My wife and I would like to have a shared data storage facility where we can access it from our computers, tablets and laptops in the home network (mainly photos, videos and some documents).
I'm not very familiar with networks, and I'm always happy when everything is going well.
As far as I know, a NAS is the first choice here. If I understand correctly, this is a small computer with two hard drives, one of which is always mirrored, so that if one fails, the data is still on the other.
My wife says that friends of hers at home set up a server for these things.
Now I just wanted to briefly ask whether a server is "better" or a small NAS is enough? As far as I know, a server is a bit bigger and also intended for access from the Internet, which in our case is not that important.
A server is only good if you also have a high internet speed (not only download but also upload).
A NAS would be better if the internet isn't that good, but there are still different ones. As you said, a NAS is a small computer. A NAS can also have 4 hard drives, for example, but in your example it would be a Raid-1 configuration which is the most secure. There's also Raid 0 (which is insecure because the data is not saved on two hard drives there) and Raid 5. Raid 5 is also less secure, but combines the advantages of Raid 0 and 1. For Raid 5 are (correct me if I'm wrong) at least 4 hard drives needed. You have the advantage that, for example, with 4 16TB hard disks instead of 32TB (Raid 1) you have about 48TB, but even if one hard disk breaks, the data can often still be saved.
Another note: Make sure that you buy hard drive for NAS / continuous operation without SMR.
The most sensible thing is a NAS with Nextcloud on it, then you also have access to contacts, calendar and files on the go.
Think about how Raid5 works. Doesn't that already work with 3 plates? Otherwise, I don't understand why Internet speed should be the deciding factor between a server and a NAS. He only writes about a local solution anyway. According to the text, it should not be accessed externally at all.
Nas is enough. Mirroring the hard drives is optional, there are enough devices with only one hard drive.
If the capabilities are limited (don't mean that at all) then a cloud solution like Dropbox might be a better choice. Then you can access it from anywhere and don't have to worry about data loss. And you save the acquisition costs.
If you don't want that for data protection reasons, I understand, just wanted to throw it into the room
I skipped over the long text. Well, then it makes no difference in terms of speed.
We definitely have clouds. Everyone has "their" cloud, some things are shared. Everyone has their own computer, there's something on it everywhere. Now that we're married, we wanted to "nail it down" and create a place where we can have everything together.
Hence the question.
You can take a common cloud account that both have access to.
