You can go with something like this if you want a clean solution.

I use a drive dock station for my backup drives, and I have a few of these for one-offs too.

Crucial is fine. It’s commonly found in corporate and government workstations.

Amazon typically has a few vendors that specialize in refurbished Optiplexes and/or HP Elites in small or ultra small form factor sizes.

A word of caution about these refurbs though…the memory and storage they include are often dollar store brands (Kingfast) that I wouldn’t even trust for a child’s PC. It’s worth purchasing your own after the fact.

Your options will depend on many things…

• How much storage is needed?
• Is RAID important to you?
• Is power usage a concern?
• Noise level?

I don’t know how demanding photoprism is, but you could probably do fine with a refurbished i5/i7 Dell Optiplex or similar, with one or more SSDs added to it. If money is really tight and storage needs are high, you could go with mechanical drives instead.

The problem with enterprise servers is that are generally very loud and use a lot of power…not unlike adding a second refrigerator to your environment. In my opinion, they’re not worth it unless you have a specific use case (training for a career, etc.).

I’ve been super happy with my 8th gen Intel NUC i5. I put it in an Akasa Turing fanless case, installed an NVMe for host OS, and an 8TB SSD for data. It’s low power and so quiet that I couldn’t imagine ever using fans again.
I also have a USB 3.2 drive dock for external backup HDDs, but I only turn it on when actively doing a monthly backup.

8TB holds more media than I’ll ever need, but I do trim movies and shows regularly. For some, 8TB won’t be anywhere near enough, and SSDs exceeding this are ridiculously expensive.

And I would argue that all data should be encrypted now, even the working copy. If you have data that’s worth backing up, you probably don’t want it in the hands of criminals or weirdos either.

It’s better than no backup at all, but ideally it shouldn’t be your only backup. Still, having any backup puts you ahead of the vast majority of computer users. If the data is truly of value to you, consider also keeping a second backup within your custody and away from your home.

I rotate two encrypted hard drives between work and home, performing a backup monthly and taking the newest backup to work before bringing home the previous.

• Instructional (non-tech how-to books)
• Manuals (for actual household items, vehicles, etc.)
• Programming (tech books)
• Books (everything else)

I’ve been happy with whc.ca for hosting…been using their pro account for years. I generally use canspace.ca for domain registration, and have done so for more than 10 years without issue.

Yep, this is how we’ve kept ours for over 20 years. Even if you don’t use the command line, most graphical file browsers will search through text files without issue.

One of these days I’ll get around to setting up my own email server, but in the meantime I just take advantage of introductory offers on shared hosting plans. I purchase the 3-year plans and end up paying about $3-4/mo (CAD). When the plan is nearing expiry, I take my data and move on to the next web host. Been doing this for about 28 years now.

Radicale on the home server, which syncs contacts and calendaring for us. Thunderbird on the desktop. Fossify Calendar on Android, synced to Radicale via DAVx⁵.

I think you’ll be out of luck for 3 slots, but you could always use the native slot for OS and dock the other 2 via USB with RAID capability in something like this.

I’m a big fan of the Intel NUC platform, coupled with a fanless case and all-SSD/NVMe drives. They’re low-powered, fast enough for most common tasks, and completely silent.

I have an NVMe drive for the OS (currently Proxmox, soon to be Debian again or Fedora), containers and VMs, and an internal 8TB SSD for data storage (whole disk encrypted). This may not meet your needs if you’re intending to be a data hoarder, but I have a sizeable movie and lossless music collection accumulated over 25 years and I’m not even using 4TB yet.

You can of course still use a similar setup but keep even larger storage on a NAS device, or simply use a USB dock with a couple of 16TB drives. It’s really down to whatever your needs are.

I love that the server, router, modem, and switch use such a small footprint and are able to be powered for up to an hour by an equally small and inexpensive 600VA UPS.

Depends on your power needs. My home server is an Intel NUC, so I’m able to keep it, the modem, router, and main switches running through most power outages with an APC 600VA UPS for about $80 USD.

I try to keep things simple and just use Markdown files for everything. I have a doc for each physical device, and another doc for each service/container running on the LAN.

I generally track hardware specs, upgrade paths, and software changelogs/todos as unsorted lists within these docs. It’s super portable and easily synced across devices via Syncthing.

You’re very welcome. For Markor, I wasn’t a fan of the default viewer theme, which is how I view most notes when on mobile, so I made some tweaks to improve its appearance…below is a screenshot:

If you want something similar, add the following under Settings > View mode:

• Open existing files in view mode: on (this may be default)
• Link color: #71aaff

And replace the `` block under the inject -> head pop-up with the following CSS:

I write nearly everything in markdown. Like you, I don’t want databases, or other barriers that will complicate portability.

I just use my text editor of choice, usually VSCodium or vim on the desktop, and Syncthing to keep the notes synced across all of our devices.

On Android, I’ve been happily using the Markor markdown editor for years. I’ve tried several others but always return to its simplicity.

All of the above editors support opening folders in a tree view, so you can easily keep your notes sorted under a traditional folder structure and find what you when you need it.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Markor does have a dedicated to-do feature too, which also uses markdown.

We use markdown notes extensively. Everything is synced to our desktops and mobile devices with Syncthing. Markor editor for Android, and VSCodium/vim on the desktop. Works great for tech notes, medical info, shopping lists, recipes, etc.

A better alternative would be to separate the core open source app from any premium, proprietary add-on features, as the developer hinted at here.

As someone else pointed out, it’s difficult to agree that this app follows an open source model when the open source portion of it is essentially non-functional and requires the closed source components to be of any practical use. Until that separation occurs, this isn’t really open source; you’re trusting a stranger on the internet with your (or your client’s) network credentials.

Barring any similar apps, I’ll stick to my password manager and terminal.