglish
        1•9 months ago

        Yep! Scanned documents and backups of photos, personal stuff and the families stuff. I host a few game servers too I guess for friends. Running great and more than enough power for everything I do, and I have as much redundancy as I can afford.