Help on my use case: personal cloud for files, photos, websites and email

philcos

I have a root server at Netcup that I was using to run a few econometrics scripts and other work load. Not in need of that anymore. But I installed Docker and Cosmos Cloud UI to easily manage apps and eventually use it as my personal cloud for whatever I need/use. The use case I have in mind is something like this:

• Photo storage - using Immich - to manage 300gb - 500gb of family photos, shared by no more than 2 users,
• File storage - using Nextcloud or similar - to manage 200Gb - 300Gb of files, that I currently manage through Mega/Filen,
• Web Hosting - for 1/2 websites using Wordpress/Ghost (small websites, low traffic),
• Email server - possibly to manage email, that I currently hold at Fastmail/Skiff,
• A few other apps - not much storage needed for them, just to play around a little.

I have been using separate providers for email, file management, photo management, using services like Skiff, Fastmail, Mega and so on... Very unlikely everything fails at the same time!

The thing is, I want to try hosting by myself but I'm not sure if it is a good idea to have all of the above on the same server. If something goes wrong, or there is some downtime, I can lose access to emails, files, etc. Even if there's a backup, all services will be interrupted anyway, until everything is sorted out. Would it be better to use a larger VPS and deploy everything on it, or set for a few smaller VPSes accounts, each for a different service? I believe going with the smaller VPSes leads to the same pricing (if not more) with lower overall features. I currently have the root server, which I didn't stretch that much over the years but it never failed. If going to a shared VPS, I fear it may be much different.

Another point is storage. Servers come short of storage for file and photo clouds. Netcup, for example, offers local block storage, which can be added to the root server. I never tried it, though. What is the best/cheaper way of getting storage for this use case? Buying the extra block storage? Going for a larger server?

I am an enthusiast and long time linux user that can set the server by myself. However I lack the knowledge to make the best hardware decisions. Any thoughts on this are more than appreciated.

loay

I would keep the netcup root server and add a storage vps or s3 storage for nextcloud. idrive e2 costs 20-40$ per year per 1TB of data, other cheap options are Hetzner storage share/box, hostbrr storage servers.

totally_not_banned

How you split your services is kind of a philosophical question, i guess. I'd probably go for the single server (since i'm a dinosaur maybe not even using docker or similar container virtualization) and tune this up to the point where i could pull a raw disk image for easy reinstall but like i've said there is various pros and cons with each approach just as there are personal preferences.

One thing i can tell you though: You don't want to deal with delivering mail yourself. Get MXRoute (or something similar). You can still run your own mail server (as in storing incoming and taking outgoing mail) but you'll use the paid service as a smarthost so you don't have to deal with deliverability and all that. Trust me you won't have a very nice experience delivering eMails yourself.

itsdeadjim

@philcos said: The thing is, I want to try hosting by myself but I'm not sure if it is a good idea to have all of the above on the same server. If something goes wrong, or there is some downtime, I can lose access to emails, files, etc. Even if there's a backup, all services will be interrupted anyway, until everything is sorted out.

Got a bit confused. What's the point of having email up when files is down?

Why it matters if everything is up at the same time when they are different services/data?

One way or another, you are looking for some high availability solution, for storage, web server etc. (And backup, which is not synonymous to high-availability)

Any vps will go down or completely destroyed at some point in time.

philcos

@totally_not_banned said:
How you split your services is kind of a philosophical question, i guess. I'd probably go for the single server (since i'm a dinosaur maybe not even using docker or similar container virtualization) and tune this up to the point where i could pull a raw disk image for easy reinstall but like i've said there is various pros and cons with each approach just as there are personal preferences.

One thing i can tell you though: You don't want to deal with delivering mail yourself. Get MXRoute (or something similar). You can still run your own mail server (as in storing incoming and taking outgoing mail) but you'll use the paid service as a smarthost so you don't have to deal with deliverability and all that. Trust me you won't have a very nice experience delivering eMails yourself.

Thanks for that comment. Someone told me, in the past, to try anything but let email alone!!!

totally_not_banned

@philcos said:

@totally_not_banned said:
How you split your services is kind of a philosophical question, i guess. I'd probably go for the single server (since i'm a dinosaur maybe not even using docker or similar container virtualization) and tune this up to the point where i could pull a raw disk image for easy reinstall but like i've said there is various pros and cons with each approach just as there are personal preferences.

One thing i can tell you though: You don't want to deal with delivering mail yourself. Get MXRoute (or something similar). You can still run your own mail server (as in storing incoming and taking outgoing mail) but you'll use the paid service as a smarthost so you don't have to deal with deliverability and all that. Trust me you won't have a very nice experience delivering eMails yourself.

Thanks for that comment. Someone told me, in the past, to try anything but let email alone!!!

Yeah, with the current state of email a fully independent setup is something between problematic and broken by default. Sad but true. You can still very much have SMTP/POP3/IMAP on your server just as with a standalone setup though. The only difference being that your SMTP server is configured to hand off outgoing mail to said paid service instead of attempting delivery itself.

philcos

@loay said:
I would keep the netcup root server and add a storage vps or s3 storage for nextcloud. idrive e2 costs 20-40$ per year per 1TB of data, other cheap options are Hetzner storage share/box, hostbrr storage servers.

Thanks for the suggestions. Idrive is really cheap, coming at $15 per 1TB/year. Netcup extra storage costs almost that per month. But is there any other offer similar to Idrive from Germany or Europe? I would prefer to avoid US companies for data storage, even though they have locations worldwide.

loay

@philcos said:

@loay said:
I would keep the netcup root server and add a storage vps or s3 storage for nextcloud. idrive e2 costs 20-40$ per year per 1TB of data, other cheap options are Hetzner storage share/box, hostbrr storage servers.

Thanks for the suggestions. Idrive is really cheap, coming at $15 per 1TB/year. Netcup extra storage costs almost that per month. But is there any other offer similar to Idrive from Germany or Europe? I would prefer to avoid US companies for data storage, even though they have locations worldwide.

I don't think you can find anything with similar pricing in Europe or any other provider in the US (average price of 1TB storage is 3-6$ per month if you got a good offer). Hetzner storage box/share is the cheapest in Europe and the most reliable.

philcos

If going with the RS at Netcup, and for the sake of keeping storage in the same place, don't know weather to get the block storage or object storage they offer. Anyway, either choice would be much more expensive than the Hetzner or iDrive storage.I guess that the product isn't the same either, eventually faster.