Considering to set up a photo-backup: self hosted: need your advice...

[saint_otrott]

dear friends, good day,



first of al: i am pretty new to this foru. my name is saint_otrott,

well after years and years of working with other options like google offers i have come to the point where I'm considering a photo backup.. - and well i want it "self hosted".

note: i want to get rid of te Google-Apps - and therefore. And now i am trying to find out which is the most reliable - heard alot of Immich - and and it has a mobile app ... and its open-source.
but some of my friends told me - that there might be some issues with Immich - so i think its best to come here and to talk to you...the experts of the photorio-forum.

question: which is the most reliable and feature rich or shortly the best service according to your idea and experience.
additional: well i would love to get a open-source-system since i like the idea of sustainable development.

look forward to hear from you
regards
saint otrott

 

[Don_ih]

Assuming your photos are accessed by a computer, why not just a removable hard drive?

 

[MattKing]

Welcome to Photrio.
I've moved your thread to more of a "general purpose" digital sub-forum, as that seems like it might be a better fit.
We wish you well in your search.

 

[ntenny]

Are you trying to achieve something photo-specific, like a browsable image archive, or just a backup of a bunch of files (that happen to be photos)?

Assuming the latter, I think you can just store them on a drive, have a local backup drive using any of the many backup solutions floating around in the world, and ideally also have an offsite backup through one of the various services (I use Backblaze) in case of a catastrophic local failure.

-NT

 

[F4U]

The problem with using web services is that you never know when one of them goes out of business or shuts down the site. I'd personally just use thumb drives. CD and DVD drives have a lifspan to where they get ornery and won't work, hard drives eventually go bad. And so do thumb drives, for that matter. but they are cheap, and between having redundant hard drives AND thumb drives, the chance o completely losing everything is remote. Why pay to have some cloud site keep them?

 

[koraks]

Why pay to have some cloud site keep them?

I think the rationale for many people is that it's offsite backup that'll survive something like a house fire, flood or burglary.

Online backup van also be automated. This is relevant since the Achilles's heel of any backup system that requires human intervention is the (lack of) discipline of the human involved.

Of course, a local variant of online backup can be chosen such as a NAS system. In that scenario, don't forget the energy cost and deprecation on the hardware when this option is compared to a cloud provider.

The argument that a cloud provider can disappear is often heard, but in reality, it rarely happens; mergers are much more common, but those generally don't involve discontinuation of the service. In case of discontinuation, commonly this is announced in advance, leaving ample time to scout for an alternative.

What the best approach is, depends entirely on the requirements and personal preferences. There are several approaches that can work in any given situation.

 

[fgorga]

My approach... three identical external hard disks.

#1 - my working drive
#2 - back up A
#3 - back up B

My working drive and one of the back up drives are always attached to my computer. The other back up drive is kept at a friends house.

The working drive gets copied to which ever back up drive is attached to the computer at regular intervals.

At irregular intervals (about once a month when I remember) the location of the back up drives is switched. This is, of course, the weak spot in my strategy as it is a manual process.

These drives contain only photographs. Other data (which resides on the computers internal drive) is backed up similarly but separately.

I am an amateur so my tolerance for losing photos is probably a bit higher than if I was making a living from my photos so this works for me.

When the drives get to about 80% of capacity I start watching for deals on larger drives. When I find a good deal, I purchase three identical new drives and move forward. This system has been working for me for roughly two decades.

 

[4season]

Very interesting, this is the first time I've heard of Immich. If you have an older PC you are no longer using, and are comfortable working with Linux, the price is certainly right, so why not give it a try?

My current solution is to store all photos on a NAS, with a pair of hard drives configured as RAID 1 (mirrorred). My various devices access the NAS as needed: Windows, Mac, and *Nix clients, and software including Adobe LIghtroom, Capture One Pro and Darktable work just fine with this scheme. Although palm-sized, all-SSD NASes are the latest trend, the old-fashioned 3.5" hard drive is still very much a viable option, particularly where vast amounts of storage space are needed, and speed isn't the #1 priority.

 

[koraks]

If you have an older PC you are no longer using

There's a drawback to this option that didn't use to be much of an issue, but is increasingly becoming one - energy use. A regular desktop PC may easily idle at 50-100W, continuously. That's easily over 400kWh annually. The economic (not to mention, environmental) cost is not exactly negligible.

 

[Steven Lee]

Unless you're comfortable with basic DevOps skills, and have ample free time to tinker, I would advise to stay away from open source. If you want to get as close to Google Photos as possible, but in a private setting, get a Synology NAS. You will get:

• Privacy of having all of your photos in your own house.
• Automatic encrypted backup to the cloud.
• Modern web UI with decent search and face recognition.
• Decent mobile app which you can point to your home IP/domain.

Once set up, it is completely touch-free. Software updates and backups will be happening automatically. Mine is in the basement closet. Had I not moved recently, I would have said: "I haven't seen it or touched it in years".

 

[koraks]

a Synology NAS

That's what I've been running for...oh, probably a decade. Highly recommended. It really is virtually maintenance-free. The modern ones are energy-efficient, too, especially if you load them with SSD's. Performance is also good on these little boxes. What they do not hedge against, of course, is accidents like fires or ransomware that spreads from a computer that has write access to the network shares.

One more nice thing about the Synology machines is that they allow for all manner of media casting/streaming to devices on the local network (also movies & music). And they can be opened up for internet access as well so you can reach your stuff while on the move. There's evidently a security implication to that option, but it can be very convenient.

 

[Steven Lee]

@koraks Aww, happy to find something we agree on! Warms my heart.

 

[4season]

Something to be aware of before buying a new Synology NAS in 2025:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...unctionality-and-support-for-third-party-hdds

 

[koraks]

Something to be aware of before buying a new Synology NAS in 2025:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...unctionality-and-support-for-third-party-hdds

The question is how critical the features are you'd lose by not using a Synology-approved drive - which in fact will still work. https://nascompares.com/2022/06/13/synology-3rd-party-hard-drives-what-you-can-and-cannot-do/
It seems that virtually all relevant functions will work just fine. The most relevant feature you may miss out on is automatic firmware updates for the hard drives themselves. How often have you run hdd firmware upgrdes?

 

[Sirius Glass]

dear friends, good day,



first of al: i am pretty new to this foru. my name is saint_otrott,

well after years and years of working with other options like google offers i have come to the point where I'm considering a photo backup.. - and well i want it "self hosted".

note: i want to get rid of te Google-Apps - and therefore. And now i am trying to find out which is the most reliable - heard alot of Immich - and and it has a mobile app ... and its open-source.
but some of my friends told me - that there might be some issues with Immich - so i think its best to come here and to talk to you...the experts of the photorio-forum.

question: which is the most reliable and feature rich or shortly the best service according to your idea and experience.
additional: well i would love to get a open-source-system since i like the idea of sustainable development.

look forward to hear from you
regards
saint otrott

Welcome to Photrio!

 

[djdister]

My approach:

- 4TB SSD on the computer
- Synology NAS with 12TB HDD in RAID 5
- External hard drive with a 4TB HDD for occasional backup from the Synology

 

[saint_otrott]

Hi everyone,


back again..

First off – thank you for the incredibly rich and thoughtful responses - and yes: thanks for the warm wellcome from you: Sirius Glass.

You’ve already expanded my thinking beyond just “which app is best?” into what kind of philosophy I want to adopt toward my archive. That’s… really motivating.

@Nathan Tenny: You cut right to the heart of it – is this about backup or something more curated like an archive? I think I’m somewhere in the middle. I want something that gives me peace of mind but also a way to browse and enjoy the library – ideally with some kind of metadata support (dates, places, maybe even face recognition). So not just a cold backup. But yeah, step 1: don't lose my files!

@koraks & @fgorga: You both raised points that hit home.
The tension between automation vs discipline is real. Like many, I start strong with manual processes… then life gets in the way. So I think automation (whether cloud or local) is a must — and that’s a compelling case for systems like NAS or self-hosted apps that "just run."

@4season: Love the idea of repurposing old hardware! I have an old ThinkCentre and some spare drives, so I may try Immich on that — if only to get my hands dirty and see how it feels. It might not be the final solution, but it could be a great test bed. I think Immich appeals to me because it has mobile apps and looks sleek enough that I might actually use it regularly. Curious to know how “open” your NAS solution is — do you run any services on top of it?

@StevenLee: You hit me with a dose of wisdom — thank you. The point about DevOps being a potential rabbit hole is real. I’m comfortable on Linux and Docker (ish), but not a full-time sysadmin. The idea of a Synology NAS with a polished UI and background automation is appealing. Especially since it can back up to the cloud too. That might be my Plan B if I hit friction with open source.


thanks also djdister for sharing your ideas and thoughts - and your experience.

- 4TB SSD on the computer
- Synology NAS with 12TB HDD in RAID 5
- External hard drive with a 4TB HDD for occasional backup from the Synology


well What I’m learning is this:

Open-source (like Immich) offers sustainability, customization, and freedom, but needs some tech muscle and maintenance.
NAS solutions offer stability and ease, but can get pricey and might feel like “black boxes.”
Cloud options are hands-off, but you give up control and (eventually) money or privacy.

So now I’m wondering:

Has anyone here actually migrated away from a self-hosted solution to something more turnkey (or vice versa)?
How do you balance control, automation, and peace of mind?

Thanks again — I’m truly grateful for all the input.
Saint_Otrott

ps. i am lovin this awesome thread - since it is packed with lots of tipps and shared experience. This makes me sure that i am at the right place.
I am glad to be here - to see you sharing your diverse opinions, and practical experience.

thanks alot - and have a great day

 

[4season]

I just checked, and it appears that my QNAP TS-269 Pro may be a dozen years old as of 2025! QNAP ceased major software updates a few years ago, and the final(?) maintenance release occurred a year ago. At the time when I bought it, I had really not thought to use it as a more general-purpose server. It's equipped with an Intel Atom CPU, HDMI output, and maxed out with 3 GB of RAM, which was a decent spec for it's time, and adequate for music streaming or maybe hosting Docker containers, but 4K video playback and alternative OSes like TrueNAS were simply not on my radar at the time.

Likes: It's a polished product, with niceties including front panel indicators to warn me if I'm running low on disk space or may be about to experience a disk failure. Works with Apple's Time Machine and Windows backup. Automatically backups up to yet another, external USB device.

Dislikes: Maybe more of an Apple/Microsoft issue, but I must manually purge old Time Machine and Windows backups, lest they gradually use all available space. No provisions for M.2 media or SSD cache.

Some features I was very keen on in an Enterprise-type environment, but have since reconsidered for home use:

Dual ethernet ports: At the time, I was keen on the idea of achieving 2x bandwidth, but at a former job (pre-2020) , we experienced an oddity with QNAP and bonded ethernet pairs, where one interface would nevertheless be maxed, and the other would be idle. We concluded that the feature appeared to be there for redundancy rather than higher bandwidth, though I don't know whether the situation changed with subsequent software updates and newer hardware. Today, it'd be easier for me to choose a NAS equipped with 2.5 gb ethernet and forget about bonding . Overkill for this home user, sure, but with a bit of careful shopping, the added cost of 2.5 GbE can be negligible.

Hot-swappable drives: Really, really loved this feature for enterprise applications, but at home, it's not a big deal for me to close applications and take the NAS offline for maintenance.

Power supplies: Redundant power supplies with automatic failover were another lifesaver in enterprise applications, but at home, the generic external power brick is plenty reliable, and if I really want to, I can buy a spare or two for very little money.

I've been pleased with the QNAP overall, but the hardware is aging, and sooner or later, it's MTBF will catch up with me. A possible replacement I'm considering is the Beelink ME + TrueNAS.

 

[joho]

saint otrot
hello and welcome

one way to look at this - for a back-up and work-flow system - check out cinema graphic analog & [digital] backups && workflow
stay away from over 4tb disks [if they crash you need 4days to read and save]
and have backup x2
my 2 cents