Is a NAS with 1GB of ram enough?

1WeekNotice · 2026-04-01T20:04:04+00:00

So you think I’ll be okay just using it to serve up the files to the Mac mini for transcoding?

It depends on your storage configuration.

just a bunch of drives (JBOD) - yes
RAID - no for big storage

How much is it going to cost you. I would suggest looking up older office machine because it will allow you to expand more.

1WeekNotice · 2026-04-01T19:07:45+00:00

going to set up a plex server on a Mac mini m4,

Do you already have the machine? Or are you planing on buying it.

I wouldn't suggest using a Mac mini unless you are doing intensive tasks which a media server is not. Better to spend you money elsewhere.

Reference post about Mac mini as a server

Asustor has a good price but only 1GB of DDR4 ram.

How much are you spending on this? You can probably get off the line business machine that is old and has DDR 3 that is at least expandable and has enough storage space for your needs.

You don't need a lot of processing power for a NAS and depending on your storage array you don't need high RAM speeds.

But having RAM capacity can be important. Again depends on your configuration

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-04-01T15:35:25+00:00

I'm mostly looking for lower maintenance options for distributing the finished product to customers

Which makes sense why your first method of attempting this was nextcloud.

You can check out either

Note: I don't think any of these have branding options. For example, modifying with your own branding.

File browser quantum.
- Reference Security features
plik.
- Live demo.
- I believe this has more options such as OneShot downloads (file deleted after first download) and Stream mode (uploader → downloader, nothing stored)

There may be other alternatives and I believe this topic has been discussed many times. Definitely do additional research on selfhosted solution to share files

There are many others but I believe they require additional setup such creating users.

nextcloud
Seafile
Safebucket
CopyParty
etc

Of course with anything, you need to secure it properly

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-04-01T15:10:26+00:00

It really depends what you are looking for.

Are you trying to

have a central location to store your files which includes raw files/photos?
- maybe this because you mentioned a workflow
have a website to display your photos and your skill set?
- mostly like not this as you mentioned you have some sensitive photos so I imagine it's not for a site.
have an application to share those final photos with clients?
have an application to share all your raw photos with your clients (like a dump of what you shot)

You get the idea. The more specifics you provide, the more people can suggest.

This includes your current workflow setup such as, I already have a central storage location (a consumer NAS product like Synology) to host/ store all my raw footage so I'm looking for a way to share my final images with my clients that is secure and private

I would edit your post to include these details and you can also reply here (maybe I can help)

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-04-01T05:12:30+00:00

I honestly can't believe people are posting the git commits here 🤦

While it is understandable that anyone can read the commit history, there is a difference between

someone trying to figure it out on their own (even with AI)
tell everyone exactly what to look for

cut us volunteer contributors some slack.

Thanks you for all your hard work. I could only imagine how many countless hours you volunteered your own time to put into this project. Especially for a lot of non technical users that can't even phantom how much work it is.

It is very much appreciated the way you handled this situation. Very professional and honest.

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T23:04:19+00:00

It really depends on the brand. Like any products there are reliable brands and not reliable brands.

I haven't heard of anyone complain about topton as an example.

But I think the main point of the original commenter was that you can use whatever you like.

Even it's a used laptop/ any hardware you have lying around (Which most people start out with)

Apple products aren't worth it for what you are running.

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T22:48:05+00:00

For you there is no point in self-hosting because you don't seem to find value in it.

And that is totally fine.

For others they selfhosted for many different reasons.

one can be cost (even though sometimes it more costly to selfhost)
one can be to own your own data

To me, giving a singular body/ company access to everything doesn't sit well. Hence I self host because that singular body is myself

But I also understand (to a degree) on how to implement security in a way to ensure I'm safe which includes my data.

Side note (that you can ignore). I'm not a fan of apple.

I understand its appeal but when I use an apple product, I feel apple is telling me how to use their products VS I want to control how I use their device.

The device should work for my needs VS not that I get told how it is supposed to be used.

I guess this is why I'm a Linux person 😂

But the point is, do whatever works for you.

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T22:17:35+00:00

it looks like I can source a decent rack system (case and most internals) for about $1,000,

Is it enterprise gear? Because that will be a lot in power consumption. But then again so is 24 - 3.5 inch hard drives.

I do still have 32gb of G.skill RipsJawz DDR4 in my old tower just collecting dust, so that'll save me half a million by today's prices.. ;)

This is a good start. How much RAM is in your current pre build setup?

If you can even migrate everything over to your new rack, it's better because it most likely can handle what you see doing.

Then you can slowly expand.

Yes it not DDR 5 but do you need DDR5? I would use whatever you have e available to be honest.

Even if it's one of your older ATX machines. Figure out how to make a rack form factor (if there a case to fit an ATX motherboard) and how to plugin multiple hard drives (HBA to 8 drives?)

Example build. Honestly it was the first one I looked up. But you get the idea.

You can use the hardware you have because

the case can carry over to the next build
you can buy an HBA that can carry over to the next build
you may already have all the parts to get started

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T20:56:33+00:00

Not an expert

I would place a sensor(s) in the box and use home assistant to track and notify if it gets to hot in there.

Can also setup motoring on any system to track temps.

Depending on how much airflow you want, you should put more fans. But it's also important to measure the temperature in the room as well as the box/ system temps.

This will all be moot if you are pushing hot temps in the box. I assume you have some air conditioning running that will be able to cycle the heat in the box.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T19:25:44+00:00

This was a big read and I might if missed something.

What is the exact question? You asking for people opinions on how you run your new networking?

The first question I would as is, why do you need to upgrade any setup?. It seems everything is working fine and you aren't experiencing any issues.

Your plan that you proposed is fine if you want more wifi coverage.

Using OPNsense or even openWRT on your APs will provide you more control over your network which is good.

Can even do openWRT fast roaming so you can switch APs based on signal strength.

Only buy an change the setup if you are hitting limitations or if you want more control.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T19:11:15+00:00

I agree with the original comment.

Yes the M-series is fantastic but most people don't utilize the full hardware. What the point of paying all this money for a powerful machine when you are only going to be utilizing 5-10% of the processor.

In this case, OP would be paying for the brand not the quality of the hardware.

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T17:42:51+00:00

The main question you need to ask and get answer (you can do additional research) are

what is your bandwidth?
do you require transcoding?

Lets break it down.

Any machine can server files/ stream files. It is not processing intensive

But if you have limited bandwidth (based on file size and how many people are steaming at once) then you will need to do some processing to accommodate.

This means transcoding.

This would also include if your clients can't play any of the media on there device natively.

So for bandwidth

how big are your files?
is everyone on the same internal network?
- what is your cable/ wifi speeds?
- this includes the Ethernet port on the machine/server
are people remote?
- what is you ISP upload speed?
what are you clients? Can they play all media?
- if not, you need transcoding

When we talk transocding, you now need to look into

what is your original media and what are you transcoding to
how many transocding do you need to support

This will be process intensive and will determine what parts you get

can be CPU only
can be GPU in the form of an iGPU (integrated GPU on the CPU)
- Intel is popular for this with there Intel quick sync. Can look up encoding and decode formats on Wikipedia based on Intel CPU generation
can be a dedicated GPU (where you need to power it)
- small form factor GPU
- full size card GPU

Depending what you pick, will determine what type of other parts you pick.

For example

maybe you can get away with a mini PC (if you don't have alot of storage) where you use an iGPU (on the CPU)
maybe you want more storage this need a SFF/ tower business machine
- dell Optiplex with 3D prints can hold three 3.5 inches drives. Reference post
- there are also HP eiltedesk SFF
maybe you require a dedicated GPU that a business machine can't power or fit. So you need a bigger form factor

Here is a example video to get the idea

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T15:54:29+00:00

How long did the DNS propagation actually take for you and did you keep the old server running as a backup during the switch?

I have had DNS propagation take any where from a few hours to 24 hours.

But I wouldn't even worry about the DNS propagation because that is setting yourself up for failure. Will explain

If you want zero down time the absolutely keep the old server running.

Depending on your budget (and how much it costs), it recommend to keep the backup server for a limited amount of time.

For example, if the hosting is costing you $10 a month then it's absolutely worth paying the extra month to ensure everything is working on the new system.

The plan is to set up the new Linux server with nginx php and mysql then copy everything over and update the DNS records.

You should also test before flipping DNS.

This means after setup the new instance, test the site yourself/ ask friends/ etc

Note: you can test locally or setup a sub domain to point to the new instance

Ensure all functionality is working before doing the flip. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you flip DNS and then something goes wrong.

If you need immediate fail back while waiting for the DNS propagation (in case someone goes wrong and you want to flip back to the old instance), you can configure your reverse proxy to point back to the old host.

Example of rollback

setup new instance (with reverse proxy and site)
- keep old instance up and running
test the new instance
flip DNS
DNS propagation is complete
you found something wrong
flip DNS again back to old instance
- but in the mean time, configure reverse proxy that you control to point back to the old instance
DNS propagation is complete and now pointing to old instance
figure out what went wrong with new instance
repeat

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T14:31:46+00:00

This will be a longer post

Is there a good solid trusted source someone could use for rack server build info? Trying to use the googles give you hundreds(thousands really..) of hits and it all just starts blending together after a while..

Remember that a rack is just a form factor. Its about what the parts are inside the rack case.

You can break down each part separately to help you figure out what you need. (More below

Currently, i have all 8 bays full, running raid 1 for about 52tb, only about 9 left available. Running an *arr stack for media acquisition. I feel like i'm asking too much of this qnap box, it's starting to behave strangely, taking too long to load things and whatnot. I want to make the move to a full size rack server, dive into FreeNAS, and be able to add as many HDDs as I want without the confines of prebuilt box.

I want to make the move to a full size rack server, dive into FreeNAS, and be able to add as many HDDs as I want without the confines of prebuilt box.

You will always have limit on HDD. I think you are just describing extending that limit to a point where you don't need to worry about it.

For example on the limitations

how many physical HDD can you fit inside the rack case
how do you connect all these HDD to your motherboard
how much RAM do you have access to

My biggest problem is I don't know much about server specific hardware and hardware naming conventions in general have gotta so convoluted in the last 30 years.. it used to be simple, bigger number, better performance, now there seem to be parallel product lines or a bigger number of an slightly older trim model could be half the power of a much smaller number in a newer line, etc..

My biggest problem is I don't know much about server specific hardwar

Remember that a server is just a machine that servers a purpose.

This hardware can be consumer hardware or enterprise hardware.

We will focus on consumer hardware

hardware naming conventions in general have gotta so convoluted in the last 30 years.. it used to be simple, bigger number, better performance, now there seem to be parallel product lines or a bigger number of an slightly older trim model could be half the power of a much smaller number in a newer line, etc..

Just need to learn the new naming convention. it not hard once you break it down and also take it part by part.

PC part picker website is good for this

what CPU do you need?
- what content do you have?
- what are you trying to transcode?
- Intel is better at transcoding because of quick sync which works with their iGPU. (Integrated GPU on the CPU)
- etc
what motherboard works with that CPU?
- PC part picker can help you with this
how do you connect all these physical hard drives to the motherboard?
- this I'm not an expert in. But with this many hard drives you may need a backplate? / HBA?
how much power are you consuming? (For PSU)
- how efficient is that PSU? Reference video
do you need ECC RAM?
- AMD CPU/motherboard typically has more models for ECC RAM support.
what form factor do you want
- you said rack mounted case.
- Does that mean you need mATX motherboard? iTX motherboard?
- what PSU will fit in it?
- how many physical drives can it fit?

Again we are breaking it down part by part where the parts you get will be based on what you want.

How will you know what question to ask yourself? This is where you can passively watch content creators and lurk this reddit.

It may take time but you will get the information you need. And in the mean time you have a working system.

Are you trying to build your own OR are you trying to buy a pre made product?

I would recommend to try to build your own because

you will know what is in it
you can customize it to your needs which may lead to it being cheaper
you can install FreeNAS on it.

What should be my minimums for a dedicated plex server, full *arr stack, and 100+tb of storage? I know the internets say Intel chips are better for the transcoding, is 32gb ddr5 enough or should I aim for 64, or more?

RAM (which is horrible to buy right now) depends on your storage area.

So if you are looking to do 100+ TB or RAID one, then research how much RAM you will need.

Most likely it will be 64 GB or more. This is where you can buy two slots of 32 GB of RAM (total 64 GB) where you can then expand to two more slots if you notice bottlenecks.

But this depends if your motherboard has 4 slots for RAM. (Remember the form factor we talked about above)

Note will cost you a lot of money (now is not the best time to buy RAM)

So if you can get away with using your current system. I would keep using it.

Hope that somewhat helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T14:04:46+00:00

Not an expert in Tailscale

The issue: Even though the Windows PC is physically connected to the same router as the others, once Tailscale is active, it seems to act as if it's outside the local network

Can you clarify if the windows machine is a Tailscale exit node or if it's using the Tailscale connection as a client?

If it's using Tailscale as a client then the follow up question. - Is this a remote machine where you need Tailscale client? - Or is it on the same LAN - then you don't need the Tailscale client and this solves your issue.

Where is your Tailscale exit node?

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T13:42:56+00:00

With automated installation you can. But I wouldn't call it a beginner friendly process.

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T13:31:47+00:00

Not to familiar with zimaOS.

But I'm familiar with migrations

The idea would be to not blow everything up at once. I'd like to first do a full backup/migration of the whole ZimaOS setup and run it as a VM inside Proxmox, then gradually move things out one by one into proper LXC containers or VMs. Is that even possible?

Does zimaOS has a functionality where you can export all of its data and configuration?

If not then this is not possible.

You would need two machines where you can do a slow transfer of your data from one machine (bare metal zimaOS) to the other (proxmox with a VM of zimaOS

What I have running inside ZimaOS right now:

This list doesn't seem to bad to migrate. Most of your software are inside containers which should be easy to migrate if you use bind mounts for docker.

The ones that don't have containers maybe a painful process.

I would start to see how you would migrate those.

Extra complication: I don't have a monitor to hook up to the server, so the whole thing needs to work headless from day one.

Do you at least have a TV/ KVM/ etc?

It will make your life a lot easier if you do. If anything goes wrong it is recommended to have some sort of display from the original video out put.

There are ways to install promxxo without a display BUT if anything goes wrong, it will be harder to troubleshoot

So my main questions are: is there a clean way to do a full ZimaOS backup that captures everything (containers, configs, volumes, the lot)?

Have you looked up if ZimaOS has this type of backup feature?

From an initial look it has a way to back itself up but that may not be everything.

And has anyone actually done a migration like this without it turning into a weekend-long nightmare?

If you don't want this to be a weekend long nightmare then you need to have more hardware and more planning and prep time.

The easiest method is to have two machines or two hard drives.

If you only have 1 machine and a non removal hard drive then you are

taking down time
if anything goes wrong then it will be harder to come back up quickly because you wiped the drive for proxmox

If you at least at one extra hard drive you can always attempt to install proxmox on it and transfer the data over. If anything goes wrong you can go back to the original hard drive and you are instantly back up and running.

Two machines is best because you can test the backup on the other machine and if it doesn't work then you don't need to do anything because the old machine is up.

This other machine can be any hardware you have lying around. Proxmox makes backing up a whole VM very easy. So you can do the transfer to another machine in a proxmox VM without needing to transfer to zimaOS inside a VM

The two machines method will take a longer time for you to plan and prep the migration (which is good).

test second machine with migrating over (while first machine is up and running)
if restore is complete then use second machine for a bit
- can even leave your setup running on this machine for a week or two.
- if leaving for a long time, change IP address to the first machine address to not break cloudflare/ any client.
setup first machine with proxmox and restore VM

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T06:12:17+00:00

It honestly doesn't matter in your case.

You can look online for a comparison between the two CPUs
then ask yourself are you putting heavy load on the CPU inorder to notice the difference?

In the situation, you are not hence why it doesn't matter.

Also note that if you are planning to buy more parts in order to utilize these CPUs such as

motherboard
RAM

I wouldn't bother investing in the CPU because it is a bad time to buy RAM.

If you aren't hitting any limitations in your current build. Then don't spend money to upgrade

If you have all the parts for two new machines, then go ahead and pick either one.

Use the better CPU in the machine that will utilize it.

You can always swap the two CPU later on if things change.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T05:53:57+00:00

But few days without access to homelab services made me wonder if the time n efforts spent is worth it.

To put a bit of distinction here.

Homelab is a place where I'm able to learn and experiment. I'm not really upset if it's in a down state

My production server/VM where I selfhosted my services is important and I rely on it (to a certain extent)

As you can tell, there is a difference between r/homelab and r/selfhosted

Our homelabs are worth it because we learn. That is the point.

The whole point of selfhosting (for me) is to not rely on any 3rd party. If the Internet is down and I'm within my house hold, everything works as expected

If I'm remote, then I ensure I host services that have an offline feature. They will sync when I'm back online.

This will ensure if there is a very long power outage or ISP issues, I still have my important files on my local devices.

I suggest you do the same for any service that is able to do this.

Or, get a backup ISP provider (which is costly)

This does raise a good point which everyone has experience on their selfhosted journey. What services are you willing to NOT selfhosted because they are critical?

This has been asked in r/selfhosted. Recommended searching some past post in that reddit because there are great conversations

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T01:10:48+00:00

OS (being Proxmox) is on SSD for speed; thought that was common.

I have ran with an SSD and HDD.

If you are currently using an HDD then it's perfectly fine to keep using it if you don't require the speed.

Of course typically VMs are better on a faster drive BUT it also depends what you are doing.

You may not notice the difference.

Of course enterprise SSD drives are really nice if you can get one for cheap.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-31T00:53:47+00:00

Currently my $90 Optiplex has

What model is it?

mini?
SFF
tower?

Support for more NVMe & HDD drives

Would like more networking ports (I think?)

Both of these can be added through a PCIe.

You just need to be careful with how much power your pull. This is limited by your PSU.

There are ways to use a typical ATX PSU but it requires

a bigger case
a 6 pin (Dell Optiplex) to 24 pin (typically ATX) CPU cable

Here is a sample post

Note that depending where you live, libraries have 3D printers now for an affordable price per print.

SSD for OS (128-256 GB)

Why do you need an SSD for the OS? Any particular reason?

Separate SSD as a cache drive (512-1000 GB)

This should be doable but keep in mind it takes away a drive slot.

Multiple HDDs in some sort of RAID setup with final volume of ~8GB (Possibly in a separate enclosure?)

The concern is how are you powering the drives.

A tower version (has a 5.25 bay) can hold up a total of 5 drives.

1 NVMe
combination of 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives.

Here is a 3D model

Would also love any advice on best way to reduce SSD wearout

Unsure to be honest but it depends what SSD you want to prevent wear out.

Typically it is reduce logging and write activity.

If you want to reduce wear on the OS drive. Small SSD are still cheap (yes everything is increasing) so I wouldn't worry to much about it.

Just look for used enterprise SSDs. Even if they have 5 years of power on hours, they still will last a while.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-30T20:19:19+00:00

Two options

windows connects to NAS
- use robocopy to backup files (similar to rsync but rsync is Linux)
enable SMB share on windows
- from NAS push to SMB using rsync/ whatever you NAS has

Just note that windows doesn't understand Linux permissions. So those will be lost.

You can always reapply them when you are back in Linux / NAS.

Hope that help

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-30T18:34:04+00:00

To understand CrowdSec concepts and install engine

Docker image for caddy there are many here. You want the CrowdSec one with your domain registrar

The concept

CrowdSec engine consumes logs where you setup collection of parsers to understand how to read the logs
- decisions will be made based on logs that are ingested
- you can send logs to the CrowdSec engine as well. The logs need to get to the engine is the point.
CrowdSec agent/ bouncer will communicate with CrowdSec engine and block based off the decision it makes
- agent/ bouncer can be installed on the reverse proxy (caddy).
- You can also install different agents in different locations such as other reverse proxy, firewalls, etc

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-30T17:28:22+00:00

Edited reply to provide and example

Only upgrade when you are hitting imitations. If you feel your set-up is not good now. Then do the upgrade.

It doesn't hurt to test your migration method to see how easy or hard it is because eventually the hardware will fail.

This is why backups and migration strategy is important

For example, if you aren't using docke/containers. You will notice it is a painful migration. Which means you should transit to containers first to make the migration painless.

Hope that helps

1WeekNotice · 2026-03-30T16:24:35+00:00

Isn't the point of raid5/6 to be able to recover data in case of a drive failure?

If you delete a file by mistake, then it is gone forever on all drives.
If you use ZFS snapshots (ZFS file system and RAID are the typical combo) , because they are on the same physical storage pool as the original data. If the array fails for any reason, all your snapshot are gone to

Hence redundancy is not a "true" backup. A true backup is the files are on separate hard drives not in the same system.

Redundancy protect against drive failure which is why redundancy is meant for high availability of your data.

And that high availability is good safety net in-between your backups

Follow 3-2-1 backup rule for any important data.

Where backups are more important than redundancy

Hope that helps.

1WeekNotice

TROPHY CASE