One thing that always gets told is "Hydroponics is very clean and doesn't need microbes".

Sure, mycorrhiza shouldn't play as much of a role in hydro as it does for soil. The plants get all their nutrients directly from the fertilizer, and waste products should get flushed out regularly.

But, especially in the beginning, I always had trouble with root rot. Besides leftover organic matter and insufficient aeration as possible culprits, I think not having well established beneficial bacteria/ fungi was one reason the pathogenic microbes took over and killed almost everything in the container.

To counteract this, I recently bought water soluble microbes (a mix of dozens different fungi and bacteria) and tested them, especially in semi-hydro.

I'm not sure if it had any effects. For the already established plants, the effects were way less significant than for new ones.

One thing I definitely noticed is the very pleasant "earthy" smell, similar to a rainfall in the summer, when I stick my nose into the substrate.

And, those plants, where the roots got damaged (e.g. my ginger where I continually harvest, or recently transitioned plants with leftover soil) got some fungus gnats. Really not a lot, just here and there one or two, but there are some! They also disappeared a few days later and didn't multiply.

The thing is, many hydro growers put A LOT of effort into keeping everything very clean. Some even proposed to include the ORP value (oxygen reduction potential) just as much as pH and EC, because it tells you how hostile the environment is to microbes and/ or how well stuff can decompose.

I just don't know how I should keep my setup THAT clean outside. It's just normal for me that small insects, leafes and other stuff fall into my reservoir.

And this litter needs to decompose somehow. And I'd rather have it decomposed by a well established microbial culture than some pathogenic stuff that lands on there.

Am I just messy, and I should take hygiene more seriously, or is this totally fine? What's your point of view on this topic?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15197450

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder. https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/72fc6f2a-56b0-4f69-afe2-368fb6abf0cc.jpeg
• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.
• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder.

• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.

• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

I've become a huge fan of semi-hydro over the past year.

I've planted all of my 50 house plants into LECA (expanded clay pellets) or pon (special gravel mix consisting of lava rock, pumice, and zeolithe), and they're doing absolutely great. (Too great if you ask me. They've become a weed in my apartment 😁)

Recently, I got into carnivorous plants.

Literally everyone is growing them in turf/peat or moss based substrates, and nothing else. As we all might know, those substrates not only attract pests (fungus gnats, etc.), but are not that great for the environment.

This is why I came up with the idea of using hydroponics.

As soon as I began researching, I've come to the conclusion, that there's sadly pretty much no overlap between the hydroponics community and carnivorous plants community.

So, I started an experiment.

I've put my just-bought Sarracenia, previous in soil, into pon with a very small grain diameter. This keeps the plants very moist, way moister than LECA would, at least the big marbles.

I soaked the granules with distilled water a few times, and then added a drop of diluted phosphoric acid to a pH of 4,5 and EC of 0,1 mS.

This is how the roots look after not only one week:

And the plant itself:

Pretty good if you ask me!

Sadly, Sarracenias need to hibernate, and this one started going crispy even in the store, which is apparently normal, so I've put it into my cold garage for a month or two.

I also started growing Drosera and Sarracenia from seed, but they didn't germinate yet. I got a lot of different seeds from a hobbyist, but growing CPs from seeds is a huge pain from what I've read.

Here's a picture of my seedling/ cutting station: I will make a post about the station soon!

I also sew a few of them directly into the pot and covered it with foil.

In theory, the combination of fine substrate with high water level should provide the plants with enough moisture, while also letting the roots get exposed to a lot of oxygen, which keeps them very healthy.

But swamp plants are just different maybe, I don't know. Let's see...

And, last but not least, I bought two Nepenthes a few days ago. I already placed one of them into LECA (8-16 mm).

They apparently grow similar to orchids, and not like swamp growing plants like venus fly traps or Drosera. So, they rather need a airy substrate, normal pH (about 6) and even tolerate fertilizer.

They looked like this when I bought them:

I will keep you all updated!

Tags for search engines: LECA, hydroponics, hydro, semi hydro, carnivorous plants, VFT, Sarracenia, Drosera, Dionaea, Nepenthes, fertilizer, experiment, inorganic media, peat alternative, pumice, Seramis, pon

I bought a few bulbs two weeks ago and planted most of them into LECA (indoors) or soil (on my balcony), but also one into a Kratky pot.

I don't think I can harvest this year yet, but we'll see.

In this one also grows garlic and strawberries. It's meant to hibernate this winter, and then in the early spring, I'll place it outside.

I want to present you my setup I "invented" myself. You can imagine it as a recirculating drip system, but mixed in with semi-hydroponics and a wick setup. And all of that completely "passive"!

How it started

Initially, I wanted a completely passive wick system. I'm a really big fan of passive hydroponics, e.g. the Kratky method or LECA (semi-hydro). While I also like DWC systems and all those others too, they almost always need access to the power grid.

So, I built my wick system myself and transplanted one of my plants from a DWC system into the passive wick system.

By doing that, I damaged quite a lot of roots, and that, in combination with lots of debris from the environment (seeds, leaves, etc.), and stagnant water, caused anaerobic conditions. It smelled horrible, and the plants looked very sad!

Adding peroxide daily and changing the water every few days didn't help. I had 3 identical systems, and all of them behaved the same.

There had to be some kind of oxygenation!

When I was able to flush it all out somehow, everything worked again as it should be after a few weeks. There was no more smell, the pH stabilized, and everything was fine.

Then, one more problem showed: the wick wasn't strong enough. When it was hot outside, especially my hemp plant (lots of surface area, high water demand) looked very thirsty.

It was also hard to adjust the solution, the whole system was very inflexible.

So, I had to make an upgrade!

The current setup

My current drip system is almost the same as the wick system before, but with an added water pump and drippers. You can see the schematics in a second.

How it works

When it's sunny (and hot!), the plant needs way more water. Gladly, we have our solar panel. As soon as the sun comes out, the pump turns on and feeds the plant.

And when it's really hot, the big surface area of the substrate below cools down the roots by evaporation, so they are always optimally saturated with oxygen.

Because the nutrient solution is constantly moving, it doesn't need to be additionally oxygenated with an air pump. The LECA or lava stone is so porous, that it traps just enough oxygen, and the high surface area allows beneficial bacteria and fungi to settle. If any organic debris falls in (insects, pollen, leafes, etc.), it just gets eaten by the microorganisms. I changed the nutrient solution rarely, and it always worked fine.

In the night, or cloudy days, the pump is off. Then the plant feeds itself from the moist clay balls or the wick below.

And, when it's rainy, the rain washes off all salts from the minor crust that has built up.

What's also cool is that you can just remove the plug from the end of the tube and then flush the reservoir or take a sample to check the EC and pH.

Schematics

1. Outer container, holding the nutrient solution
2. Inner container, holding the substrate and the plant
3. The Wick, drawing up water and filtering it
4. The substrate (LECA or lava rock)
5. USB-powered fountain pump
6. Solar panel with USB ports
7. Tube with holes or drippers
8. Optional: a water level indicator and some cover plate against direct sunlight

How to build it

• You need a big plant pot as the outside container, and a smaller one that fits right in.
  I got mine from a local nursery, the pots are literally everywhere!
• Now, you drill or burn some holes into the inner pot. I recommend adding them not directly on the bottom, but a few fingers spaced above. That way, the nutrient solution can form a small puddle, that feeds the plant and keeps the substrate moist, even when there isn't any sun for a few days. I did both and both worked fine.
• Now, add a wick. I used a kitchen towel made out of polyester. Don't use cotton! Any organic material will rot in a few days!
• Then, fill it up with your substrate. Lava rock is cheaper and gives the plant more stability, but is very hard to wash off and can damage the roots. LECA became more of my choice, as it is very easy to clean, is more lightweight, and draws up moisture better, but is also more expensive and provides less stability.
• Add the pump to the reservoir, and make your dripping tube. I bought special sprinkler-drippers, but you can also just pierce some holes into the tube. I did that in the beginning too, and it worked fine. The pump is a cheap one (7€) from Amazon/ Pet supply store, and the sprinklers are bought dirt cheap.
• Add some cover to the surface. I didn't notice much algae build up, but even if those aren't a problem, too much direct sunlight might evaporate too much moisture, and leaves fall onto the substrate.
• Finally, plug in your pump into the solar panels. The solar panel is bought from Amazon, and is pretty inexpensive. Make sure it is water resistant! Ideally, the maximum power generated should be double of the pump.

I don't recommend buying a pre-made solution with the combination of pump and solar panel. I already saw quite a few of them in my garden center, but they are absolutely not modular. If one part breaks, you have to replace the whole combination.

In total, the setup is pretty cheap, at least for home use. I used it for this grow season and I already bought parts for a few more next year!

Pros and cons, compared to other systems

Pros

• Doesn't require "sterile" conditions, not as much as other systems.
• Absolutely great for bigger plants, e.g. tomatoes, cannabis, peppers, etc., as the substrate gives a lot of stability for the roots.
• Doesn't require electricity/ power from outside.
• Very reliable. Even, if the pump or anything else breaks, it won't end in a total disaster.
• Silent. Almost all systems that use an air stone or spray nozzle generate a lot of noise, this one doesn't.
• Easy sample taking. Just grab a jar, remove the plug from the tube, fill up the jar, measure your EC and pH, and done. No need to disturb the roots or lift a lid.
• Lightweight. You only need enough water for the pump to cover, and the LECA isn't dense.

Cons

• You need to clean a lot of LECA in the beginning.
• Slightly higher starting costs. Hydroton is expensive, and you need the pots, pump and solar panel. But, it's also not much more expensive than other systems.
• If you have a slug infestation, like I had, it is horrible! The moist clay pebbles are the perfect home for any snail. If they die, they leave a lot of biomass and dirt.
• Hard to check the water level and root health. In my DWC, I just lift the lid a few cm, here it's harder. You'll notice when the nutrient solution is empty, because then the pump will run dry, and it becomes loud, but the water level indicator is a thing that I will definitely add next year.

I plant to buy a camera set, consisting of the lens and the camera body itself.

But, I don't just want to ask

I have a budget of ~1000 bucks, I want something that is light sensitive, has modern software, is preferably not Sony, and has a low minimum focus distance. It can be, especially the lens, a few years old, since I prefer to buy it used.

I want you to help me by letting me help myself.

Is there some sort of website, that asks me simple questions on my preferences, budget and use cases, and then suggests me a few combinations of cameras?

Right now, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the choices, and I don't want to buy something that is incompatible or just not what I wanted...

I've read following article on lowtechmagazine.com a while ago: Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence?

I'm someone who showers quite a lot (sometimes up to twice daily), especially in humid summer weather. Usually, it's one warm one with a bit of soap, to get rid of dust, smells/ sweat, chemicals and dirt, and to sleep better, and then sometimes a quick cold shower in the morning without any surfactants, especially when I've sweat a lot in the night.

According to the article, showering often takes up to a few hundred liters of warm water in some cases, which is super inefficient to heat up. Reducing the water usage would also extremely reduce energy consumption A LOT.

In my case, I don't shower long, don't have the lever opened completely, and don't like (too) warm showers anyway. Still, I found the concept of spray showers very interesting, and I'm thinking about building one for myself. Someone has to do the first steps, right?

Does anybody here already have one, and wants to show their experience with it?

I also have a few questions:

• Was it hard to build?
• Do I have to consider anything, especially regarding safety and leaks (high pressure), clogged nozzles, and cleaning?
• How does the experience of showering with them feel like? Do you still get as clean as with a regular shower head, even without soap?
• How do guests react to it? Do they like it?

Thanks a lot! :)

I don't print any abrasive materials at all. Pretty much only normal PLA and PETG.

I noticed, that my print quality gradually went down quite a bit, especially in the last few prints. I had a lot of stringing, weird blobs, and scarred surfaces.

Now, the print quality is as good as it should be!

They are dirt cheap. You can get a set of 10-15 generic ones, in different sizes, for only a few bucks. Don't forget that they are consumables.

TL;DR:

• I can't decide between Debian and the new "immutable" Fedora server variants
• Currently I use Debian with pretty much everything being containerised, and it works fine.
• I'm neither very good at what I'm doing, nor want to spend my weekends troubleshooting. Opting for something new could cause some headaches I guess?
• How did you set up CoreOS? Are there simple ways?
• Would you recommend me something different?

My backstory with Debian

I will soon set up a new home server and need your opinion and experiences.

I'm using Debian as the OS for my current one.
While it doesn't match my "taste" perfectly, as I slightly prefer RedHat stuff, I really don't have much preference, since I don't interact with the host much anyway.
Everything is containerised via Docker, and I don't even know why I like Rocky-/ Alma more. I tried Alma once and it just clicked better, I can't explain it...
But that doesn't mean I dislike Debian, not at all!

Still, at that time I decided to go with Debian, since it's the standard for most selfhosters, has the best software support, and is completely community run, opposed to RHEL and its clones.

At that time I didn't know Distrobox/ Toolbx, and I really wanted to install CasaOS (basically a simplified Cockpit + Portainer for less techy people), because I was a total noob back than and didn't want to do everything via CLI.

Nowadays, I found alternatives, like Cockpit, and I also do more via the terminal.
And if I want to install something that doesn't support my host OS, then I just enter my Toolbx and install it there.

Still, I absolutely don't regret going for Debian. It was a good choice. It's solid and doesn't get in my way.

What has changed in the last year(s)

In the last year now, I really began to enjoy using image based distros, especially Fedora Atomic.
I really love Atomic as desktop distro, because it is pretty close to upstream, while still being stable (as in how often things change).

For a desktop workstation, that's great, because DEs for example get only better with each update imo, and I want to be as close to upstream as possible, without sacrificing reliability, like on a rolling release.
The two major releases each year cycle is great for that.

But for a server, even with the more stable kernel that's used in CoreOS from what I've heard, I think that's maybe too unstable?

I think Debian is less maintenance, because it doesn't change as often, and also doesn't require rebooting after each transaction.

But, on the contrary, I wouldn't loose much to the "immutability", because I use containers for everything anyway.
Having way better security (sane SELinux setup, rootless containers, untampered OSA, etc.) and the ability to roll back in case something doesn't work, while self updating, sounds very promising.

Setting up CoreOS; FCOS vs FIOT

The major thing that's keeping me away from CoreOS/ uCore is all the ignition-butane-stuff.
From what I've heard, it's needlessly complicated for home use, and FCOS is best suited for fleets/ clusters of servers, not just for one.

Fedora IOT seems to be simpler, but doesn't have the same great defaults and features as uCore, since there isn't an IOT variant of uBlue.
But hey, at least I have my Anaconda installer.

What do you think about installing IOT, and then rebasing to uCore?
Or, do you think FCOS is just not the right thing for my use case?

In general, do you think that it is worth it, compared to plain old Debian?

Pros vs. cons

Anyway. I'm really thinking about all of this for a long time now, and can't decide.

On the one side, it all sounds promising and great.
But, on the other side, selfhosting isn't a primary hobby of mine. I just want a solid setup I don't have to maintain much after setting everything up. Image based server OSs are still very new and often unheard of, and being an early adopter might cause a lot of headache in that case when it comes to servers.

The "right" use case?

Just in case no one has tried FCOS or FIOT here, I will continue using Debian for my main server, and only use Fedora IOT for my Octoprint server, which only gets turned on sporadically, and would greatly benefit from that.

But if there are positive experiences, then I might give it a try.

Alternatives

Or, would you recommend me something entirely different?

NixOS for example sounds great in theory, but is way too complicated for me personally.

Or, would you recommend me to give Alma another try?

Is there something even better?

First of all, thank you so much for your great answers under my post from yesterday! They were really really helpful!

I've now decided that I will not use something with USB. It really doesn't seem to be reliable enough for constant read-write-tasks, and I don't wanna risk any avoidable data loss and headache.

Also, it just doesn't seem to be very future proof. It would be pretty expensive, only for it to get replaced soon, and then getting obsolete. It just seemed like a band-aid solution tbh. So, no USB hard drive bay, no huge external hard drive, and no NAS just for that purpose.

A few people asked me about the hardware.

My server is a mini-PC/ thin client I bought used for 50 bucks. I've used it for about two years now, and it had even more years of usage under the belt with its' former owner. Imo, that's a very sustainable solution, that worked pretty well until now.

I used it almost exclusively for Nextcloud (AIO), with all the data being stored in the internal 1 TB SSD.

For those who are interested, here are all the hardware details:

<hwinfo -short>

Thing is, I want to get more into selfhosting. For that, my main goal is to
a) Replace Nextcloud with individual (better) services, like Immich and Paperless-ngx.
NC-AIO was extremely simple to set up and worked pretty fine, but I always found it to be bloated and a bit wonky, and, mainly, the AIO takes up all my network and resources. I just want something better, you understand that for sure :)
b) Get more storage. I'm into photography, and all those RAW photos take up SO MUCH SPACE! The internal 1 TB is just not future proof for me.
c) Maybe rework my setup, both in software, and maybe in hardware. Originally, I didn't plan to screw everything, but I think it might be better that way. The setup isn't bad at all, but now, as I got more experience, I just want it to be more solid. But I'm not sure about doing that tbh, since it really isn't a lost case.

As someone already mentioned in the last post, I really don't have a million bucks to create my own data center. I'm not completely broke, but almost :D
Therefore, I just want to make the best out of my already existing hardware if possible.

Because I decided against USB, and because I don't know if there are any slots on the mainboard that can be repurposed for additonal storage, I need your advice if there are any options to achieve that, e.g. via a PCIe slot + adapter, if I had any.
I saw one SATA III port, but that one really isn't enough, especially for extendability.

Here are the photos from both the front and back side:

My thought was, instead of buying one hella expensive 3+TB SSD drive, just screw it and make something better from scratch.

So, if you guys don't give me a silver bullet solution, aka. "you can use this slot and plug in 4 more drives", I will probably have to build my own "perfect" device, with a great case, silent fans, many storage slots, and more.

Btw, do you have any recommendations for that? (What mainboard, which case, etc.) Preferably stuff that I can buy already used.

Thank you so much!

I'm planning to upgrade my home server and need some advice on storage options. I already researched quite a bit and heard so many conflicting opinions and tips.

Sadly, even after asking all those questions to GPT and browsing countless forums, I'm really not sure what I should go with, and need some personal recommendations, experience and tips.

What I want:

• More storage: Right now, I only have 1 TB, which is just the internal SSD of my thin client. This amount of storage will not be sufficient for personal data anymore in the near future, and it already isn't for my movies.
• Splitting the data: I want to use the internal drive just for stuff that actively runs, like the host OS, configs and Docker container data. Those are in one single directory and will be backed up manually from time to time. It wouldn't matter that much if they get lost, since I didn't customize a lot and mostly used defaults for everything. The personal data (documents, photos, logs), backups and movies should each get their own partition (or subvolume).
• Encryption at rest: The personal data are right now unencrypted, and I feel very unwell with that. They definitely have to get encrypted at rest, so that somebody with physical access can't just plug it in and see all my sensitive data in plain text. Backups are already encrypted as is. And for the rest, like movies, astrophotography projects (huge files!), and the host, I absolutely don't care.
• Extendability: If I notice one day that my storage gets insufficient, I want to just plug in another drive and extend my current space.
• Redundancy: At least for the most important data, a hard drive failure shouldn't be a mess. I back them up regularly on an external drive (with Borg) and sometimes manually by just copying the files plainly. Right now, the problem is, if the single drive fails, which it might do, it would be very annoying. I wouldn't loose many data, since they all get synced to my devices and I then can just copy them, and I have two offline backups available just in case, but it would still cause quite some headache.

So, here are my questions:

Best option for adding storage

My Mini-PC sadly has no additional ports for more SATA drives. The only option I see is using the 4 USB 3.0 ports on the backside. And there are a few possibilities how I can do that.

• Option 1: just using "classic" external drives. With that, I could add up to 4 drives. One major drawback of that is the price. Disks with more than 1 TB are very expensive, so I would hit my limit with 4 TB if I don't want to spend a fortune. Also, I'm not sure about the energy supply and stability of the connection. If one drive fails, a big portion of my data is lost too. I can also transform them into a RAID setup, which would half my already limited storage space even more, and then the space wouldn't be enough or extendable anymore. And of course, it would just look very janky too...
• Option 2: The same as above, but with USB hubs. That way, I theoretically could add up to 20 drives, when I have a hub with 5 slots. That would of course be a very suboptimal thing, because I highly doubt that the single USB port can handle the power demand and information speed/ integrity with that huge amount of drives. In reality, I of course wouldn't add that many. Maybe only two per hub, and then set them up as RAID. That would make 4x2 drives.
• And, option 3: Buy a specialized hard drive bay, like this simpler one with two slots or this more expensive one for 4 drives and active cooling. With those, I can just plug in up to 4 drives per bay, and then connect those via USB. The drives get their power not from the USB port, but from their own power supply. Also, they get cooled (either passively via the case if I choose one that fits only two drives, or actively with a cooling fan) and there are options to enable different storage modes, for example a built in RAID. That would make the setup quite a bit simpler, but I'm not sure if I would loose control of formatting the drives how I want them to be if they get managed by the bay.

What would you recommend?

File system

File system type

I will probably choose BTRFS if that is possible. I thought about ZFS too, but since it isn't included by default, and BTRFS does everything I want, I will probably go with BTRFS. It would give me the option for subvolumes, some of which are encrypted, compression, deduplication, RAID or merged drives, and seems to be future proof without any disadvantages. My host OS (Debian) is installed with Ext4, because it came like that by default, and is fine for me. But for storage, something else than Ext4 seems to be the superior choice.

Encryption

Encrypting drives with LUKS is relatively straight forward. Are there simple ways to do that, other than via CLI? Do Cockpit, CasaOS or other web interface tools support that? Something similar to Gnomes' Disk Utility for example, where setting that up is just a few clicks.

How can I unlock the drives automatically when certain conditions are met, e.g. when the server is connected to the home network, or by adding a TPM chip onto the mainboard? Unlocking the volume every time the server reboots would be very annoying.

That of course would compromize the security aspect quite a bit, but it doesn't have to be super secure. Just secure enough, that if a malicious actor (e.g. angry Ex-GF, police raid, someone breaking in, etc.) can't see all my photos by just plugging the drive in. For my threat model, everything that takes more than 15 minutes of guessing unlock options is more than enough. I could even choose "Password123" as password, and that would be fine.

I just want the files to be accessible after unlocking, so the "Encrypt after upload"-option that Nextcloud has or Cryptomator for example isn't an option.

RAID?

From what I've read, RAID is a quite controversial topic. Some people say it's not necessary, and some say that one should never live without. I know that it is NOT a backup solution and does not replace proper 3-2-1-backups.

Thing is, I can't assess how often drives fail, and I would loose half of my available storage, which is limited, especially by $$$. For now, I would only add 1 or max 2 TB, and then upgrade later when I really need it. And for that, having to pay 150€ or 400€ is a huge difference.