This week I finished setting up Arch Linux (It felt so good to nuke Windows 11 off my laptop!) and GrapheneOS for my new Pixel phone.
I am interested in getting a NAS for multiple purposes such as accessing files, hosting a small website, and to upload security camera footage to name a few.
Is there a particular brand to buy? I’m basically illiterate when it comes to networks aside from what an IP is and what DNS is. Any suggestions for books and reading material is greatly appreciated. It feels liberating to know more than I did before with tech!
Add some more specific requirements, e.g. budget, OEM vs DIY, storage space you expect to need, number of drive slots you want. Generally try to overshoot a bit when buying because a NAS is a relatively long lived device.
So now that I’m a little farther along in my tech adventures, I’ve found myself staring at the two 2TB WD 6Gbps HDDs that I got from Best Buy awhile back. I didn’t know if I needed to buy a chassis for them (I probably do, I’ll do some more research, just been trying to get back to a mountain of comments) I’m just not really sure what else I’d be using a NAS for besides streaming movies and accessing my work projects from a Dropbox-esque in-home solution
One thing people often overlook is size. You’ll probably want something that’s Lil.
Traditionally, a NAS just used iSCSI to look like a hard drive connected over Ethernet cables. This is the bread and butter of the whole NAS thing.
Website hosting, and other features (Samba, NFS, or other storage methods) are optional… Different ways of doing things.
Whatever you do, stick with one methodology. Focusing just on iSCSI should help you simplify your setup and specs.
SAMBA / Windows shares are an alternative, popular approach. It works too but it’s different network stuff. If you are a Windows trained IT guy, you might find this path easier.
I guess there are S3 clones or self hosted cloud techs too. But they’re all just different ways to attach hard drives to a network. There are pros / cons to each, but you’ll only learn the pros/cons by doing it yourself and playing with it.
On one side of the spectrum you have the likes of Synology: you pay premium for the software that does what it says in a nice compact enclosure. Good documentation, easy UI, potentially limiting flexibility.
On the other side, you can make a linux box and declare it a NAS. Run whatever storage you want with whatever filesystem. Any enclosure and form factor you can imagine. Infinitely scalable, but also you’re absolutely on your own in configuring and managing it.
I’d suggest figuring a budget first, and then figuring how much of a hands-on approach you want to have.
I ran a Synology setup that ultimately I replaced with Unraid. I love the flexibility that Unraid provides, but Synology’s software really is top notch. I’ve pieced together various docker images with Unraid to make something comparable functionality wise, but no where near as integrated or seamless
I would recommend making your own NAS instead of buying a Synology or something similar. Check out !selfhosted@lemmy.world. Hardware will cost a bit, but it’s far more worth it.
An extremely good resource to begin learning the server environment would be https://esc.sh/projects/devops-from-scratch/. He has youtube videos that are really well done, I would strongly encourage you to watch atleast the first few videos as they cover topics that you will need to learn, such as : networking, explaining how linux works, etc.
After watching a couple of his guides and learning from them, I would recommend starting a basic server using an old computer or the likes that hosts a couple of apps you will be using. Nothing important like a password manager, file storage, etc, just yet; simply the basics so you get a better understanding of using linux as a server. My recommendations of stuff to try out:
- Installing PiHole using docker / docker-compose
- Installing Wordpress using docker / docker-compose
- Setting up a Wireguard server (there are also docker images, such as wg-easy) so you can connect to your home network from wherever, and use whatever services you are hosting (important if you wish to use your future NAS while not at home)
- Installing Nginx Proxy Manager and learning how to reverse proxy your services to a hostname
After that I would recommend you transition to Proxmox as your OS, learn from there, and then start hosting file managers/file storage (Network Attached Storage part), zoneminder/frigate for the camera system, etc. Patience is key with this type of learning.
For the hardware part it’s all up to you: amt. of storage, amt. of ram, how big the chasis will be, power-efficiency, motherboard with features you want (ex. more pcie for 2.5gbps network card), cpu depending on how much processing power you need, … You will need to do your research on this, but I recommend getting a NAS after you understand how docker and the works function, and to tailor to your needs.
If you have any questions let me know, hopefully you can understand what I was trying to say, not the best at conveying this type of information lol.
I just wanted to say thank you for the well thought out comment as someone looking to roll my own NAS.
I’m all for self hosting but I just recently moved from a self hosted NAS to a dedicated small Synology box and I like it. I still self host several services but now I can do that on a laptop that sips power vs my large tower enclosure. I also bought a dedicated MikroTik router rather than self hosting pfsense or Untangle. Despite now having 3 machines instead of one, in aggregate, it still uses less power than my tower server. The laptop provides its own battery backup and now my router and NAS only use a small amount of energy so I can get a UPS that’ll last much longer. I also like the separation so rebooting one device doesn’t take everything down, etc.
I’m not saying one approach is right or wrong, just throwing out a different point of view.
All the services you point are great. Proxmox is a must imo.
Yeah power consumption is a big worry I have, specially with the cost of electricity rising. I still have 2 main servers (1 as a router and 1 as a NAS) and I’ve been working on a new build for my nas which focuses on power-efficiency, something which continues to fascinate me. Currently I am down to 38 watts idle for the new machine (compared to 120+ on my NAS rack) and I’m still trying to find ways to optimize it; hardest part is finding a good balance between power consumption and stability, fuck me it’s hard to do it properly.
