Ceph for a 3-Node Home Lab: When It Actually Pays Off
Ceph on 3 nodes: real hardware requirements, honest performance tradeoffs, and exactly when distributed storage beats a plain NFS share for your home lab.
Tag: storage
All the articles with the tag "storage".
Snapper for Btrfs Snapshots on Root Filesystems
Set up Snapper on Btrfs to auto-snapshot before every system update, roll back broken machines in minutes, and never lose a working root filesystem again.
ZFS Replication with syncoid + sanoid: The Lazy Admin's Backup
sanoid manages ZFS snapshot policies automatically, syncoid replicates them over SSH to remote pools — together they're the lowest-effort offsite backup strategy for any ZFS user.
Kopia Repository Server: Multi-Host Backups Done Right
Stop letting every machine write directly to S3. Kopia repository server gives you shared dedup, per-host auth, and sane maintenance — all in one place.
ZFS Send/Receive Over WireGuard for Off-Site Replication
Pipe ZFS incremental snapshots through WireGuard to a friend's NAS or a remote VPS. Encrypted in transit and at rest — no rsync.net bill or vendor lock-in.
mergerfs + SnapRAID: The Poor Man's Unraid
Skip the paid Unraid license. mergerfs + SnapRAID give you flexible JBOD pooling with parity protection on mismatched drives you already own, for free.
Object Storage on a Pi: SeaweedFS Cluster Walkthrough
Run a real S3-compatible object storage cluster on Raspberry Pi 4s with SeaweedFS — low RAM overhead, fast filer, no Ceph drama or surprise cloud bills.
Bind Mounts vs NFS for Container Storage
Bind mounts are fast and simple; NFS is shared and flexible for containers. Pick wrong and your database corrupts at 2 AM. Here is how to choose wisely.
RAID Is Not Backup: Rebuild Math
Your RAID 5 rebuild on a modern multi-TB drive has a 40-50% chance of hitting a URE before it finishes. Here's the 2026 math and what to do about it.
RAID 6 vs RAID 10: Two Dead Disks
RAID 6 and RAID 10 both survive two dead disks and both need four drives. But they get there completely differently — and that difference matters.
RAID 0, 1, and 5: Pick One
RAID 0 is fast and terrifying, RAID 1 is boring and beautiful, RAID 5 is the NAS compromise. How to pick the right one for your home lab drives.
ZFS vs Btrfs: Which Modern Filesystem Wins?
ZFS is the paranoid fortress of filesystems. Btrfs is the scrappy upstart built into your kernel. Here's which one belongs in your home lab.