Infra
Structure

The goal of this setup is simple: own more of my digital life. Photos, files, documents, websites, media, and game servers do not have to live under a handful of giant companies just because that is the default.

This system was also a learning experiment for me, that's why, at least currently, all services are closed and used just by me. It replaces several cloud subscriptions with hardware I understand, services I control, open source apps that are verified, and backups I trust, because I did them :)

It is not enterprise-grade, I'm broke. It is built on constrained hardware: a €75 optiplex, 3 €40 4tb SAS drives, a €10 LSI 9211 from AliExpress, and an emergency €30 PSU. It works, and that is what I care about.

The storage layout is deliberately simple. The main disk is mounted at /srv/storage and holds the websites, service data, media, photos, cloud files, and Docker-backed application data.

The backup disk is mounted only during backup runs at /srv/backup. It stores versioned rsnapshot backups with hardlinks, so unchanged files do not get duplicated every night.

A third 4TB SAS disk is kept as a manually rotated cold backup. It is stored in a dry plastic box with silica packets in the shed, so it is physically separated from the server and protected against the house burning down, malware, and rm -rf!

Backups are handled by a custom systemd timer and shell script. Every night at 03:00, the backup job wakes the backup disk, mounts it at /srv/backup, verifies the expected UUID, and runs rsnapshot.

Before the filesystem snapshot is taken, the Immich and Nextcloud database containers are paused. This prevents copying database files while they are actively being written. After the snapshot completes, the containers are unpaused automatically, even if the backup job exits unexpectedly.

The script always runs a daily snapshot. On Sundays, once enough daily snapshots exist, it also rotates a weekly snapshot. On the first day of the month, once enough weekly snapshots exist, it rotates a monthly snapshot.

After the backup finishes, the script syncs writes, unmounts /srv/backup, and attempts to spin the disk down. The SAS drive is not always cooperative about spin-down, but the mount/unmount and versioned backup logic works cleanly.

The current setup cost roughly €260 in direct hardware. That includes the OptiPlex host, SAS controller, enterprise disks, cabling, and the external PSU.

This is not enterprise accounting. It is a realistic homelab estimate: cheap used hardware, manual labour, repairs as needed, and enough redundancy for a personal cloud.

The useful comparison is not “can I beat Google at planetary scale?” but “can I replace several subscriptions, own the data, understand the stack, and keep the cost sane?” For my use case: yes.