Well said. I run a mikrotik router for my main network and use unifi APs throughout my house. Took a lot of tinkering to set up and I learned a lot. Very flexible but more expensive and much harder to learn than a simple all in one setup.

Unraid checking in. 150TB ish. Dual parity for media files on XFS drives. Can lose 2 drives before array data is at risk, and even then if a drive fails, I’d only lose the data on that drive not the entire array.

Important data is on ab encrypted ZFS array which is snapshotted and replicated hourly to a separate backup server and replicated one more time weekly to 3.5” archive drives which are swapped out to a safe deposit box every few months.

I used to use rsync to do it but snapshot replication with sanoid/syncoid does the same thing in a tiny fraction of the time by just sending snapshot deltas rather than having to compare each file.

Yes they’re all encrypted with LUKS. Using unRAID as my base OS which handles most aspects of the process.

Snapshots on the file system are instant and can be rolled back or opened in read only mode if you need an older version of the file.

Sending a snapshot through replication is also much faster as the system just sends the snapshot itself which updates the files system in one pass by sending all of the changes made rather than having to compare file by file.

For comparison, using rsync to update my backup with 250,000 files might take 20-30 minutes because it has to check every file on the source and destination to see if it has been modified. Sending a zfs snapshot is 15 seconds because it just sends the differences in one pass.

I have a couple of 8TB Seagate SMR drives. They’re slow as sin but perfect for cold storage backups.

One sits in a safe deposit box and the other is in my backup server and gets zfs snapshots replicated to it automatically with sanoid. I swap them out about every six months. My data is very safe.

Main server zfs array with snapshots replicated hourly to backup zfs server, replicated weekly to HD swapped in SD box every 6 months.

I’ve been using renewed (refurbished) 8TB drives off of Ebay - SAS 8TB for $50-60 each. Not a single failure in over a year on the dozen or so drives I’m running right now. I’m running unRAID with a combination of unRAID’s native array drives (for media and “disposable” stuff) in a dual parity config, and ZFS (with snapshots replicated to a live backup on a secondary server) for important personal stuff (and backed-up off-site a few times a year).

Even if something were to perish, I have enough spares to just chuck one in and let it resilver without worrying at all. I’m content with this as a homelabber and when I’m not supplying critical service for a business, etc.

Just wish they were more affordable. The only reason for the crazy pricing is that it’s what big companies can afford to pay rather than home labbers. They’re not all that complex compared to other mass market tech.

Get a controller that works with SAS drives and buy them used and cheap from eBay. Consumer devices won’t run SAS drives on SATA controllers so they’re usually cheaper.

I refuse to believe that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, even though for most humans that bar is pretty low.

When I finally “die” I’ll no doubt get kicked back out into the real world and have to plug in another quarter.

Cave paintings aren’t video or audio. They’re pictures. You can print your photos or print grabs from your videos.

Guess they could also route everything through a VPN exit portal to keep it at least a bit secure from casual snoops if not nation states.

I’m a big advocate of unraid servers. Mix And match any size of drives you have available into a single large NAS with protection against drive failures. You can use old pc hardware you might have lying around. It’s commercial software but you can demo it for free. It’s good enough that I own two full pro licenses.

Storage is dirt cheap. Just add more. IT at work bugs out their eyes when I talk about adding more storage space. I have more at home than they do in the office. Lol.

I’ve been buying used 8TB HGST drives from eBay. Dirt cheap and haven’t had one fail yet.

Unraid natively supports full ZFS arrays in addition to unraid arrays since the last major release. Can mix and match both types on the same system as necessary.

All of my (easily replaceable) Plex media is native unraid arrays while my documents are all on a ZFS array on the same system with snapshots and such. It’s the perfect solution.

So you don’t know unraid has ZFS now then? Gotta keep up with the times.

And it’s worth every cent as commercial software. I bought 2 pro licenses because it’s just that good.

I get what you’re proposing but I’d respectfully suggest looking into unRAID on basically any hardware that can boot an OS.

It won’t necessarily be small and cute (though you can accomplish that if you wish), but you can make it do just about anything. I bought old enterprise hardware to run my main and backup servers on. I feel really comfortable with my data safety.

It is infact Graphics Interchange format. Not Jirafics Interchange format.

I know the creator pronounces it Jif, but there are lots of people in the world who pronounce things wrong.

I offer up “niche”. It’s actually not nitch no matter how many people say it like that.

Lookit all the nerds I triggered. Popcorn time!

I went down the unRAID rabbit hole.

I never came back up, I’m happy here.