I had found that. A lot of projects are early releases that have not been touched in years - is that because they are stable or because the author gave up before making them useful? Which is why I want not a list but an opinion from someone else doing this.

If you can get the app. I looked at Waydroid and other apps, but discovered that app I needed was only on the google play store. (I want to see when my kid’s bus will arrive - there is no web site, just an app. I suspect it needs google logins or something to use, but I gave up before I figured out how to download the .apk)

I have enough of a machinist background to doubt the threads are anywhere close to perfect. However if you are saying more than good enough I will agree.

Or is it better to save a few bucks now and save it for next year when something new comes out that is faster anyway. Maybe there is a new codec that matters in 3 years but nothing today supports: so either way you are forced to replace your server.

There is no right answer, you are taking your chances when planning for the future. There are many computers more than 10 years old still working just fine in the world, and it is possible that whatever you buy today will be as well. We get enough press releases that we can predict what will happen next year close enough, but in 5 years we have much less information. There is no way to know if saving money is a good choice today or not. I can come up with scenarios either way.

Look at power use. Often last generation hardware uses more power for the things you do today and so the few dollars you save today are made up with in the power bill over the next couple years. (though if you use that new hardware to do something the old couldn’t do the new will use more power!)

If there is only a few dollars difference in price go for the best. However when there are hundreds or even thousands of dollars it becomes a harder decision.

Everything will degrade should be your defaut assumption. The question is how long, and that feeds into the ecconomic question of how much is a given level of quality worth.

i can’t answer your question, but hopefull this helps you understand why you didn’t frame is quite right and in turn figure out the correct answers for you-

That is an important point - prices are all over as is service. If they reprint failed prints at ‘no charge’ that is worth a lot as well

Do you need one? There is a 3d printing service near me that has better printers than I could afford that is happy to print for me. For many the cost of a service is less than printer for as little as they really print so something to think about. Check your options. If 3d printing isn’t the hobby but a means this might be your better option. Don’t forget that once you agree to outsource creating parts you get access to wood, metals, and additional plastics. You also get many more processes (injection molding, lathe, milling machines, SLA/Resin printers) which lets give you many more options. And you get access to machines that wouldn’t even fit in your garage.

I’m not saying don’t get a 3d printer. For some it is the right decision. I’m saying don’t overlook the other options. Even if you get a 3d printer you should use the other services instead of making everything a nail just because you have a hammer.

Parts fail all the time. The problem with hardware raid is you need a compatible controller or none of the data can be read even though it is still on the physical disks. Computer hardware is often only made for a few months before there is a new model and so you are risking that the manufacture really made the new model work with what you have. That is assuming the manufacture doesn’t go out of business which could happen without warning. \

Also, if hardware breaks that is often a good excuse to replace it - odds are better hardware is available for the same price and sometimes a lot less $ - with hardware raid you are stuck paying whatever price they charge.

Either works fine for most homes. for most homes everything on the nas makes sense as that saves energy vs a second always on box. For enterprises you want them separate because you can’t get cpu’s powerful enough.

Truenas core because I’m a bsd guy at heart. with that all but dead I’m trying to decide between bare freebsd or xigmanas.

I have a arch linux box for things that don’t run on bsd.

Whichever peertube instance you are viewing the video from. Makertube, urbanists.video are two that I use

The website works fine. I don’t understand the app obcession people have. Though newpipe is an option if you must

one nas device with a lot of power and a vpn for the other houses might be better.

The bigger point about cloud that most miss is make sure you are paying them a reasonably price for the service. So long as you are the customer and not the product the cloud can be good.

First question: what will you do about data backup? Nextcloud and Immich both imply important data that you don’t want to lose. You say you have some harddrives, so look for some computer that can take more than one harddrive and then setup RAID with snapshots. I’d go for a RAID setup such that you need two drives to fail before you lose data, but there are plenty of debate. We often say RAID is not a backup - you should start thinking about the next step in your backup setup soon.

Used vs new is always the question. In general the newer the system the less power it will use to do the same work. However ARM will almost always use less power than x86 even if the x86 is much newer. I specified work here, your computer will nothing most of the time so idle power matters too.

How small? I bought a N100 system from Protectli which I’m happy with. It should work better than a pi according to the specs - but I never tried a pi so I can’t say if it really is. However this is bigger than a pi. I have an old system76 Meerkat, which is much smaller (I think this is the NUC form factor?), but my system is 8 years old and so not really comparable to anything modern, but that is an option.

Depends on what is inside, intel N100 or better CPUS are considered really good in general. There are some bad CPUs in mini-PCs though. Make sure the hardware has drivers for your choosen OS, not everything supports linux [well] even today. And every once in a while someone makes a PC with bad design and so it doesn’t work well for technical reasons.

There are a lot of small PCs that are low power that will work well. I haven’t used GMKTech’s, and one look at their website says I won’t try to navigate that mess. (why does everyone need a subscribe to our newsletter popup blocking my ability to see anything - I avoid anyone who abuses me like that)

Validating restore is one of the harder things. There are some people who restore means it works on the exact same hardware - commonly hardware vendors will change internal details without changing model numbers so this plan often fails when it turns out the computer restore to is slightly different and so you don’t have the right driver on your backup (My dad used to repair computers for people who did this - he often charged thousands of dollars to fix a 10-30 year old machine that a new PC could run circles around. IIRC most of the machines were HPUX and not PCs so the cost of porting to a new machine was ). Most people figure they will be replacing the computer with something newer and so instead install the latest OS and then restore just files, now you face the question of do you restore applications or not?

I would test restore on a cheap raspberry-pi, assuming the backup is from x86, or on a cheap ebay x86 if the backup is from ARM. For most self hosted people this is really what they want to know can be done because they don’t know what the replacement hardware will be. The goal here isn’t a usable system, it is enough that you can show your files still exist.

Well for sure that is better than nothing, so since you have it keep doing it until/unless you have something better.

Your next task is to make sure you can restore the data. Since the data is - probably - saved, you have good odds. Practice restoring means that when a computer breaks you will faster be able to get the replacement running again. Practice also means in the off chance something isn’t saved you find out about it while your old computer is still running.

Then we need to think about threats.

Ransomware that encrypts your disk will encrypt that shared drive too. I don’t know what unraid offers, but you should enable read-only snapshots (now practice restoring them!), and save those snapshots. Ideally you want some pattern like all backups for a week, then 1 backup a week for a month, then 1 backup a month for a year, and 1 backup a year for the next 7 years. This way you can just go back to before the ransomware and restore from backups.

You might delete one file on accident. You are likely not to realize it for a while. One more reason for the pattern saved above. Make sure you can restore individual files.

Your house might burn down destroying all computers. You want a copy of all that data someplace else, maybe more than one someplace elses. Though perhaps you only want a yearly and weekly copy. If the data is encrypted (very good idea for off site!) make sure the key is saved someplace else secure where you can find it - a key you can remember is a bad key so thought about how to save the key is important.

You might die or become mentally disabled with important files that your heirs need. Pictures, wills, tax/bank data (including passwords!). document the above well enough that someone else can at least figure it out. Ideally you would know someone unrelated to you into computers and leave them a lot of money ($5000?) to figure out your system and get your heirs the important files after you die. (this should be a great business opportunity, but odds are not enough people will pay for it)

There are a lot of variations I didn’t think of, but I think I covered enough to start you out. You get to decide how far you go. I’m not far enough myself, but at least I have one backup in my RAID.

One last thought - you might have some data you don’t want backed up. If you delete the evidence of your crime but the backups are there they can get you. Your secret porn collection might be legal, but still not something you want your heirs to find out about, maybe keep it in a different way? Your call here.

Jellyfin is on his nas which we assume has more power.