You can go with something like this if you want a clean solution.

I use a drive dock station for my backup drives, and I have a few of these for one-offs too.

Crucial is fine. It’s commonly found in corporate and government workstations.

You’ve clearly done your homework, and you’ve gotten a lot of good feedback already, so I’ll just add a few points…

• Storage options: Personally, I’d replace the existing drive with the highest capacity I could afford. In an ideal situation, I’d keep the host on another drive (NVMe or flash) and dedicate the large drive to a single partition of data storage.

  In my own mini-PC (8th gen NUC), I’ve got a smaller NVMe for Proxmox and a single 8TB internal SSD for data.

• Encryption: If you’re going to bother with encryption, I wouldn’t half-ass it. Why bother at all if you’re fine using auto-decryption or a weak password that will be guessed with any sizeable effort? Just lock it down with a strong password and decrypt/mount the data drive after any reboot; making a shell alias or script for this is trivial. You’re likely not rebooting the server more than once a week anyway.

• Budget/Specs: I get the sense you don’t have much budget right now, but knowing your hardware would help in suggesting solutions. Do you have an NVMe slot? What is the make/model of the motherboard and case?

• Filesystem: For simple storage, this really doesn’t matter and Ext4 will probably be fine. It’s a mature, robust, no-frills filesystem which is perfect for bulk file storage (docs, music, videos, etc.), but Btrfs would be fine too if you want more options.

• USB Docking Stations: I’ve had really good experiences with USB docking stations like this one, and I currently use it for attaching my backup HDDs each month. I wouldn’t want to rely on them for realtime data access, but they do work wonderfully for backups and one-off drive access.

Amazon typically has a few vendors that specialize in refurbished Optiplexes and/or HP Elites in small or ultra small form factor sizes.

A word of caution about these refurbs though…the memory and storage they include are often dollar store brands (Kingfast) that I wouldn’t even trust for a child’s PC. It’s worth purchasing your own after the fact.

Your options will depend on many things…

• How much storage is needed?
• Is RAID important to you?
• Is power usage a concern?
• Noise level?

I don’t know how demanding photoprism is, but you could probably do fine with a refurbished i5/i7 Dell Optiplex or similar, with one or more SSDs added to it. If money is really tight and storage needs are high, you could go with mechanical drives instead.

The problem with enterprise servers is that are generally very loud and use a lot of power…not unlike adding a second refrigerator to your environment. In my opinion, they’re not worth it unless you have a specific use case (training for a career, etc.).

The dropbear method is more secure overall, and I plan to incorporate it as well when I find the time to wipe/reinstall my server, but it’s arguably not as easy or simple, which is what OP requested.

As mentioned elsewhere, the easiest method is to encrypt only the data drives. This way you can secure shell into the server upon restart and decrypt the data. I’ve been using this method for years now without issue.

I’ve been super happy with my 8th gen Intel NUC i5. I put it in an Akasa Turing fanless case, installed an NVMe for host OS, and an 8TB SSD for data. It’s low power and so quiet that I couldn’t imagine ever using fans again.
I also have a USB 3.2 drive dock for external backup HDDs, but I only turn it on when actively doing a monthly backup.

8TB holds more media than I’ll ever need, but I do trim movies and shows regularly. For some, 8TB won’t be anywhere near enough, and SSDs exceeding this are ridiculously expensive.

If ambient noise is a concern, I’d go with an SSD. If money is tight, an HDD will give you the best value.

My server is in an otherwise quiet home office/sitting room, so I went with an 8TB SSD (870 QVO). Spinning disks make a fair bit of noise just waking up, let alone the actual file operations.

Yep, that’s the one. We use KeePassDX on mobile and KeePassXC on the desktop.

My wife and I share a KeePass database for all of our credentials, including the keys to our digital kingdom. I document our LAN design, server setup, and general maintenance notes, which are synced between all of our devices via SyncThing.

I add notes and quick instructions to the important credentials, like “See Proxmox.md to start this service”, or “This password decrypts our file server drive…to do this, open a terminal and paste the following…”

She is comfortable pasting commands into a terminal already, so if anything ever happens to me I am confident she or my son will at least be able to access our data and move it to a more user-friendly format.

Edit: Had way too many words lol

24/7 here with a NUC 8i5 in a fanless case; all SSD. I use a simple UPS (APC 600VA) to protect the server, modem, router, and main network switch, and it survives outages up to about 30 mins.

Haha, well I’m glad it worked out in the end. Canspace has been a solid, set-and-forget service for my domains…hopefully you’ll find the same!

And I would argue that all data should be encrypted now, even the working copy. If you have data that’s worth backing up, you probably don’t want it in the hands of criminals or weirdos either.

It’s better than no backup at all, but ideally it shouldn’t be your only backup. Still, having any backup puts you ahead of the vast majority of computer users. If the data is truly of value to you, consider also keeping a second backup within your custody and away from your home.

I rotate two encrypted hard drives between work and home, performing a backup monthly and taking the newest backup to work before bringing home the previous.

• Instructional (non-tech how-to books)
• Manuals (for actual household items, vehicles, etc.)
• Programming (tech books)
• Books (everything else)

I write everything in markdown, and I mean just about everything. Tech notes, recipes, work procedures, shopping lists…everything. If you check my comment history from today, you can see a quick example of the kind of tech notes I keep (firewalld in this case).

I keep all of my plain text files synced across multiple devices using Syncthing. For desktop editors, I use mostly vim and VSCodium (though Kate is nice too), and I use Markor on Android. This workflow has been highly efficient for many years now, and I no longer waste time constantly reviewing the latest note-taking app.

I’ve been happy with whc.ca for hosting…been using their pro account for years. I generally use canspace.ca for domain registration, and have done so for more than 10 years without issue.

If it were me and there was no way to have an additional drop installed from the exterior, I would still consider running a single cable through the living space to your desired location, as discreetly as possible.

It’s difficult to suggest exactly how to do so without pics or a floorplan, but I would try to match the wall or trim color and keep the cable tucked close to the floor and/or ceiling throughout the run.

Once in place, the cable will quickly disappear into your surroundings and you’ll be left with rock solid reliable networking.

Yep, this is how we’ve kept ours for over 20 years. Even if you don’t use the command line, most graphical file browsers will search through text files without issue.

One of these days I’ll get around to setting up my own email server, but in the meantime I just take advantage of introductory offers on shared hosting plans. I purchase the 3-year plans and end up paying about $3-4/mo (CAD). When the plan is nearing expiry, I take my data and move on to the next web host. Been doing this for about 28 years now.

Radicale on the home server, which syncs contacts and calendaring for us. Thunderbird on the desktop. Fossify Calendar on Android, synced to Radicale via DAVx⁵.

I think you’ll be out of luck for 3 slots, but you could always use the native slot for OS and dock the other 2 via USB with RAID capability in something like this.

I’m a big fan of the Intel NUC platform, coupled with a fanless case and all-SSD/NVMe drives. They’re low-powered, fast enough for most common tasks, and completely silent.

I have an NVMe drive for the OS (currently Proxmox, soon to be Debian again or Fedora), containers and VMs, and an internal 8TB SSD for data storage (whole disk encrypted). This may not meet your needs if you’re intending to be a data hoarder, but I have a sizeable movie and lossless music collection accumulated over 25 years and I’m not even using 4TB yet.

You can of course still use a similar setup but keep even larger storage on a NAS device, or simply use a USB dock with a couple of 16TB drives. It’s really down to whatever your needs are.

I love that the server, router, modem, and switch use such a small footprint and are able to be powered for up to an hour by an equally small and inexpensive 600VA UPS.

Depends on your power needs. My home server is an Intel NUC, so I’m able to keep it, the modem, router, and main switches running through most power outages with an APC 600VA UPS for about $80 USD.

I try to keep things simple and just use Markdown files for everything. I have a doc for each physical device, and another doc for each service/container running on the LAN.

I generally track hardware specs, upgrade paths, and software changelogs/todos as unsorted lists within these docs. It’s super portable and easily synced across devices via Syncthing.

We use markdown notes extensively. Everything is synced to our desktops and mobile devices with Syncthing. Markor editor for Android, and VSCodium/vim on the desktop. Works great for tech notes, medical info, shopping lists, recipes, etc.

A better alternative would be to separate the core open source app from any premium, proprietary add-on features, as the developer hinted at here.

As someone else pointed out, it’s difficult to agree that this app follows an open source model when the open source portion of it is essentially non-functional and requires the closed source components to be of any practical use. Until that separation occurs, this isn’t really open source; you’re trusting a stranger on the internet with your (or your client’s) network credentials.

Barring any similar apps, I’ll stick to my password manager and terminal.

The deal breaker for me is that it seems the low-level component that would interface with the shells (presumably managing credentials in some way) is closed source and off-repo. That’s a big red flag for me, no matter how benign the intention.

I hear Anna’s Archives is great for ebooks. I don’t do audiobooks, and can’t stand podcasts, but it sounds like a lot of good suggestions were made for those already.

I haven’t had time to check out the forks from Tibor’s apps, but I recall there were issues with the original Simple Calendar Pro which is why I had settled on Etar at the time. I’ll definitely keep an eye on Naveen’s repos though.

Thanks for the info. Davx5 has worked well for me, but it’s still nice to have alternatives.

My challenge has been finding a decent open source calendar app for Android, which unfortunately excludes Calengoo. I’m just not interested in using closed source network-capable apps to manage my personal information.

Radicale, and I only sync when at home on the LAN. Super simple to setup, requires minimal maintenance and very few resources.

Thunderbird on our workstations syncs directly to Radicale, and it’s an overall good experience.

I use DAVx⁵ to sync on Android/GrapheneOS, but not overly thrilled with the calendaring options there…Etar works “okay”.

I don’t think you’ll be able to build anything with €100, but you might be able to buy an old PC or laptop locally and use it as is. I’ve never run nextcloud myself, but from I’ve read it’ll be the most taxing service on your list. Everything seems pretty minimal, though I don’t know anything about Photoprism.

VSCodium on the desktop, and Markor on Android. I write everything in markdown, and VSCodium is already where I spend half my time editing and writing code, so it was an easy choice. I also use Vim for quick one-offs, especially if I’m already working on a project with it.

Like others here, I also use Syncthing to keep my notes synced between home server, remote clients, and mobile devices.

Manual password entry. I feel that any other method offers insufficient security.

For my desktops, this means interactive decryption before the OS loads. For my servers, only the data drives are encrypted, and I decrypt them manually over SSH whenever a reboot is needed (kernel updates, etc.).

Yeah, it definitely sounds like you’ve got the right approach already. If you can manage your data within the lower storage capacities, I think you’ll appreciate the reduced noise and power consumption of the SSDs.

My home server is a NUC inside an Akasa Turing fanless case with an 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD for my file shares. Works great and it’s completely silent.

It should go without saying that routine, off-site backups are an important element of server administration, regardless of drive type. Mine are completed monthly, and critical data (docs, keepass databases, etc.) is also synced across multiple devices.

Thanks for clarifying. I recalled seeing something about 720p caps for certain streaming services when using non-DRM platforms, but I wasn’t sure which.

A kodi distro, such as LibreElec would be my vote, but I don’t believe it does streaming services very well, if at all.

I am so done with streaming services.The local library has more TV and films than I’ll ever have the time or inkling to actually watch.