I think you already know, AIOs are the go-to, just make sure you can connect in. I’ve done this with Synology, works fine, I used sftp to sync things. If you want cheaper you can look into a standard linux host and mergerfs/snapraid, but it’s going to be a much higher learning curve, and a much higher risk of failure. If you’re just getting up and started don’t overthink it. It’s good to plan for tomorrow, but think about how much data everyone has, and how much you’ll use today, and then double that. That’ll be a good baseline.
If you’re US based, a trick, buy the WD Elements drives from Best Buy. They go on sale regularly pretty much whenever there is a holiday sale and “shuck” them (plenty of videos on Youtube for how to do this). You’ll save probably double the cost on drives.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 8 months ago
Look for the mini pc’s that can hold a single (large capacity) drive.
Since you’re going to be replicating (and I assume actual backups), you don’t need multi-drive systems at each location unless you need more than about 12TB of storage.
Bubs@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I def need a massive drive just for me lol. I have multiple drives loaded full of files including an 8TB drive.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 8 months ago
Sounds like me.
I have lots of stuff.
My media files get replicated to my friends and family - that serves as “backup” for media, since it doesn’t change the multiple copies works as backup. That’s about 3TB.
My other files (software, user data, phone files, etc) are in a proper backup process which is replicated to those other devices. Backup is compressed, and there’s a lot of duplicate files so it really works.
My total storage use is about 5TB, with perhaps 1TB changing in a given month.