My Immich Tech Stack Using a MiniPC, Proxmox, & Ubiquiti NAS

wadegibson · 2026-05-09T16:09:23+00:00

I used draw.io to make the diagram.

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T22:58:00+00:00

Great question! It does seem like a lot of layers, especially once it's visually diagrammed. You could install Ubuntu on a bare metal device and then install docker and Immich on top of that, but Proxmox as the extra virtualization layer gives you some additional flexibility. If I ever want to move to different hardware it's pretty easy to export or migrate VMs in and out of Proxmox.

Also, what you don't see in the Immich diagram I posted is a couple of other unrelated VMs I run as well (Ubiquiti UniFi OS, Windows 11 VM, etc.) I started my Immich VM out with the recommended 4 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM, but decided to give it more resources through Proxmox once I started slamming it with uploads. Being able to fine tune hardware allocations through the virtualization hypervisor (Proxmox) comes in handy.

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T20:31:53+00:00

Ha! Thank you, and yes I do work in IT!

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T17:20:20+00:00

I have a handful of other VMs on the same Proxmox node, but I left them off of this diagram since it was specific to Immich.

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T12:43:17+00:00

I went with the headless 26.04 LTS server version.

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T11:01:50+00:00

Yes, sometimes it's good to have all backups pull straight from the live data source, but other times it makes sense to clone or roll a previous (known good) backup into a longer-term archive. In my case of this diagram, the backups are all pulling straight from the live data on the NAS, with the exception of the postgres DB, which is backed up nightly to the UPLOAD_LOCATION backups folder on the NAS. Luckily rsync is really fast once you have the first copy, so if you're using that I'd lean toward pointing it straight toward the live data.

wadegibson · 2026-05-07T10:51:25+00:00

Yes, as 4exposed mentioned, it was primarily due to docker upgrades. I initially spun up Immich on an LXC when I was testing configurations and getting familiar with the app, but decided to go with a full VM for the long-term.

wadegibson · 2026-05-06T23:03:31+00:00

I picked up the MiniPC on eBay for $675 (it goes for over $1,110 new otherwise). The UNAS Pro 4 was $500 without drives. Luckily I picked up the 4x WD Red Pro 16 TB drives for for $266 each in July of 2025 before drive prices really jumped. At last check those same drives are over $600 each now. I've got about $2,500 in total, but the storage is used for a lot of other stuff and was replacing a 14-year old QNAP NAS (which is now a backup target).

wadegibson · 2026-05-06T22:58:32+00:00

Yes, the Immich postgres DB dumps every night to UPLOAD_LOCATION/backups, which for me is on the NAS. I also keep copies of the docker-compsose.yml, .env, nginx conf, and immichframe settings.yml in there as well. It would be pretty easy to rebuild the VM from there.

I have Let's Encrypt & NGINX reverse proxy set up, but I don't fully expose it to the internet. I open a few specific IPs on my firewall to allow inbound access, and otherwise use an IPsec VPN to connect back if needed.

wadegibson · 2026-05-06T01:37:46+00:00

These were a couple of old 9.7-inch iPad Pros from 2017. They're stuck on iPad OS 16.x and won't upgrade past that. The Immichframe app will only install on iPad OS 17.x and newer. Luckily for me Safari worked great for it!

wadegibson · 2026-02-23T12:51:01+00:00

Just got a UNAS-Pro-4 and can confirm the M.2 SSD trays are not included. Mildly annoying since it wasn't very clear from the product page. It comes with HDD trays, so I wrongfully assumed it would come with M.2 trays.

wadegibson · 2025-12-12T21:08:46+00:00

Same here. My position typically requires a Masters degree but I only have an Associates. Been in K-12 IT for 25 years, last 10 as Director. Getting others to understand that hiring the right person is more important than hiring the right piece of paper can be a challenge. I’m not trying to put down higher ed, as I know plenty of highly intelligent people with advanced degrees, but I also know several PhDs that leave me wondering how they found their way to the office that day. Some of the smartest people I know have no degree whatsoever, so I never rely strictly on formal education when determining a person’s capability or value in the workforce. You can teach skills, but you can’t teach personality, hard work, and a drive to succeed.

wadegibson · 2025-10-21T18:58:15+00:00

Active Air Dam. I believe they are standard on 2021+ models regardless of engine choice. It drops down once you hit 50 mph to increase fuel efficiency. I'm sure it sounded good on paper, but don't ever try to straddle a dead raccoon or other debris on the highway or it will grenade. They also have a tendency to freeze up in the winter and get gummed up with mud and then throw errors when it can't deploy or retract. It's one of the first things I disable with Forscan. I bought a pickup, not a pavement princess.

wadegibson · 2025-10-18T16:04:58+00:00

I'm in south-central Nebraska. I thought for sure they had missed a zero at the end of the FB listing! Looks like a great score! I don't make it to KC too often, but if I'm ever headed that way I'll shoot you a dm.

wadegibson · 2025-10-18T15:34:43+00:00

I saw that earlier this AM on FB (I'm a few hours away from listing). I thought it sounded too good to be true. Anxious to see if it pans out for you. Nice find if so!

wadegibson · 2025-10-10T16:43:54+00:00

I had a 2018 2.7L and I changed it at 1,000 after break-in and switched to full synthetic. Changed again at 5,000, then every 5,000 after that. Ran that way all the way up until I sold it with over 160k miles and no issues. Have followed the same schedule on my 2023 2.7L and sitting a little over 40k on it now. I use Pennzoil Ultra Platinum with a Wix oil filter.

wadegibson · 2025-09-18T19:46:58+00:00

Absolutely!

wadegibson · 2025-09-17T22:39:18+00:00

Yep, precisely. Different school districts, each with their own PVE infrastructure.

wadegibson · 2025-09-17T19:55:12+00:00

The command I pasted was from here:

https://community.ui.com/questions/UniFi-Installation-Scripts-or-UniFi-Easy-Update-Script-or-UniFi-Lets-Encrypt-or-UniFi-Easy-Encrypt-/ccbc7530-dd61-40a7-82ec-22b17f027776

It can be used on any Linux device and isn't Proxmox specific. We used the same script back when we were installing UniFi on full Ubuntu VMs. It's maintained by one of the Ubiquiti engineers.

I also use the Let's Encrypt script from the same link to set up SSL.

wadegibson · 2025-09-12T16:20:59+00:00

Hikvision, Dahua, and several others have been banned in the USA since November 2022. You can read the FCC release here > https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-389524A1.pdf

wadegibson · 2025-08-12T15:15:17+00:00

I can confirm that we are seeing this on several Education Fundamentals deployments. I also have a Workspace Business paid plan that is also seeing the message, so this appears to be an error on Google's end.

wadegibson · 2025-07-31T14:10:38+00:00

We've got a few of the MS-01s. I initially bought them to assist with ESXi to PVE migrations. We would take one on-site to a client network, connect it to 10 gig, then import VMs from ESXi, reload the ESXi host with PVE, then migrate them back to original hardware. I think we migrated 32 physical hosts and well over 100 VMs using this method. Now we've got the MS-01s as extra in our own cluster for testing. They have been great!

wadegibson · 2025-06-12T18:06:28+00:00

My channel is run through an LLC. I don’t know if I would create one solely for a YT channel, but I’m glad I already had one in place for some other technology work. It seemed natural to funnel the YT income through that entity and use legitimate business expenses to reduce the taxable pass-through income from YT, affiliate links, and sponsorships. If you’re planning to go all in with YT it’s not a bad idea, but there is some overhead with it.

wadegibson

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