Start with one thing you want to do, the most important thing.

Enumerate the requirements of that thing (machine to host it on, the kind of OS it requires, network connectivity, etc).

You’re doing what I’ve always heard as “solutioning” - getting overwhelmed with potential solutions before clearly identifying the problem (e.g. Requirements).

Solve that first thing, then move on to the next thing.

Odds are you can get started with something much simpler than jumping feet first into solutions like Proxmox (which has nothing to do with your stated goals, it’s a storage/redundancy/virualization system). Forget about all that - if you eventually come to a point where you need those capabilities, you can deal with it then.

I would start with redundant local data and a cloud backup. Three local drives with data sync’d or mirrored is much easier/cheaper to get going than spending time setting up a NAS that you don’t know you need…yet.

Or, if you know you need a NAS, then start there and get that established, stable first. Then start your sailing efforts. Pretty much all NAS solutions today support some kinds of virtualization/containerization. I don’t recommend Proxmox as your start.

Edit: I’ve run different flavors of Linux on a laptop for this, with an external drive that got sync’d to a second external drive and to a third external on another laptop. That mostly protected me from local/drive/system failures, at least.

Think about power consumption of your hardware. If it is supposed to run 24/7 this can add up over a year. The money could be invested in power efficient hardware instead. There are calculators online

I run OpenMediaVault as it brings plenty of nice features together like SMART disk monitoring, resource usage monitoring, easy RAID creation, FTP/SSH/browser access, etc. You don’t strictly need it (or TrueNAS, UnRAID, etc) but it’s nice. Unlike TrueNAS and others, OMV seems easier to install on an existing Linux distribution (I run it on Debian).

For important stuff that you really don’t want to lose, you probably want to set up a RAID array of some description. The various NAS solutions like OMV or TrueNAS will make that easier but you can do it without them. It does mean you’ll want a lot of storage (disks will probably be the most expensive part of your setup) and you’ll want your PC to be able to accommodate multiple hard drives (I would think at least 4) particularly if you want to run a RAID.

Jellyfin is good for streaming. Beyond that I don’t know much about sailing the seas at scale.

Nextcloud is decent for file storage and has a few good addons that allow you to use it to selfhost calendars, contact, Joplin notes, etc.

Paperless-ngx is a good solution for digitising documents.

Yes there are plenty of different solutions out there but after a while you come to see that as a feature rather than a bug. Selfhosting definitely carries a lot more friction than outsourcing it all to Google, so it’s something you need to get used to. It helps if you can view the process itself as a hobby rather than a chore and embrace the fact that you will need to learn a lot to make it work.

You can run a NAS with any Linux distro - your limiting factor is having enough drive storage. You might want to consider something that’s great at using virtual machines (e.g., Proxmox) if you don’t like Docker, but I have almost everything I want running in Docker and haven’t needed to spin up a single virtual machine.

For Photos the lazy route is to just pay Hetzner 5$ a month for 1TB storage and Nextcloud
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/
(I tried this for a month and loved it, decided to then host myself)

The not lazy route is to host Nextcloud yourself, but because it’s important thigns like your family photos, you need to be sure your backups are solid.

I bought myself a Hardkernel H4+ and will be setting it up as a NAS with Nextcloud

If you have an old laptop sitting around, put a linux server or NAS distro on it and start tinkering. There can be a lot of analysis paralysis with this stuff. Sometimes it’s best to just try and fail and learn and try again. More likely you’ll try and succeed and realize other wants and needs and redo it a year later. I think that’s why it makes for a great hobby. Lots to learn and improve upon.

Start small, on your local network. Maybe something like paperless-ngx: not very demanding of resources, and (I assume) easy to backup/migrate. You could see about putting it on truenas to get a sense of what that process is like. I personally like to keep a nas and server separate, then mount the nas on the server.

I’ve found owncloud a bit complex and prefer dedicated solutions. For the seas, servarr apps come up a lot. Paperless ngx for docs. Immich (or ente) for photos/vid. If you’re just starting out, installing on linux and/or using docker is going to be your shortest path to success. proxmox or other VMs can complicate things if you’re not familiar.

I have a home media server (which may or may not host an arr stack) running on a 5 year old i5 NUC withb16Gb RAM and two USB external SSDs for storage.

So far it manages for the household (3 users) perfectly fine.

Just sailing? Single hard drive connected to what ever

Hosting stuff you care about? Some form of raid/zfs/whatever with at least 2 discs and a backup plan, also hooked up to what ever

That is the bare minimum. Buy used and expect your needs to change within a month/year.

Not really answering the whole question, but you really don’t need a lot. Currently running jellyfin, a blog and some other fun dockers on a raspberry pi (clone), with an external nas though a large USB would do. Start with just “retrieving” movies to your local disk and think what else you need.

• want to access movies between devices? Get some cheap server (I.e some second hand computer) or a NAS
• want to have some snazzy UI? Get jellyfin
• Want to be able to expand storage? Set up some raid configuration or similar.

Good story about overcomplicating things

Is owncloud or an alternative enough, or do I need something more elaborated like TrueNAS?

I run a Nextcloud for my family and then serve the same folders again via samba to the same users. Don’t need a separate NAS for this, just activate the samba service on the same machine.

Regarding the pirate ship, I don’t know. I haven’t tried that yet.

I know there is unRAID and TrueNAS, but I went with a traditional NAS (Synology, before all the fuckery) and a small N100 NUC on the side.
The NAS is critical for the whole family with backups, pictures and general files, so I need it to be 110%. On it, I just run the .arr stack, Surveilance Station and Qbit, and the NUC runs all my other containers like Jellyfin and Home Assistant. Full access to the files via NFS and it gives me good power for transcoding when needed. Even 4K high bitrate files play seamlessly on WiFi now.

It’s been rock solid and I would probably do it the same way again if I had to rebuild.

Best of luck finding the appropriate solution for your needs, mate!

Raspberry Pi 4 (with its linux distribution) and an external usb hard drive attached. Install whatever service you want on it. I have Jellyfin and openproject (previously redmine) on it. This mini thingy sits without monitor, keyboard or mouse somewhere next to my router and connected with an ethernet cable. Works flawlessly.

I use OpenMediaVault and have almost everything managed and backed up by the Compose plugin from OMV extras, I clouding immich and nextcloud

I got proxmox setup pretty easy and I am running Plex in an lxc, and docker in another. In docker, I use paperless NGx for electronic document storage

My main reasons are sailing the high seas

If this is the goal, then you need to concern yourself with your network first and the computer/server second. You need as much operational control over your home network as you can manage, you need to put this traffic in a separate tunnel from all of your normal network traffic and have it pop up on the public network from a different location. You need to own the modem that links you to your provider’s network, and the router that is the entry/exit point for your network. You need to segregate the thing doing the sailing on its own network segment that doesn’t have direct access to any of your other devices. You can not use the combo modem/router gateway device provided by your ISP. You need to plan your internal network intentionally and understand how, when, and why each device transmits on the network. You should understand your firewall configuration (on your network boundary, not on your PC). You should also get PiHole up and running and start dropping unwanted inbound and outbound traffic.

OpSec first.