Can anyone help me use an old i5 iMac as a back up/storage server?

[sunvalleylaw]

I want to try to limit or eliminate my cloud reliance. Not completely for streaming media, and I won't probably try to stream 4K video hosted on it or attached storage or anything, but for back ups of business and work related documents, photos, videos mostly from phone, audio (Lossless, ALAC, FLAC, MP3) and garage band and Logic Pro projects. I have been referred to TailScale by my local computer club, and am interested in anything else I can do. And whatever else is popular. Would love to get rid of paid drop box. paid apple iCloud (or at least limit it), paid Google Drive, etc. Would think it would be nice to use SSD storage if possible but wondering what the benefits of RAID are if any by comparison.

I also have a late 2014 Mac mini I could use in alternative, or whatever. Just trying to use stuff I already have, and trying to be relatively energy efficient, quiet, etc.

 

[adespoton]

I do this with a C2D Mini and a miniITX generic running Linux Mint. The Mini runs Lion Server and is purely a file server; it hosts on AppleShare IP, SMB, FTP and NFS. The Mint server runs JellyFin and NextCloud. NextCloud manages my contacts and calendars across my entire family -- instead of using iCloud, they can use this setup, where there are shared address books (something that Apple STILL hasn't implemented).

My router supports WireGuard VPNs, so instead of using TailScale, I just have a WireGuard client on all my devices, and they connect directly to my home network to access everything. The one thing I haven't got working is Bonjour over VPN -- the multicasts tend to get dropped, so I've got around that by using fixed IP addresses for all the services I need to access.

I use a mix of SSD and spinning rust -- backups all go on a pair of 8TB HDDs, archival files (old Mac software etc) go on a pair of 5TB HDDs, and anything that needs quick access goes on a pair of 1TB SSDs. Each of those is mirrored manually, so if one dies, there's another semi-recent copy that hasn't got corrupted automatically.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

I do this with a C2D Mini and a miniITX generic running Linux Mint. The Mini runs Lion Server and is purely a file server; it hosts on AppleShare IP, SMB, FTP and NFS. The Mint server runs JellyFin and NextCloud. NextCloud manages my contacts and calendars across my entire family -- instead of using iCloud, they can use this setup, where there are shared address books (something that Apple STILL hasn't implemented).

My router supports WireGuard VPNs, so instead of using TailScale, I just have a WireGuard client on all my devices, and they connect directly to my home network to access everything. The one thing I haven't got working is Bonjour over VPN -- the multicasts tend to get dropped, so I've got around that by using fixed IP addresses for all the services I need to access.

I use a mix of SSD and spinning rust -- backups all go on a pair of 8TB HDDs, archival files (old Mac software etc) go on a pair of 5TB HDDs, and anything that needs quick access goes on a pair of 1TB SSDs. Each of those is mirrored manually, so if one dies, there's another semi-recent copy that hasn't got corrupted automatically.

Thanks!