What my setup will soon be for hardware: Gen 2 AMD epic 16 core CPU, Supermicro motherboard with lots of pcie slots, 128g ram, Intel arc a40 GPU, HBA card attached to a super micro disk shelf

Software: Proxmox for host is, Truenas Scale (just NAS) in VM with HBA card passed into VM, Plex in VM with Intel GPU passed in, 3 VMs for docker swarm (headless Debian)

Other thoughts: Cloud flare will only be helpful for things you want exposed to the internet. If you do that make sure you have a reverse proxy. This is how I expose services for non-tech family.

VPN will be more secure, but can also be more of a pain. I generally only do that for things only I need or only techy savvy people will use.

https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower

Your biggest potential bottle neck is if your NAS and App server only have a single 1g network port. This may not be a problem depending on your usage, but it is a important consideration to keep in mind.

For HDDs the best way is to think of them like shoes or tires. They will eventually fail, but they also may fail prematurely. I always recommend having a spare drive ready.

You don’t want hardware raid. Some options you can research:

• Mdadm - Linux software raid
• ZFS - Combo raid and filesystem
• Btrfs - A filesystem that can also do raid things

Some OS options to consider:

• Debian - good if you want to learn to do everything yourself
• Truenas Scale - Comercial NAS OS. I bit of work to get started, but very stable once going.
• Unraid - Enthusiast focused NAS OS. Not as stable as Truenas, but easier to get started and a lot of community support.

There are probably other software/OS’s to consider, but those are the ones I have any experience with. I personally use ZFS on Truenas with a lot of help from this YouTube channel. https://youtube.com/@lawrencesystems?si=O1Z4BuEjogjdsslF

If you want to get things working then never “tinker” with things, maybe it’s not worth it. But if you want to learn and be able to try new things it is really helpful. Having a new VM not breaking existing VMs reduces risk when trying something new.

I think GPU passthrough has improved since you have used it. Some command line prep work is still necessary, but the passthrough config is done in the GUI.

Have you used Google lately? At least chatGPT doesn’t make me scroll past a full page of ads before giving me a half wrong answer.

Maybe if you wrote better code …

/Jk

Syncthing is a better fit for your use case. As much as I appreciate having my Nextcloud setup, it can also be a pain in the ass some times.

Someone I know organized a group buy and bought a box of them.

I am running an Arc A40 on an Ubuntu VM for Plex. They only problem I have is VM not booting after it is restarted. Restarting the host fixes the issue.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000091844/graphics.html

I would also make sure you have a Proxmox install USB ready to go just in case.

I can’t give you specifics but generally what is likely necessary:

1. Backup anything important. You will be doing things that risk loosing data.
2. Make a bootable USB with a live Linux.
3. Look up instructions on resizing partitions.
4. Boot into the live Linux from the USB
5. Resize your existing Proxmox partition

I am running Plex with an Intel A40 in Ubuntu server. Worked well for me as Ubuntu had the drivers baked in before they made there way into a Debian release.

In general checkout LearnLinuxTV on YouTube. Lots of good guides.

Other people have suggested good info to gain nuisanced knowledge. I recommend starting with a simple fact. With enough time and/or the right conditions all storage will fail. Design your setup with redundancy. I personally had to replace 2x 12tb drives this year. I have raidz3 (3 parity drives) and a hot spare. So I just bought cheap replacements from a reputable seller on eBay and consider it part of the cost of self hosting.

Just put them in a separate library and only share it with people that ask for it.

I think there is an author that said, “Books aren’t completed, they are abandoned.” Code can feel the same.

A used older desktop is a good starting machine. I think Unraid is a good starting point as the community is more welcome to completely new people needing a lot of help. Also this channel has a tone of good guides for Unraid: https://youtube.com/@SpaceinvaderOne?si=A8BWLbMq42KzHD8I

I suggest starting off cheap to learn. Then you can spend money as you determine what is necessary based on problems you encounter. One VERY important thing to remember is that HDDs fail, power surges kill motherboards, water leaks kill the whole thing. If you don’t want to loose family photos, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT BACKED UP OFF YOUR SERVER. Preferably “off-site”.