Last winter I finally moved family photos off Google Photos. Not for ideology, just tired of Google One getting more expensive every year.
Hardware: old Dell Optiplex 7040 (i5-6500, 16GB, 1TB SSD + 4TB HDD) in the bedroom closet, running Proxmox. LXC with Immich for photos, Nextcloud for docs, and Matrix for family chat.
It was messy. I set up Immich, told family it’s done, but forgot to set up proper backups. In January the HDD had errors and I almost lost a month of kid photos. No 3-2-1, only local copy. Wife still brings it up.
Now: Immich with daily backup to external USB, weekly rclone to B2, and Nextcloud with versioning. Matrix is still half-used because sister is on Messenger.
Cost is now about $6/mo for B2 vs $15+ for Google One family, but time cost is higher.
For those who run Immich on similar old Optiplex / small box in closet — how do you handle backups without making it a second job? And how do you keep noise/heat down? My closet is warm and wife is not happy about second heater.
Happy to share docker-compose if anyone needs.
I keep it all down in my unfinished basement away from everything 😅
But for real, I got a used fully enclosed server rack for pretty cheap ($300 CADish) from a company who was moving entirely to the cloud and that thing can keep a lot of noise contained. I have three servers and a chunky network switch so its all pretty loud but when I close the rack’s door it reduces the volume by at least 50%. If its open I’m easily able to hear it from my ground floor but not otherwise