this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
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[Help] Improving HDD storage setup for personal server (lemmy.zip)
submitted 5 months ago by selfmate@lemmy.zip to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I want a server running nextcloud, immich and others.

I have a N100 mini server with a 2TB external HDD. I want to secure the system against data loss. Hence, I want a backup and redundancy.

  1. Most important question: How do I build everything? Is this a NAS? My naive approach is to buy 3 external HDDs and connect them to the N100 with a USB hub. I assume this is not "the right way" but to use/build a NAS. Do I have to build a separate NAS computer? When I lookup NAS buying, it is a computer with a case for 4 drives, excluding the drives and costs 400 bucks. I am confused because this is incredibly expensive compared to what I already have. What is the additional benefit compared to my setup? Am I cheap?

  2. Regarding redundancy, is RAID still the way to go? At 2 TB, using RAID 5 with 3 drives sounds good. I'd have 4 TB of usable space, much more than I intend to use in the next years, and adding a drive increases the storage by 2 TB, effectively increasing space by 50%.

  3. I have 4 TB usable space, but I won't reach 2 TB in the next one or two years. I'd use a 2 TB HDD for a local backup via borg. Once my hot storage needs to increase, I replace the backup drive with a larger one and use it to increase the RAID storage. Is one backup sufficient? Or should I keeping multiple versions of the data. Daily, weekly, monthly backups? What is your experience with it?

  4. Another 2 TB HDD for an offsite backup, LUKS encrypted, backed up once a year (that's the goal for now).

Does that sound good?

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[–] selfmate@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Since you have a server, a NAS is probably the right route.

I don't understand this. Imo, the previous sentence concludes that I want a DAS, not a NAS because I already have a server.

I'll look into zfs and btrfs. Somehow this topic is really difficult to grasp

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A DAS is more like an external drive where as a NAS is a service reachable on your LAN. Of course, you could use a NAS and plug it straight into your PC for a more DAC-like experience to keep it off your network... It really depends on what you're after.

It ultimately breaks down to these choice dimensions, and there's often overlap which may inform one another (in no particular order):

  • platform hardware
  • storage medium(s) (ssd, hdd, layout, caches,....)
  • filesystem(s)
  • operating system
  • shares protocol (Samba, NFS, WebDAV,....)
  • topology (direct attach or where in your network it's located, vlans and firewalls etc.)

I interpreted 'server' to mean you had platform already which you want to turn into a NAS. If you want storage exclusively for your server, then DAS is fine. If you want to have the storage accessible my multiple devices, then you want a NAS.

It depends on your usecase and what features you're after.

[–] selfmate@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago

Thank you! That sounds great! I already own drives and a machine. I just want to upgrade and make it more secure. I don't need a NAS then.