After 10 years as an AWS customer and open-source contributor, they deleted my account and all data with zero warning. Here's how AWS's 'verification' process became a digital execution, and why you should never trust cloud providers with your only copy of anything.
And Google locks entire accounts, including Google Voice, Fi the phone service, email, drive, YouTube, everything cause your kid’s pediatrician needed a photo for a telehealth visit.
Just stop thinking your shit is safe in the “cloud” people. It isn’t. And trusting in a single company to have your back, or even care about you is naive at best.
Why I have everything backed up on a hard drive of my own. Wish could build my own server, but don’t have the funds at this time. But pretty close just starting my own internet.
You can run a basic server with an old laptop, desktop, mini-pc, anything. Everyone starts somewhere. If you eventually need ‘more’ or ‘better’, you can figure things out then. Getting started with a used office PC for 40$ off eBay (or anything old you already have) is fine. Just get started.
I have an old Toshiba laptop that put Linux on, I wouldn’t mind turning into a server. I want to build a new gaming rig, then I can take my current rig and turn it into a big server. Definitely like to just wire me and my two sons rigs into our own private network.
Just try it with the old laptop. I personally found dietpi the incredibly easy entry. Super bare bones Linux actually meant for raspberry pi and such, but you can run it on any old laptop. Using your all gaming rig might be a high energy usage if you’re just gonna run barely more than a NAS. If you do it with the laptop, take out the battery or put a timer on charger outlet, permanently connected and charging with a system that isn’t actively managing the battery and charging could get you a spicy pillow quickly.
That’s perfect! I ran my server on an old HP laptop for 2 years before I put together a desktop SFF server with 2nd hand gaming PC parts.
Just throw Debian or opensuse MicroOS on it and take off!
Even for a step in between the two if you need more storage, I used one of these docking stations that you can get for cheap to add more storage.
I’m guessing they don’t live with you? And you need to setup a VPN? If so you can do that with a pretty low powered machine. Even a rPi is good enough.
My NAS is a 10+ year old Dell XPS that I just shoved new drives into. I need to get a rack mounted low power server to replace it but it works fine for now.
some home nas can also be budget friendly… or some vps, where you can start small and scale up on-the-fly when you need it.