Crucial is fine. It’s commonly found in corporate and government workstations.
Crucial is fine. It’s commonly found in corporate and government workstations.
You’ve clearly done your homework, and you’ve gotten a lot of good feedback already, so I’ll just add a few points…
Storage options: Personally, I’d replace the existing drive with the highest capacity I could afford. In an ideal situation, I’d keep the host on another drive (NVMe or flash) and dedicate the large drive to a single partition of data storage.
In my own mini-PC (8th gen NUC), I’ve got a smaller NVMe for Proxmox and a single 8TB internal SSD for data.
Encryption: If you’re going to bother with encryption, I wouldn’t half-ass it. Why bother at all if you’re fine using auto-decryption or a weak password that will be guessed with any sizeable effort? Just lock it down with a strong password and decrypt/mount the data drive after any reboot; making a shell alias or script for this is trivial. You’re likely not rebooting the server more than once a week anyway.
Budget/Specs: I get the sense you don’t have much budget right now, but knowing your hardware would help in suggesting solutions. Do you have an NVMe slot? What is the make/model of the motherboard and case?
Filesystem: For simple storage, this really doesn’t matter and Ext4 will probably be fine. It’s a mature, robust, no-frills filesystem which is perfect for bulk file storage (docs, music, videos, etc.), but Btrfs would be fine too if you want more options.
USB Docking Stations: I’ve had really good experiences with USB docking stations like this one, and I currently use it for attaching my backup HDDs each month. I wouldn’t want to rely on them for realtime data access, but they do work wonderfully for backups and one-off drive access.
The dropbear method is more secure overall, and I plan to incorporate it as well when I find the time to wipe/reinstall my server, but it’s arguably not as easy or simple, which is what OP requested.
As mentioned elsewhere, the easiest method is to encrypt only the data drives. This way you can secure shell into the server upon restart and decrypt the data. I’ve been using this method for years now without issue.
If ambient noise is a concern, I’d go with an SSD. If money is tight, an HDD will give you the best value.
My server is in an otherwise quiet home office/sitting room, so I went with an 8TB SSD (870 QVO). Spinning disks make a fair bit of noise just waking up, let alone the actual file operations.
Hah, I can absolutely see myself doing this if we didnt keep our “baking” spices and related ingredients in a different cupboard.
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.
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:
And replace the <style>...</style>
block under the inject -> head
pop-up with the following CSS:
<style>
html, body {
font-family: sans-serif-condensed;
font-size: 110%;
background: #0d1117;
color: #c9d1d9;
margin: 0;
padding: 0.5em;
}
a {
color: 58a6ff;
text-decoration: none;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4 {
padding-bottom: 0.25em;
border-bottom: 2px solid #222934;
}
hr {
border: 2px solid #222934;
}
pre, code {
color: #b5a5ee;
}
</style>
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.
The deal breaker for me is that it seems the low-level component that would interface with the shells (presumably managing credentials in some way) is closed source and off-repo. That’s a big red flag for me, no matter how benign the intention.
I hear Anna’s Archives is great for ebooks. I don’t do audiobooks, and can’t stand podcasts, but it sounds like a lot of good suggestions were made for those already.
I haven’t had time to check out the forks from Tibor’s apps, but I recall there were issues with the original Simple Calendar Pro which is why I had settled on Etar at the time. I’ll definitely keep an eye on Naveen’s repos though.
Thanks for the info. Davx5 has worked well for me, but it’s still nice to have alternatives.
My challenge has been finding a decent open source calendar app for Android, which unfortunately excludes Calengoo. I’m just not interested in using closed source network-capable apps to manage my personal information.
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.