Hey everyone. I really want to replace Google photos with some sort of self-hosted solution. However, I am getting overwhelmed.
The first thing that came up when I did a little bit of research is buying a NAS. However, I just noticed these devices are so expensive with really weak specs. Feel like I am getting ripped off. Also, I heard that it can be slow? Is that true?
Anyway, I was told it is better to just buy a Resperry pi. However, these things are expensive for the specs. Would a used Intel NUC be better? Can you use any mini pc for that?
I have seen some crazy powerful (compared to the pi) cheap used Ryzen mini PCs, can those be turned into servers?
Take a look at building an Unraid server. Unraid is a NAS-focused operating system that also has a good Docker host (where you can run various applications) and a competent VM host if you need it.
The nice thing about Unraid (as the name implies) is that you aren’t locked into a RAID configuration that makes it difficult to add more storage.
You don’t need anything super powerful to run Unraid, so you can use old PCs or old enterprise equipment. Consider poking around at serverbuilds.net, which is a community focused around building/buying computers to use as home servers.