Hi everyone,

I have and old server that I use as NAS and some minor stuff. Until now it was enough, but I would like to do more with my server (de-googlize, public mirror for OSS project, more home automation, ...).

I'm Linux user since 2005 on server, and 2010 on desktop (work & personnal). I have some habits, and I thinks it's time to some experiment, but with stability.

So I don't want test the totaly brand new software or FS or whatever. But perhaps what I tend to choose as default the last 15 years can be challenged.

1. Context

1.1. Hardware

So, let's start with the hardware part :

• 1x CWWK NAS motherboard with i3 N355
• 1x 32 Go DDR5 4800 SODIMM
• 2x NVME 2To
• 3x SSD SATA 1To
• 1x HDD SATA 8To
• 2x HDD SATA 12To

I have 8 Gbps symetric Internet connexion and a 10 Gbps switch + some computer with 2.5 Gbps (so having a 10Gbps connexion on NAS is important).

1.2. What I plan to do

• NAS : Having an SMB / NFS / SSHFS capabilities, users managements, quotas, ...
• Home Assistant
• Public mirror for Archlinux (+ perhaps other OSS project)
• External sync for my personnal files (Computer -> NAS -> Some external endpoint)
• De-googlize : (Next|Own)Cloud, OnlyOffice, Syncthing, ...
• Test stuff : I want to be able to launch containers and test tool or software

2. Discussion topics

2.1. Distribution

I use Archlinux for my Desktop and my Server for the moment. For this new server, I will certainly not go with Arch again. I see 2 options :

• Plain old Debian and doing stuff by hand (with perhaps little automation with Ansible/Puppet)
• Using Proxmox VE

I tend to prefere the second option, but I have read that LXC container is not very good in Proxmox. Do I need to create VM to run my container, and use Portainer for example, or the support is OK and I can create container to run some application or test others ?

2.2. Drive management

That the biggest point for me !

I have my habits with LVM + Ext4, it fits majority of my need :

• Able to add disk and migrate data
• Raid 1 for the HDD pool (it's where I store backups)
• Easy partitions management (add, remove, resize)

But I know that ZFS or Btrfs have evolve since my first setup ~15 y ago. And now perhaps I should give a try to other setup.

What is the best fit for my needs ?

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Thanks for reading me, if you have any other suggestions, topics or advices, feel free to share.