this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Selfhosted

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I recently replaced an ancient laptop with a slightly less ancient one.

  • host for backups for three other machines
  • serve files I don't necessarily need on the new machine
  • relatively lightweight - "server" is ~15 years old
  • relatively simple - I'd rather not manage a dozen docker containers.
  • internal-facing
  • does NOT need to handle Android and friends. I can use sync-thing for that if I need to.

Left to my own devices I'd probably rsync for 90% of that, but I'd like to try something a little more pointy-clicky or at least transparent in my dotage.

Edit: Not SAMBA (I freaking hate trying to make that work)

Edit2: for the young'uns: NFS (linux "network filesystem")

Edit 3: LAN only. I may set up a VPN connection one day but it’s not currently a priority. (edited post to reflect questions)

Last Edit: thanks, friends, for this discussion! I think based on this I'll at least start with NFS + my existing backups system (Mint's thing, which is I think just a gui in front of rcync). May play w/ modern SAMBA if I have extra time.

Ill continue to read the replies though - some interesting ideas.

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[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (3 children)

truenas is cool. I've only used core so far, but i hear scale is taking over

[–] BonkTheAnnoyed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

this looks promising. Seems a little heavy-weight at first glance... How was it to get up and running?

[–] tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 2 points 8 hours ago

It's heavy and it doesn't like if you tinker with the box in Non-TrueNAS ways. In the end it's a convenient shiny gui for ZFS and NFS. But it (or ZFS) needs some RAM (minimum 8 I think), so I'm not sure about it working on your old laptop.

[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

the GUI makes it pretty painless. it was my first real attempt at self hosting anything, my first experience with any kind of NFS/SMB setup at all. i was running it as bare metal for around 2 years before using installing as a vm on proxmox.