this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Dedicated NAS or Nextcloud server for home lab? (self.selfhosted)
submitted 1 year ago by pianoplant to c/selfhosted
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm looking for suggestions. I have a rack in my office with up to 4U space available. I'm looking to set up a backup and storage solution to try and break free from services such as dropbox & google drive. I'd also love to run a few other things like homeassistant and potentially even Klipper for my 3d printer. I'd also like it to be reasonably quiet if possible.

So what would you recommend? I could get something like a dell poweredge and add HDDs + replace the fans with noctua to keep the noise down or go with a dedicated NAS like synology. Any other recommendations?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DNS Domain Name Service/System
NAS Network-Attached Storage
PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
Plex Brand of media server package
SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 20 acronyms.

[Thread #40 for this sub, first seen 14th Aug 2023, 01:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] Nabs 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

So I am a total amateur, but i set up a TrueNas server that hosts my Plex server, then set up a linux VM to host a PiHole.

I also set up nextcloud vm on that machine too, i wanted to autobackup my phone pics and have a sync'd, shareable calendar with the family.

Nextcloud was the biggest pain in my ass and i never truely got it working as advertised. I ended up scrapping that part just because of how god-awful nextcloud was, and god forbid you try and update it to the most recent version.

[–] Molecular0079 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should really use the Nextcloud docker-compose files to setup Nextcloud. They make it stupidly easy to deploy. Pair that with SWAG as a reverse proxy and you get a pretty secure Nextcloud deployment complete with SSL certs.

Come to think of it, why not also run pihole in a docker instead of a full VM?

[–] harsh3466 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I ran it with the nextcloud docker-compose, and it was flaky af. I know for lots of people it runs great, and I’m glad for that. For me, I had to scrap it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Could have been the db software you were running with it. It’s best to do that externally with something like mariadb. Not trying to convince you, just in case others are trying to make a decision between vm or docker.

[–] harsh3466 3 points 1 year ago

For what it’s worth, I just checked my docker-compose and when I was running it, I was using a separate mariadb container for the db.

[–] Molecular0079 1 points 1 year ago

What sort of flakiness?

[–] harsh3466 5 points 1 year ago

Scrapped nextcloud for the same reason. I was able to get it running the way I wanted, but goddam if nextcloud didn’t irrevocably break if you so much as cut a loud fart near the server.

Updating nextcloud was out of the question.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I did the same as you, but wanted native performance on my Linux machine, so what was awesome was I was able to export my zfs pool from truenas and spool up a Linux distro and import it. There's a project called cockpit and it has a zfs plugin which makes it easy to manage like truenas, but you can also use it as a whole ass pc at the same time

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I agree that Nextcloud is a pain in the ass most of the time but FWIW the official AIO + reverse proxy method has served me well. I run it in a proxmox LXC container so it's pretty tidy, upgrades tend to work well and it doesn't force its own reverse proxy/certificate management on me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Don’t forget the 3-2-1 rule with backups.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The important thing I would look at is the idle power, because most of the time it will just sit the mre and wait for you to connect.

Dedicated NAS hardware is quite good with that, but there are nice DIY mini servers which are also very low power.

[–] Nabs 2 points 1 year ago

I do recommend TureNAS for this, it has been fun for me to work with and i started with 0 background or experience.

[–] pianoplant 0 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the recommendation!

[–] peregus 3 points 1 year ago

I don't see it as one OR the other. Nextcloud is not a backup. I would install unRAID or OMV with SnapRAID (both are good for later adding disks of any size) and Nextcloud as a container so you can access your data everywhere AND back it up! Remember (as someone already mentioned), the 3-2-1 backup rule.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

As someone who is sort of tech savvy, but not savvy enough for Linux and all the trouble shooting that comes with it, would a Synology DS920+ be good?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm working on putting together an unRAID NAS for media acquisition and storage right now. My initial plan was to use trueNAS scale, but from my research it's a lot less tolerant about adding drives to your array whenever you want, and I didn't want to drop a zillion dollars in HD space straight off the bat.

So far docker containers work well on it, and are relatively easy to configure. I'm planning to still leave my home assistant and associated docker containers on the orangepi where they live now though.

[–] surlybaer 2 points 1 year ago

I'm running TrueNAS Scale and have nextcloud, pihole and jellyfin all running flawlessly as docker containers. They have a hardware compatibility list if you want to reduce/prevent flakeyness in your setup.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Raspberry pi can run homeassistant and nextcloud, but it probably runs better on more powerfull pc. Also having SATA or m2 ports is way better than USB for storage.

Deffo keep klipper on dedicated rpi. You need usb connection with 3d printer and cable cant be too long, it must be quality cable and you should guide it far from motors and other electronics. And not just because of a cable, it make sense to have a dedicated sbc for a machine that runs 5-50 h long jobs.

I went for DIY PC (cheap/silent/flexible) server and rpi4 for klipper. 1GB ram should be enough (I have 2GB) for klipper and you can keep your rpi inside of printer enclosure. I have mine with no fans and enclosure goes up to 40 C, no problems so far. There are also cheaper boards simmilar to rpi, but I have no experience with them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

HomeAssistant will easily run on a Pi, it's Nextcloud that needs more horsepower.