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.

  • originalucifer
    6•11 months ago

    whats your budget?

    with a NAS i tend to go with a commercial product, and only for that purpose. it stores the data, maybe serves it up as file server. thats the NAS one job.

    my processing happens on another box, like your pi. i want the nas focused on its single purpose.

    so my suggestion would be to pickup a netgear/synology whatever, but only use it as a nas.

    if you want to expand that pi, just use a real machine and upgrade yourself to maybe a nice docker setup.

    • @thirdBreakfast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4•11 months ago

      This is where I landed on this decision. I run a Synology which just does NAS on spinning rust and I don’t mess with it. Since you know rsync this will all be a painless setup apart from the upfront cost. I’d trust any 2 bay synology less than 10 years old (I think the last two digits in the model number is the year), then if your budget is tight, grab a couple 2nd hand disks from different batches (or three if you budget stretches to it,).

      I also endorse u/originalucifer’s comment about a real machine. Thin clients like the HP minis or lenovos are a great step up.