One thing i’ve learned over the years is the way I did something when I was learning is usually not the best way of doing it, and I later go back and redo everything now that I have gained experience and knowledge. I have decided to ditch google photos, and was lucky enough to snag a free rackmount 2017 server from work with an i7 installed and 2 6tb drives on the way. But now comes the hard part of deciding what software I am going to end up learning on and hopefully living with. First and foremost I want a photo backup service, and I have debated between immich and xpenology, I also know that I want to run Pihole and would really like to self host my own website documenting my projects, even if no one will ever look at it.

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If you had to start from the beginning, which OS, which container manager and which containers would you build. I would love the recommendations from those who walked so that I can run

  • AnomalyNexusBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Not much - it’s been a pretty organic learning journey.

    Very much a crawl > walk > run thing. Can’t necessarily jump straight to the end.

  • Heas_HeartfireBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I got a 4TB drive thinking it would be plenty for plex. Oh boi was I wrong. Specially when shows started to come in.

    A 12TB drive is on the way and I’ll leave the 4TB one for immich and nextcloud alone.

    I don’t have any issues with ubuntu server and I like portainer so I don’t think I’d set things up differently. I should organize and backup the docker compose files though.

  • notdoreenBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I use Docker-compose for everything instead of Docker run

  • Dev-N-DangerBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have a bunch of crap deployed between two servers and a bunch of mix match hard drives.

    If I could start over I’d plan much better and keep everything organized.

    I’d run one server for all my dockers / apps.

    Then the other server for storage / backup

  • zfaBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I also know that I want to run Pihole

    Jeez, already planning your next steps to create future rework. Check out AdGuard Home, Technitium DNS, Blocky etc before committing to pi-hole.

  • xerkerBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Probably wouldn’t use Apache2.

    I want to use caddy and reverse proxy from there but I can’t bring myself to do it.

  • Frozen_GeckoBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would document everything I could if I started from scratch. I really regret not documenting from the beginning. Ex post documenting is just not as reliable.

  • s3r3ngBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    What is wrong with a Synology NAS or TrueNAS? Plenty of apps for photos on or using such.I am falling in love with NextCloud for many things reasonably integrated together. Can definitely self-host that and share it or parts of it with others and collaborate with them if you like.
    Dockerize all the things. That and/or kubernetes. I hear nice things about Proxmox in home labs but haven’t got around to messing with it.

  • aamfkBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’d get my active directory and local dns situated before having a bunch of virtual machines setup