Hi everyone,
I’m just getting started in the world of selfhosting and wanted some advice.
I’m currently using a 2015 MacBook Pro (i7 with 16gb of RAM) running Sonoma as a small Jellyfin Server. I’ve got an externally powered 4TB HDD connected for media storage. It’s been going fine, and I use it to access Jellyfin on several devices across my house, I don’t have remote access set up.
I’m planning to move home in the next year and I’m thinking about long-term solutions which will allow me to self host more than just Jellyfin, so I wanted some advice. I have some experience using Linux on laptops, and I can troubleshoot networking stuff using ChatGPT. I don’t work in IT/ software but I’m a decent end-user.
Here’s what I’d like to self-host: More robust Jellyfin setup - I’d like access to my media outside of my home, so probably using tailscale or similar. An NAS with a cloud storage solution which will eventually allow me to move away from iCloud. Home security server - a small setup, I’m thinking 2 ip cameras and easy access to footage on my phone. I want to ditch ring for multiple reasons / don’t want to rely on a subscription service. A pi-hole to block adds across my home network.
Moving home is going to be expensive so I’m not trying to spend a tonne of money. Which leads me to ask. What kind of setup would you guys recommend I invest in? I can spend about €500-600. Ideally, I’d like to be at a point where everything I run is open source. I assume I can’t expect to scale up using my 2015 MacBook Pro? Is is possible to install something like proxmox on these machines? my other option would be a small mini pc, perhaps running proxmox. Do I need to buy a dedicated NAS in your opinion? I have 10tb in external hdds that could serve as a makeshift setup.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Okay thanks. Damn shame manufacturers keep removing useful ports
I'd spend more time considering whether you want a mini-PC or not because it's going to make storage expensive or difficult as youll either need to fork over a ton of money for a NAS and a bunch of matched drives or use one of those janky external DAS/storage boxes that could lead to you losing your entire storage pool.
What would work best (IMO) is a smaller tower PC with multiple drive bays. You can put whatever hardware you want in it, have SATA ports, PCI-E slots, plenty of ports, etc and upgrade/expand things as needed. You can also use mismatched drives in a setup like this with something like SnapRAID meaning you can use the stuff you already have without spending a ton of money. The hardware doesn't need to be too powerful for your requirements. A modern Intel CPU will handle transcoding with Jellyfin extremely well and you can also use this with Frigate for your security camera footage. A decent amount of RAM isn't bad either.