Also have a backup plan.

Consider how the NAS will be used. Is it just file storage, or will you want to stream from it?

If just file storage, you can use lighter hardware.

I’m running a 5 year old Dell Small Form Factor desktop as my NAS/media server. It’s power draw is under 12 watts unless I’m converting files. There’s room for 3 data drives (boot drive is M2). It has no problem streaming, unlike my consumer NAS. And it cost way less.

This may not fully solve the problem, but have you tried using it through Hermit or Native Alpha? These are browsers designed to make websites work like apps on Android.

Combined with my password manager (Bitwarden), it’s usually as fast or even faster than some apps, with a side benefit of a single app install rather than an app for each service.

So far this has worked well for Amazon, Walmart, libraries, my healthcare login, bank, ebay, Home Depot and Lowes, etc.

When you say sync, what are you wanting to sync?

Passwords, keys, etc? Bitwarden (maybe with vaultwarden).

Oh, nice combo of tools. May actually be a better approach than Resilio or Syncthing.

Syncthing.

Möbius on iOS, Syncthing on Mac/Linux, SyncTrayzor on Windows, Syncthing-Fork on Android.

Alternatively Resilio Sync.

I do find Resilio works better for iOS - it handles photos better due to iOS restrictions.

So, paid app (if you want wireless sync) - Media Monkey.

The Android app can read network shares and network media servers (I forget exactly what it can read). But it works best if you run the server app - then you can stream the library or sync media, similar to iTunes.

The Android app is free for basic functionality ($5 for wireless sync), the desktop/server app is free ($30 to enable wireless sync and a few other features). It’s been worth it for me. Even the free versions work very well.

Damn, 5 years from LTS? That’s impressive

Documentation has been mentioned already, what I’d add to that is planning.

Start with a list of high-level objectives, as in “Need a way to save notes, ideas, documents, between multiple systems, including mobile devices”.

Then break that down to high-level requirements such as “Implement Joplin, and a sync solution”.

Those high-level requirements then spawn system requirements, such as Joplin needs X disk space, user accounts, etc.

Each of those branches out to technical requirements, which are single-line, single-task descriptions (you can skip this, it’s a nice-to-have):

“Create folder Joplin on server A”

“Set folder permissions XYZ on Joplin folder”

Think of it all as a tree, starting from your objectives. If you document it like this first, you won’t go doing something as you build that you won’t remember why you’re doing it, or make decisions on the fly that conflict with other objectives.

Yep.

I have friends in the SMB space, one thing they do is a regular backup verification (quarterly). At that frequency, restoring even a few files (especially to a new VM), is very indicative, especially if it’s a large dataset (e.g. Quickbooks).

In Enterprise, we do all sorts of validation, depending on the system. Some is performed as part of Data Center operations, some is by IT (those are separate things), some by Business Unit management and their IT counterparts.

Great summary!

Why Debian or Ubuntu? (I have my own thoughts, but it would be useful to show even high-level reasons why they’re preferred).

Re: Backup - Backblaze has a great writeup on backup approach today. I’m a fan of cloud being part of the mix (I use a combo of local replication and cloud, to mitigate different risks). Getting people to include backup from the start will help them long-term, so great you included it!

It’s up to the squatter to actually spend the time and money to sue though.

A C&D is a letter from a lawyer to stop or they’ll sue, it’s not a court order.

Yea, if you use Tailscale with Funnel, you get a secure connection with no config required by the web user.

Not seeing why you need WordPress.

The safest way I can see to make a secure connection across an untrusted network is to use a VPN of some sort, specifically a mesh network like Wireguard or Tailscale.

Tailscale has the advantage of being almost zero config, plus has the Serve and Funnel features which provide a mechanism to allow specific traffic into your Tailscale network.