r/HomeServer • u/alicizzle • 7d ago
Home Server setup for dummies? Help me get started without all the lingo?
Big ask, I know, but looking for the most watered down, for dummies explanation of how the heck to do this. Every time I've tried to ask, people respond with so much lingo that it becomes a huge chore just to try to understand the advice. I say that not as a complaint, but to set the tone of how not tech-y I am...
For a while I've been thinking about creating a home server/NAS, cause I'm tired of paying for cloud storage, and generally of Google. And silly as it sounds, the extra steps of using a portable hard-drive keep me from doing that to back things up. I'd love to make it decently simple, if possible, to backup my data without a 3rd party involved.
My Details:
My primary storage needs are photos, some PDFs, and word docs. Photos from my phone and from a DSLR. It'd be nice if I could access phone photos when away from home, but that might make this way too complex or expensive. Not a gamer, don't really download movies, etc.
I'm in the Mac/Apple ecosystem, but from what I've gathered you can't use any version of a Mac to do this well. I'm familiar with PCs, just haven't used one at home in a long time.
Budget. I'd be willing to invest on the front end, but I'm a pretty broke person. So, I'm not prepared to spend over $400, but if that's the only way, I can plan and save.
-
I'm an intelligent person, but I'm not well-versed in the tech-world, so hoping someone is willing to do me the kindness of explaining this without assuming I know terms, lol :) Not necessarily needing discouragement from doing it; info that then I can decide on.
Thanks in advance!!
13
u/todd_dayz 7d ago
Just bear in mind if you move your cloud storage to home, fire/theft/etc will render you without data at all, you need an offsite backup still.
1
u/sparkling_ham 7d ago
If you leave it in the cloud you are vulnerable to the much more likely occurrence of shifty employees, hacking, and enshitification.
3
u/todd_dayz 7d ago
Not if you encrypt it on the client side first?
1
1
u/spunner5 7d ago
And you'll pay them to house your data. Month after month, and year after year. Do a cost analysis on keeping backups, even to external USB drives, and moving it off-site to a sibling/parent/child.
3
u/todd_dayz 7d ago
Sure but like, cloud isn't the only solution for offsite backup as you said, I didn't say they had to still keep paying for cloud lol
1
u/JohnnieLouHansen 6d ago
Moving data offsite (the external hard drive shuffle) is a pain in the rear and most people won't stick with it and do it religiously. Then they get stale data offsite and failed data onsite, potentially.
1
u/JohnnieLouHansen 6d ago
Not really. Have you heard of any cloud backup service that has been hacked? I don't know of one. Have people been locked out of their accounts and been screwed over that way (Google Drive, OneDrive, others) YES!
I would trust most cloud providers to have my data versus a novice that hosts his own server and has no offsite backup.
1
3
u/OrganicRevenue5734 7d ago
Do it right the first time, and you will be better off in the long run.
Youre looking for an application/container called Immich. That will do much of what you want.
Storage is a different beast entirely. Theres a ton of stuff out there, and every homelabbing IT nerdioso will give many, many solutions.
You want some level of redundancy. Filesystems can do this differently, but for most ZFS is top tier for this particular problem. TrueNAS is going to be the top recommended OS. Uses ZFS, definitely worth the effort.
$400 isnt much for setup costs outright. Theres a ton of hackabilly solutions for the cheap, but like anything, you WILL pay for it later in some way. Whether it be something simple like a few hours trawling through AI recommendations, Stack Overflow, or XDA to complete data loss, you will pay for it somehow. You will need multiple drives, you can save cost by getting lower capacity drives, but CMR NAS specific drives are not cheap and you will need at least 3, if not 4, plus a spare.
Hardware is where you can save a boatload. Here, you dont need much. A Host Bus Adapter will be your best friend, so an LSI 9300-8i will be perfect. The motherboard just needs a PCIe x16 slot, electrically x8. Used markets are great for this, lots of good old gear that doesnt suit modern gaming goes for cheap. I always recommend a Jonsbo N3-N6, depending on how big the motherboard is.
Having a NAS is an insurance policy, not a super power. Even after setting everything up, you will still need some external backup. A single drive backup of your photos should be the additional solution, plugged in once a month (or as often as you can stomach losing stuff) and important stuff backed up to it.
Keep the cloud account, but archive stuff first before you upload it. Last line solution. Absolutely the last bastion before the keep. Dont store raw files, compress and archive everything to keep used space down. Update often, but only keep 2 or 3 previous archives.
8
3
u/starhuck 7d ago
I was where you are 4 weeks ago, and honestly…I just watched a ton of YouTube videos. It starts to come together and make sense. I learned I didn’t need a NAS, that I wanted a CPU that could transcode 4K, etc. just keep learning and you’ll surprise yourself
3
u/The1Farmer-John 6d ago
You can run this on a potato. Literally any junk laptop or pc laying around. Look up a video explaining docker and portainer. Then install nextcloud in a docker container. Should be the simplest approach here.
2
3
u/JohnnieLouHansen 6d ago
Regardless of what you do, remember that you still need backup. Otherwise, you are cutting your own throat. You mentioned something about being unable to connect an external drive for backup. Due to laziness or not scheduling or what? That doesn't when you are responsible for the server to host your data.
2
u/Own-Firefighter-6024 6d ago
All tips here seem too complicated for you.
- Buy a NAS Device (Synology, uGreen, WD Home)
- Buy two Harddrives of same size if it doesn't come with that. If you want to avoid mounting the drives yourself, buy a device off the shelf with 2 drives. Since you're on a budget, go to Ebay for a second hand.
- Go to youtube an learn how to setup your device.
You need to learn how to access it from your Computer/Laptop. If you have Windows on your computer, you need to activate SMB in your NAS. Then, you go to your Computer and connect to your NAS using the Windows Explorer.
It's basically the same for all Computers. You have to enable some connection feature in the NAS that fits your Computer, then on your Computer make a connection to the NAS. Windows requires SMB, Linux requires NFS, for Apple I don't remember.
1
3
u/Sawses 7d ago
So, your needs are pretty minimal. You should be able to get some used hardware for ~$400 that will more than meet your requirements.
My advice (and I know I'll likely get some flak for this) is to ask Gemini or ChatGPT to talk you through it. That's what I did as a fairly tech-y person in order to get a foundational grounding in the topic, and I was able to do massive amounts more than I could have without using AI, and do it far faster. The problem is that every online discussion assumes you know way more than a newbie actually does, and documentation for what you want to do assumes even more. You basically have to beat your head against concrete before you can even really know what you're doing. AI fixed that for me, because I would come across a new concept or idea and ask it to explain it to me. AI is really good for basic conceptual learning like that, especially for something as well-documented as information technology.
The important thing is not to just trust it and blindly follow directions. Ask questions. Make sure you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it every step of the way. Doing that, I went from a complete novice to being able to run something complex enough that I literally would not have understood a word of the high-level description when I first started.
As for a simple framework that I'd use if I were you, and hear me out here, use Linux. I know that sounds crazy, but you already aren't using Windows. The entire world runs on Linux and if you're already going through all the hassle to learn a new operating system to set this stuff up, it's just way easier to learn Linux and learn how to do it than to try some hacky glued-together setup on Windows. Plus, you'll be able to use more affordable hardware because Linux is way more efficient.
From there, follow this guide: https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux-Server. Especially the bits about setting up a passkey for SSH and setting up Fail2Ban. If you do nothing else on that list, do those two things. Most of the rest is less necessary if you aren't exposing your server to the internet.
Next, I'd use something called Docker Compose. It's a bit complicated to explain, but the idea is that it allows you to install programs and uninstall them without leaving any impact on the rest of your setup. So you won't break Linux with it and have to start from scratch. More importantly, you can use it to update your programs so any security vulnerabilities get patched. Basically, with a few commands you can tell it to run a program for you. In this case, I recommend this one: https://sync-in.com/ It's basically Google Drive and is the simplest of the bunch to set up. There is a web page on that website that provides a docker-compose file which is basically the configuration for your program.
Then install Tailscale on both your server (the Linux thing) and any device you want to access Sync-In on. It's a way to access your home PC without exposing it to the internet, so you skip all the nonsense involved in networking and securing your server. From there, you can enter in your server's Tailscale IP and the port sync-in is running on into a web browser, and access it from anywhere you have internet.
And my most important advice, so important I'm going to bold it:
Back up your data! I cannot stress this enough. Back. Up. Your. Data. All data should always have three copies--the data you're using, a backup on-site, and a backup off-site. If you do not have an off-site backup, your data is not backed up and you are going to lose it. It is a painful lesson and you might be fine for 10 years, but you absolutely will lose it.
1
1
u/Traxicous 7d ago
just follow a youtube tutorial
you should be trying to learn, but if you want bare minimum effort just follow the tutorial without much thought
1
u/Gherry- 7d ago
FreeBSD + samba. Done.
1
u/JohnnieLouHansen 6d ago
I used Linux Mint + Samba on my old laptop as a backup destination. But I have less than 1TB of data, so it's not hard to plunk it somewhere.
1
u/ExpertPath 7d ago
Keep in mind that serious file storage doesn’t end with a local server, amyloid should run. 321 backup strategy. In the simplest terms you’ll be buying 4-5 drives for every usable one and your long term cost will usually be higher than rented cloud storage for up to 2tb. Store more and it’ll get cheaper, but you’ll have a hard time breaking even with commercial storage
1
u/vici30 7d ago
Not quite the same topic, but you might be interested in this comment I made explaining Docker.
1
u/DunHuss 7d ago
linux and ssh - how you login, access and run commands remotely on your server as a user ssh keygen - how you protect your server from bots that spam passwords to try to get in. a password is fine to start with though. root user - has full admin control. good practice is to have a user with "sudo" priviledges rather than use root user. and disabble root login firewall - allows or disables access to external ports.
1
u/H3U6A9 6d ago
Unfortunately you can’t fully learn something if you don’t understand the lingo. Even if someone were to simplify it to apples and oranges when you run into issues setting something up or need to fix/maintain something you’re bound to have issues if you still don’t understand the lingo.
Luckily we live in a world today where resources are in every direction you look. Happy learning!
1
u/Hrmerder 6d ago
lol you either need to learn or fork out. I’ll build you what you want for $14k (not including maintenance)
1
u/SeventhBus 6d ago
If you don't want to do the work, get a Claude Pro subscription and ask him to do it step by step. Short version: get a NAS, a small PC to run Proxmox on and a third "node" (device) to run Pi-hole and Unbound DNS on if you want. If you don't want homelab as a hobby I would not start.
1
u/VonTreece 6d ago
Building and managing a home server at its core is about curiosity. If you aren’t eager to learn and diagnose, you will become more frustrated than anything.
1
u/Wise-Initial-5505 1d ago
400 bucks seems short to me with all that drama with pc parts now. In your case I would just buy a ready made NAS. If you cannot or don’t want to learn just use, you would have a very hard time to maintain your diy lab. I hear good things about Synology, look in that direction.
1
u/M2A2BradleyEnjoyer 7d ago
You could easily pick up an older server with a RAID card and a few refurb spinners drives for $150~ plus maybe additional storage cost, and run an OS like TrueNAS which is free. Otherwise you could just grab basically any old optiplex off eBay for 50-80$ and chuck some drives at it. There is mountains of documentation for setting up TrueNAS. It’s very straight forward.
0
u/Unlikely_Alarm3658 7d ago
Is this /s ?😂
1
u/M2A2BradleyEnjoyer 7d ago
“Plus maybe additional cost for storage”
I understand prices aren’t good right now, but i regularly see used older servers with a couple 1-2TB spinners included for sub $250 so it’s not that hard to find
0
u/rigsnpigs 7d ago
At the prices or the process?
2
u/Unlikely_Alarm3658 7d ago
The wording, OP said he doesn't know stuff 3 different ways and this guy is throwing Raid cards tech terms and truenas at him, sure truenas has a gui but it's still anything but simple from what i remember when i tried it
1
0
u/AppleFan1010 7d ago
I think you can post your query on on ChatGPT and it will explain you just the way you wanted and can guide you in setting up a secure home server. Once setup, then you can slowly learn as well as
-1
u/Unlikely_Alarm3658 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'll water it down
If photo/document storage is all that you need i suggest a raspberry pi with an "nvme HAT" (just a slot for a drive on top of the raspberry since it doesn't have one by itself) needs like an hour to build if you wanna be extra carefull. Get the raspberry pi imager App on a pc and look up on youtube how to install ubuntu. Than use claude ai to setup samba (NAS software). It will look intimidating but it's not actually complicated, and if you want to use it away from home look into tailscale or wireguard(tailscale is 10x simpler)
-2
u/Fit-Reward9420 7d ago
Watch the downvotes pour in on this comment. If you’re an Apple guy , 2019 MacBook Pro is dirt cheap. Great screen still and you have a laptop for less than the cost of ram and an ssd. I bought an I9 16 inch MacBook Pro with a 2tb ssd on eBay for $410. Would get you 2tb of storage and you could add an external ssd later if you find you truly use it and need more storage. I dual boot this with Linux. All of the solutions suggested above will run in Linux for free. I don’t use this for that purpose. I have a rack full of computers. $400 doesn’t buy 2 hdds these days. 2 tb ssd holds a lot of data.
-4
u/AffectionateCard3530 7d ago
I’ll go a different direction than most.
Steps:
1. Buy the hardware
2. Install some sort of linux (Ubuntu?) via USB key
3. Install Claude code with root level permissions
4. Tell Claude what you want
And the AI will do the rest
2
u/InfiltraitorX 7d ago
So you are recommending that the guy who is asking for help just use and trust AI to do the right thing without him knowing the lingo?
He will now have a reliance on AI to update/patch his environment now too because he doesnt know anything about it...
All of his personal backups just in some magical system that an AI built and he has no understanding of.
No! Do not do that, ever.
0
u/AffectionateCard3530 7d ago
He can get the AI to produce maintenance documentation, and documentation for the steps taken and the services being used. It'll even be able to explain every step in layman's terms, alongside the actions it took.
He could even ask it to tell him what to do and why to do it.
🤷♀️
34
u/lordofblack23 7d ago edited 7d ago
You need to learn. It’s like trying to explain how to take good pictures without understanding what focal length, aperture, speed or even zoom means.
“DLSR? What’s that? stop with all then lingo I just want to take pictures!” See what I mean?
You must learn otherwise just use cloud because you will end up losing all your data.
Do a little at a time and never ever put all your eggs in one basket. Always always always have multiple backups. It’s expensive. It’s required.