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My updated Home Server setup
I just have to tell you my current state with my migration to OpenCloud…
For a few months now, I have used a second-hand HP T640 Thin Client as my home server for Home Assistant and Uptime Kuma. The T640 is a nice little and fanless device. Especially being fanless was my argument to replace the HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT and ASRock Deskmini A300 I used before. Even though they are unused now (the Deskmini was already unused for quite some time anyway), I reused some of their components.
From the Deskmini, I reused the memory to upgrade the T640 to 16 GB and the 500 GB NVMe for storage. And just today, I repurposed the big 2 TB SATA SSD from the EliteDesk for additional storage.
That last point also brings me to a big step I did today: As the T640 has no space inside for the 2.5-inch SSD, I repurposed a USB adapter and enclosure I had lying around. Unfortunately, Proxmox (which I used to host a single Alpine Linux LXC container for the two services) had problems with that. That’s why I just decided to drop Proxmox (I don’t need any VMs anyway) and just use NixOS to build a slim container host. After many years and my failed router attempt last year, NixOS again!
But why do I require the additional storage?
Some days ago, I set up OpenCloud on my Hetzner VPS. It uses as a storage backend Hetzner’s Object Storage. I also added an automated restic backup to Scaleway. But three backups are even better, so I also wanted to set up a mirror for all the OpenCloud contents (also for the case that I somehow lose access to all the hosting accounts), which is again backed up using restic to have versions.
I hope with this setup I can finally replace OneDrive.
To ease the OneDrive replacement, I have also added just another new service: PhotoPrism. Mounted via a rclone Docker volume is my photos folder from OpenCloud. That way I also have a nice picture gallery.
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I migrated to Nextcloud, not OpenCloud
Just last week I wrote that I am ready to switch from OneDrive to OpenCloud. But things have changed a bit since then. Hetzner announced a price increase, and I just ordered a new service from them: Storage Share powered by Nextcloud. So instead of switching to OpenCloud, I switched to Nextcloud.
Honestly, I don’t want to care about self-hosting my files. I just want easy-to-use, European, and trustworthy online storage for my personal files. With an app to automatically back up the photos from my phones and maybe a nice gallery application.
Many years ago, before I switched to OneDrive, I already used Storage Share. Since then the service has improved; I feel the speed is much better now, and the storage got cheaper, and all packages allow custom subdomains now.
So instead of self-hosting OpenCloud and PhotoPrism with an S3 storage backend, I just let Hetzner care about all the hosting stuff and just provide me with the final product. A reason why I would not self-host Nextcloud is all the PHP stuff. I already self-hosted Nextcloud, and I don’t have the best memories about the administration side of things. But as a user, Nextcloud is quite pleasant, at least the basic file and picture functionality. For contacts and calendars, I have a separate Baïkal instance. All the features I wanted from PhotoPrism are already included in the Nextcloud Photos app. I can view photos in a timeline, I can see them grouped by place, or I can view them on a map. The mobile app is polished, and the photo backup works perfectly. There’s also the Nextcloud Notes app (which I already blogged about in 2020) that allowed me to finally delete my Simplenote account.
On my recently updated home server, I have a cron job that mirrors the Nextcloud content every few hours with rclone and also creates a versioned backup with restic. On the VPS I also have a backup setup with rclone and restic to back up all files versioned to an object storage bucket at Scaleway. So I have every file in at least three places.
Given Hetzner’s price increase, I can consider downscaling the VPS again whenever Hetzner’s Falkenstein region isn’t disabled anymore; currently, no rescales or new orders are possible.
But even considering a potential price increase for the Storage Share (that wasn’t announced yet with the recent “price adjustments”), I consider it great value for the money. 1 TB for round about 5 euros is a steal. The backup storage at Scaleway (even though I opted for one zone) would be pricier at 1 TB usage.
Motivated by all the migrations (OneDrive to Nextcloud, Gitea to Forgejo, Proxmox to NixOS, and DeSEC to Bunny DNS), I also considered switching from my self-hosted mail server to Soverin. But I canceled that migration, as there’s simply no mail service that ticks all the boxes for me (all green checks on MECSA, 100% on internet.nl, DANE, MTA-STS, GDPR with DPA, full Sieve support, and a few other things). My current setup has worked reliably for over a year already, and when I need to send mails to the few providers that just accept whitelisted IPs, I send them through an AWS SES relay. Using an American service provider doesn’t matter when the recipient is using iCloud Mail anyway.