Good evening
I’m thinking of setting up a private cloud at home to back up my and my family’s pictures to my own NAS instead of the iCloud. Is there anyone here who can help me with a few tips? I know how to use Raspberry Pi, or I’ve seen solutions that are installed directly on the NAS, so I think I can manage that too. Has anyone here already used this scenario and could describe what I should look out for?
Thank you
TiRohn
TiRohn why don’t you ask @TomatoTec he has a Nextcloud, as far as I know.
I myself run a Nextcloud as a Proxmox container on my Proxmox server (where I also run a few other things for business, mainly Unifi Controller and a MeshCentral instance). Currently, all this is on a self-built PC with a low-power CPU (i7 3770S) but I urgently need to upgrade the whole thing as it is already 12 years old
It could run on a newer Raspberry Pi but not as well as on a “full-fledged” X86 PC/server
There are good videos on Youtube, when I did the whole thing I followed one from Sempervideo, but just make sure it’s halfway up to date
Another consideration is a Synology NAS, I think the apps from Synology are great (Photos, Drive, Active Backup for Business, etc.) and in my opinion the Synology NAS are absolutely worth the money because you don’t have to worry about almost anything, just activate auto updates and it’s up and running. For all customers who want such a solution, I have Synology NAS in operation, because the costs for a Nextcloud server etc. would end up being much higher, just because of the time required to set it up and then also manual updates every few months (of course, you can automate this, but even that is more tricky than with a ready-made system like Synology).
Regardless of the solution, it is important to have a backup. With Synology, there are many options (C2, 2nd NAS, otherwise a cloud service). My solution is to have a TrueNAS server on a second box in a different location and back up every night using Rsync and Site2Site VPN
WalterB What about the mobile apps at QNAP?
Although as often as they had security problems I wouldn’t dare to open something directly from the internet (which is almost necessary for automatic photo backup or something, always via VPN on the mobile phone is tedious).
With Synology, this works great with Quickconnet, or simply port forwarding. Simply use secure passwords and 2FA everywhere, especially for the admin account
Installationen, Netzwerk, Internet, Computertechnik, OS Windows, Apple und Linux.
I don’t have automatic photo or file updates to cloud or NAS set active anywhere, everything is done manually mostly at home via the Windows or Apple computer.
When travelling for longer periods, I use the notebook as a larger external storage device.
Installationen, Netzwerk, Internet, Computertechnik, OS Windows, Apple und Linux.
As @user109 has already mentioned, I also run a Nextcloud. I run it in an AlmaLinux VM with an additional disc for the data. So it would be similar to your case with the Raspi. I can recommend using Apache as a web server, as Nginx is more complex with PHP applications.
I have also set up the automatic upload of photos from the iPhone and it works perfectly.
Gruss TomatoTec
Hey, great, many thanks @NilsL and @WalterB , that’s exactly what I was thinking. And I was actually hoping that there might already be something from one of the good NAS manufacturers, and it looks like there is.
Now my follow-up questions (need a bit more background, and if you already have this in operation… 😊):
Thanks a thousand times to everyone already!
Greetings TiRohn
Hello TiRohn
I also run several Nextcloud servers.
You can find a good guide at:
https://www.c-rieger.de/nextcloud-installationsanleitung-v1/
It is based on Ubuntu.
The Nextcloud for testing all run in a VM on an Unraid server.
Since I then have several servers and all run with different subdomains, I also have an NPM on the Unraid which then manages the hostnames for me.
One server is in a different location, which makes a backup every night over the network to another server and this works without any problems.
I always say: No backup, no pity…..
Always remember that you also have a backup, because a cloud is not a backup, it can always happen that hardware breaks down….
Greetings Lorenz
@TiRohn I have Synology DS and RS devices in use. Min Raid 1 or Raid 10 always depends on the application. C2 Storage with Hyperbackup in use for 5 years. Incl. Active Insight for monitoring the NAS. I have IronWolf Pro from Seagate in use (in operation for 7 years), because of more analysis data of the hard drives. WD has more failures than Seagate. Do some research on the net, my information is already 2 years old. I have 2 NAS in operation as a backup.
The original Synology HD are no better: https://www.heise.de/news/NAS-Festplatten-vom-NAS-Hersteller-Synology-5039415.html
WalterB doesn’t do much, maybe a max. 10 min bridging, you’d have to bring out the big guns. A USB connection is very unsuitable for shutting down an infrastructure. A network card via SMB server is much better suited.
I have secured my entire IT infrastructure with this, followed by a second UPS from APC 300VA for the router, so that I can still control everything remotely in the event of a power failure.
https://www.eaton.com/ch/de-de/skuPage.9PX1500IRT2U.html
WalterB I never have the NAS on standby, it takes too long for everything to boot up again.
Okay, the bridging current seems like a good point, I’ll have to do some more research, dabke! I’ll take a closer look at the hard drives, I don’t think I’ll go for a Syno anyway, I’ve been happy with my WD so far, but additional up-to-date research can’t hurt 😊. It seems to me more and more that it will be the Syno DS923+ with the corresponding Photosync app. Can anyone else here answer the question about the different users?
TiRohn The TrueNAS backup is only recommended for NextCloud and a bit complicated if you’ve never worked with SSH keys and Rsync before. But doable, there are videos on the internet
With a Synology NAS as backup either C2 or a 2nd Synology NAS (you also have to look a bit if the 2nd NAS is not in the same network). In my opinion, C2 is highly recommended and also fair in terms of price if you consider that the 2nd NAS also needs power, “maintenance” from time to time (new hard drive if one breaks, at some point you have to replace the device because it no longer receives updates).
Synology -> Truenas is also feasible but a bit tricky, I wouldn’t recommend it
Regarding NAS and HDD choice; Tip Top, I also have customers with exactly the same products in operation, runs perfectly
Regarding photos and multiple users; yes, it works perfectly, the pictures are completely separate from the individual users, unless you make albums and share them explicitly or you activate the “shared area” and upload pictures there (great for family photos, for example)
RAID does Synology with its SHR or whatever it’s called pretty much automatically, you don’t have to think much about it, the recommended settings are usually also the optimal ones for simpler setups like yours
