NAS Notes

Notes for upcoming/first NAS build/config

08-16-23

The time has come. My offline SSD storage method is no longer sufficient.

Parameters

NAS for multi-device data sync (access via macOS and Linux)
File share, file backup
- Media
- Pictures
- Documents
Unsure about how to deliver these best
- Samba share -> file browser?
- Frontends, like PhotoPrism, VLC/Peertube?

Size - must be small enough to pick up and go with in emergency
Noise - I’m extremely sensitive to fan/hard drive noise; quiet as possible, but also stowed away
Cost - ~$550 starting budget, but we’ll see. I already have some parts laying around.
“Future-proof” - adding drives down the road may be complicated
Backup-ability - No resources for a cloned backup server. Need to be able to back up to external hard drives. Not sure how my software configuration will impact this.

Encryption vs no encryption?
- Obvious benefits
- Not Internet facing, so the “it’s available anyways” doesn’t apply
- Very inconvenient to manage after reboots
- PiKVM?
On redundancy and drive quantity
- One parity drive
- One cache SSD (I have many SSDs laying around, so why not?)
- More drives, less capacity?
  - 2x 8TB (+1x parity) = 16TB
  - 3x 6TB (+1x parity) = 18TB
How much space do I need?
- Eliminating drives below 8TB; $/TB not worth it
- This means at least 16TB
- Would add more for negligible cost; ex $120/8TB vs $140/12TB (refurb*)
- Current storage fits well on 2TB NVMe (lol!), but 2hr of GoPro video is ~100GB alone
- 15min GoPro video (4K, ProRes 422) ~ 75GB!

Redundancy
- One parity drive
- One cache SSD (I have many SSDs laying around, so why not?)