SeaJ

Not specifically, no. When I did change to building my own NAS, I cracked open my older 4TB backup drive to use as a spare.

I’m lost with what I’d need to do to access my server from outside my local network, and terrified of doing something wrong and leaving a hole open so any hacker can access my server. I’d like to do it some day, but I’d rather have a safe local network than screw and get my data stolen or deleted.

Setup a VPN via Wireguard or Tailscale. I personally have not done that but I have VPN setup through OpenVPN which I did not find that hard and people say that is significantly harder than Wireguard.

The other (less safe) option would be to setup a DMZ on your network for stuff you want to self host. That is a bit more involved though. I went through it for fun and setup a public Nextcloud instance along with DDNS and a reverse proxy. I was just messing around though and shut it down after testing performance.

If they are up for that, I’d be happy to part with mine for cheap. They’d need to get an E5-2650 (v2) to meet their 16 core requirement but a pair of those are pretty cheap.

You can usually find HPs for cheaper although they are pretty picky on what they work with. For some reason, HP decided that it will work with stuff they have not certified but the fans will constantly be at 100%.

You can find HP Proliant dl360 G8s and G9s for about that price if you want enterprise grade.

Because SQLite is slow as balls. Use MariaDB and redis:

https://markontech.com/posts/setup-nextcloud-with-redis-using-docker/

That seems a bit pricey considering you still need a few items. I’ve had a QOTOM for quite a while that has served me well. Looks like they have Intel four 2.5 Gb ports with an N100 for pretty cheap.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804116114245.html

Throw a stick of RAM and an m.2 drive in there and it would be cheaper and more capable than the Banana Pi. You could even throw Proxmox on there and virtualize pfsense.

I have not come across a community but I am sure the are many TRUENAS users here.

My parents in rural Washington pay $70/month for 10Mbps down. I’m not sure the ISP bothers with a cap.

I have CenturyLink 940/940 here in Seattle with no cap for $65. The alternative is Wave which has a cap and you have to deal with introductory price bullshit.

Mediacom is an American telco.