Well hello all again. I come with an update, after a few days of looking around and searching for options after all your valuable feedback and input.

For all those saying “backups” and “3-2-1”, yes, very important indeed and has given me extra to think about, but it is also not really what I was looking for. That doesn’t mean your input was bad, wrong or unused, it made me think deeper about that topic too and plan towards it, but it was not answering my original question, needing a better, safer, data storage solution hopefully using OSS.

As I already have a couple old laptops I would rather avoid getting extra hardware in that sense, and the idea of the DAS, which was new for me, seemed exactly what will provide what I need. Expandable storage solution to stack some HDDs, I can connect that to one of my existing laptops where I can install OMV (openmediavault) to deal with the drives and storage and use it for the storage of data. I’m getting a centmate with 4 bays, I’ll put one drive for now of 14 or 16 TB and later add another mirrored with btrfs or raid 1. In the future I’ll increase the space as needed.

For the backup I’ll keep using my external drive connected to the other laptop where I’ll probably keep EndeavourOS for now. The most valuable data I will set syncthing or some other alternative but I already have backup of some of the most important stuff so I’m not in a hurry with it.

I think at the time I have the kind of plan I needed. So thank you all for giving some advice, experience, and knowledge. It has kicked me out of indecision hell.