This isn’t exactly an answer, but something like Baserow or NocoDB could be helpful. They’re self hosted versions of Airtable (if you’ve ever used that). Basically it’s a very fancy spreadsheet that can be used to do a ton of custom logic. If you can’t find software that fits your exact needs, chances are you could set something up with one of these! Good luck!

How would I check that?

Yeah seems like sandisk ultra is the way to go. Do you know, is there any disadvantage to using the “Ultra Fit” line of smaller drives that sit much more flush to the case? Those look nice, but IDK if there are performance issues with the smaller package

Yeah, sadly it does have a M.2 slot but it’s not SATA or NVMe, but instead SDIO. Someone out there has actually made an adapter that lets you put an sd card into that slot, which is super cool. But probably no better that a flash drive realistically, and much more expensive (you have to get the adapter manufactured)

Yeah, I have one of those and it’s great but I need very little storage for this system (64g max) so I didn’t feel like it made sense in this case.

I was thinking that too! I’ve basically never heard of anyone using it, but everyone here prompted me to check it out. Turns out they have a new version that’s a re-write in go which is neat. Just tried it out and… It’s not exactly good. UI at least is pretty broken haha

Still having trouble, but it might be because the service itself is unhealthy because I cant connect even directly with the ip. Something I’ve learned already about Seafile that I don’t love: debugging it is a massive pain. Why TF are the config files spread out across like 15 different python files lol. Seems like a crazy setup to me.

Oh this is huge. Just tested that out and it’s very cool. I need to figure out how to host it properly behind my reverse proxy though. Seems like it has nginx build in but that’s conflicting I think with my traefik that I put everything behind…

I run Tailscale which is basically the same a ZeroTier, so I theoretically could do this, but I’m not super enthused about having to put family members onto my VPN. I’d have to do some complicated networking stuff to keep things secure (aka make sure “normal” users don’t have access to machines and systems they shouldn’t). That said, I should look into it because if there is an easy way to do that, then this could be the simplest way

This sort of thing works fine for me, but falls apart a bit with non-technical users (aka my family). Even syncthing is actually pretty difficult to use IMO (compared to google drive or the like). I’d have to manually setup and maintain this on all their devices basically

Okay I’m trying out seafile and it seems awesome, so maybe that will be the way to go.

It stores them in a custom format in blocks, which is the only real downside because that means it can’t interop with things like FTP or SMB

You could try getting a Chromebook and installing whatever distro you want on there? I know it doesn’t avoid the pre-installed spyware, but at least it’s free so you’re not loosing money paying for a license. And Chromebooks these days are made in a wide range from very inexpensive to sorta-premium.

I would, and I plan to someday, but my whole storage system is setup on it and migrating would be an enormous pain. Also right now I rely on it’s ability to create a RAID array with differently sized drives. Next time I upgrade, I plan go get homogeneous drives, so maybe then would be the time to move away from Unraid.

Oh interesting, that sound plausible. I’ll check out the bios and see if I can find that setting. Thanks!

It’s not that easy sadly. The entire NAS runs on Unraid and the issue is with that OS. I can’t switch without totally restarting from scratch which would be a huge data migration, and a massive PITA configuration-wise.

Eventually I’d be open to switching to something like TrueNas Scale, but for now I need Unraid’s unique ability to run a RAID array with differently sized drives

I specifically had to set things up in the BIOS so that it would never enter any efficient power/sleep states. It’s a bug in the OS I’m using that was forcing me to do it, otherwise the whole thing would lock up on me.

That said, I have some smart-plugs that do power monitoring. I can try hooking up the nas to one of those just for kicks, it should be accurate enough for this sort of thing.

Edit: Just measured and looks like I was about right: 100W under load and around 80W idle

I have the nas connected to a UPS that reports it’s power draw and it sits at about 100W at all times. There are one or two other small devices connected to it usually, so the nas itself is probably using a hair less that that at idle, but still it’s quite high.

That’s an interesting issue. Do you think the problem would be the same for any CSI plugin? I’m thinking of using my NAS as the storage brains of the operation and hooking it up with NFS or something, but would that have issues with stateful stuff like DB’s too?

This is awesome, ZeroToNix is exactly what I was looking for. I’ve been interested in trying NixOS for a while but I always found the documentation obtuse (extensive, which is great, but not super beginner friendly). I’ll give it a try!

This seems like a sensible choice, but it would be a bit messy for multi-node which is the direction I’m heading in