Google Tried to Charge Me $3,600/yr... I Built My Own Server Instead
I couldn't let Google charge me $300/m for a measly 10TB of storage... That's just crazy. Instead I went down the home server/NAS rabbit hole and built something that I'm truly proud of. It's not as hard as you might think! Parts List (affiliate): AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: https://geni.us/F6X1f Noctua NH-D15: https://geni.us/NKADB3 Asus ROG STRIX B550-F: https://geni.us/lKgH G.SKILL RipjawsV DDR4 RAM (4x8GB) : https://geni.us/QX9r Seagate Barracuda 8TB HDD (4x): https://geni.us/1RvA5Di Samsung 870 QVO 8TB SSD (2x): https://geni.us/pPE4Rdj M.2 SSD - XPG 2TB GAMMIX S70 Blade: https://geni.us/aXnfl82 EVGA RTX 3070 8GB: https://geni.us/qh2C Fractal Design Define R5 Case: https://geni.us/QjHyt CORSAIR 750W Power Supply: https://geni.us/BpIlv Join to get member's only videos for $5 a month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6AJiTYspOILBK3hMWEq2g/join OTHER PLATFORMS --------------------------------------------------- Twitter: https://twitter.com/switch_click Discord: https://discord.gg/9jqnnFwWpV Instagram: https://instagram.com/switch_and_click Jake and Betty, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and mechanicalkeyboards.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. All prices and star-ratings mentioned during the videos are at the time of purchase and what it was when we bought it, they may not be representative of the current data involving the products specified. Links starting with geni.us will most likely lead to Amazon.
Video Chapters
- 0:00 Unveiling My Budget-Saving, Sleek Home Server Dream!
- 0:35 Why I Ditched Cloud Subscriptions to Build My Own Data Fortress
- 1:20 Demystifying the "Server": What It Really Is (for Everyone!)
- 6:25 Hardware Horror! My PC Wouldn't Start, Leading to a Critical Discovery
- 7:30 The Ultimate Brain Teaser: Choosing the Perfect OS for My NAS
- 8:40 My Secret Weapon: How AI Helped Me Conquer Confusing Server Jargon
- 10:15 Navigating Data Safety: Understanding RAID and Choosing My First Setup
- 11:50 The 7TB Challenge: Effortlessly Migrating a Mountain of Cloud Data
- 14:05 Success! My Home Server is Alive, Roaring, and Blazing Fast!
- 17:00 The Ultimate Payoff: Why This Server Build Was Absolutely Worth It!
Original Output
0:00 Unveiling My Budget-Saving, Sleek Home Server Dream! 0:35 Why I Ditched Cloud Subscriptions to Build My Own Data Fortress 1:20 Demystifying the "Server": What It Really Is (for Everyone!) 6:25 Hardware Horror! My PC Wouldn't Start, Leading to a Critical Discovery 7:30 The Ultimate Brain Teaser: Choosing the Perfect OS for My NAS 8:40 My Secret Weapon: How AI Helped Me Conquer Confusing Server Jargon 10:15 Navigating Data Safety: Understanding RAID and Choosing My First Setup 11:50 The 7TB Challenge: Effortlessly Migrating a Mountain of Cloud Data 14:05 Success! My Home Server is Alive, Roaring, and Blazing Fast! 17:00 The Ultimate Payoff: Why This Server Build Was Absolutely Worth It! Timestamps by StampBot 🤖
Unprocessed Timestamp Content
0:00 Welcome to my quiet, sleek, and budget-saving office server 0:09 Cloud storage costs are astronomically high; Google asked for how much?! 0:35 Building my own server to save money and gain control 0:50 YouTube videos make server building look deceptively simple 1:05 Is building a server actually worth all the effort 1:20 Understanding what a "server" actually is for beginners 1:40 File sharing and program access on your very own server 2:00 Why building your own server is incredibly practical for everyone 2:20 Unshackling yourself from restrictive, pricey cloud subscriptions forever 2:40 Conquering personal challenges before tackling a server build 2:55 The grand vision: building a huge, glorious off-cloud storage 3:15 Network Attached Storage (NAS) explained: it's like a big hard drive 3:41 Zero IT background disclaimer from a brave, tech-curious builder 3:55 Reviving my old, dusty PC for a new server life 4:10 Fixing my old PC's Windows problem with a fresh Linux Mint install 4:25 The old PC case had zero room for more hard drives 4:45 Choosing the perfect Fractal Define R5 case with many drive bays 5:10 Eight hard drive bays, more than I've ever seen 5:25 Following YouTube guides to dismantle my old PC 5:40 The pre-build test failed; my PC wouldn't even turn on 6:00 Giving up and waiting, hoping the problem would fix itself 6:10 Taking the broken PC parts to Micro Center for a cheap diagnosis 6:25 Motherboard was dead, a new one meant a flawless rebuild 6:40 My completed PC specs and the surprisingly low cost 7:00 Comparing the self-made NAS cost to annual Google Drive fees 7:15 The hard part starts: choosing an OS for the NAS 7:30 Deciding on TrueNAS for its community support and free access 8:00 Setting up TrueNAS with a boot drive for the first time 8:25 Initial TrueNAS setup steps were very confusing for a beginner 8:40 Using ChatGPT to understand complex server configurations and terminology 9:00 Understanding TrueNAS "pools" of data, vdevs, and datasets 9:40 Basic server jargon: 'pools' are warehouses, 'vdevs' are sections 10:00 'Datasets' are the boxes holding your data within the warehouse 10:15 Making a vdev and choosing between Stripe, Mirror, or RAID 10:30 Explaining RAID: Striped (RAID 0), Mirrored (RAID 1), and Parity 11:00 Parity drives use math to rebuild files if a drive fails 11:15 Choosing Mirror RAID for my two existing 8TB drives 11:30 Initial TrueNAS setup completed: basic storage online 11:50 How to transfer 7TB of data without re-uploading everything 12:05 TrueNAS Cloud Sync is a lifesaver for transferring cloud data 12:25 The Cloud Sync took a full day, but it finally finished 12:40 TrueNAS lacks a file browser, so SMB is needed for access 12:55 SMB allows network access to my files from any computer 13:10 Oops! Transferred data directly into the vdev root folder 13:25 Sharing entire pools is tougher and not recommended due to future problems 13:40 Couldn't move my data to a dataset, accepting my mistakes for now 13:50 Browsing files on the network was incredibly fast and rewarding 14:05 This project was worth it; the server is alive and kicking 14:20 More problems, because of course there were: how to be useful 14:40 Brainstorming how to optimize server for active and archived projects 14:55 Separating archived videos from active projects is critical 15:10 Active projects need fast SSDs, not slow HDDs 15:25 8TB SSDs are expensive! A steep but necessary investment 15:35 New SSDs weren't recognized; checking the motherboard manual finally helped 15:50 SATA ports were disabled by NVMe, so cables had to be moved 16:00 My new SSDs cost $1800, still cheaper than Google Drive annually 16:15 Already filling up my new server; I need to upgrade again 16:30 Upgrading to RAIDZ1 for more storage capacity: 24TB 16:40 The never-ending list of tasks for a home server owner 17:00 Building a server is definitely worth it for the experience and savings 17:15 Encourage others to try building a server; it's not that scary 17:25 Next episode: remote access for the newly built server Timestamps by StampBot 🤖