Building your own NAS is significantly cheaper and more capable than buying a prebuilt box from Synology or QNAP — the tradeoff is that you have to make eight or nine real decisions instead of clicking “add to cart” once. This guide walks through every …
SnapRAID MergerFS is a Linux storage combination that pools multiple independent hard drives into one large mount point while protecting them with scheduled, snapshot-style parity, giving you a flexible DIY NAS without the rigidity of traditional RAID. If you have a pile of mismatched drives …
In the SnapRAID vs Unraid comparison, SnapRAID is a free, open-source, command-line parity tool that protects drives you already have on a schedule you choose, while Unraid is a paid, GUI-driven operating system that delivers real-time parity, drive pooling, network sharing, and container hosting in …
SnapRAID is a free, open-source backup program for disk arrays that stores parity data on dedicated drives so you can rebuild the full contents of failed disks, guard against bit rot, and even undelete files. If you have ever wondered what is SnapRAID and why …
Unraid GPU passthrough Plex is the process of handing a dedicated NVIDIA card or an Intel Quick Sync iGPU directly to your Plex Docker container so video transcoding runs on silicon built for it instead of hammering your CPU. If you have been searching for …
Unraid is a NAS operating system that boots from a USB flash drive and combines mixed-size hard drives into a parity-protected array while also running Docker containers and virtual machines on the same machine. This Unraid setup guide walks through every step we use when …
An Unraid parity drive is a dedicated disk that stores a mathematical calculation (not files) across every data disk in your array, so if one drive dies, Unraid can rebuild its entire contents from the surviving disks. If you are building your first NAS for …
Unraid Tailscale is the pairing of an Unraid server with the official Tailscale plugin, creating a private WireGuard-based mesh network that lets you reach your NAS, its web interface, and your self-hosted services from anywhere without opening a single port on your router. If you …
The best Unraid plugins are lightweight, community-maintained add-ons that bolt directly into the Unraid web interface to give you better drive management, hardware monitoring, automated backups, and scheduled automation for a growing home archive. If you run Unraid as the backbone of a home lab, …
Unraid Docker Compose is a plugin-based way to define, deploy, and manage multi-container stacks on your Unraid server using a single YAML file instead of clicking through individual Docker templates. If you have been running containers through the Apps tab for a while, the jump …
Unraid vs Synology comes down to one choice: Unraid is a licensed operating system you install on hardware you assemble yourself, while Synology is a sealed appliance that ships with DSM software and a single warranty already attached. For anyone weighing unraid vs synology for …
Newsbin Pro is a Windows-based Usenet newsreader built for browsing, searching, downloading, and repairing binary files from Usenet newsgroups, with tools aimed squarely at long-term archival and data preservation work. Anyone who has spent time trying to rebuild a damaged archive from scattered posts knows …
AltHUB is an NZB indexer, a search platform that catalogs posts made to Usenet newsgroups and produces NZB files so archivists can locate and retrieve specific data segments stored on Usenet servers. Anyone building a long-term digital archive eventually runs into the same problem: raw …
abNZB is a Newznab-based NZB indexer that lets Usenet users search, browse, and retrieve NZB files for building organized digital archives. For anyone assembling a long-term archive from Usenet, the indexer behind the search matters just as much as the provider storing the data. abNZB …
Binsearch (binsearch.info) is a free, open-access Usenet search engine that crawls binary newsgroups and lets you manually find posts, then export them as NZB files for download. It requires no registration and costs nothing to use. Usenet search has come a long way since the …
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open-source email and newsgroup client that connects to Usenet news servers using NNTP, letting you read and post text-based messages across thousands of public newsgroups without any additional software. Most people already know Thunderbird as an email client. What surprises …
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP): The application-layer TCP/IP protocol that governs how Usenet articles are distributed, retrieved, and posted between news servers and clients. First standardized in RFC 977 in 1986, NNTP replaced the older UUCP system and remains the backbone of Usenet access today. …
Usenet is one of the oldest surviving distributed communication systems on the internet, and most people have never heard of it. That gap in awareness is exactly what makes its story worth telling. Usenet, short for “User’s Network,” is a worldwide distributed discussion system that …
Pi-hole and AdGuard Home are both free, self-hosted DNS ad blockers that filter unwanted domains at the network level, protecting every device on your network without installing anything on individual machines. If you run a home lab, hoard archival data, or pull large datasets from …
Pi-hole is a network-wide DNS sinkhole that intercepts ad and tracker requests before they reach your devices, blocking them silently at the DNS layer for every client on your home network, no browser extension required. Running a proper pihole setup means every phone, smart TV, …
A DNS leak test checks whether your DNS queries are traveling outside your VPN‘s encrypted tunnel, potentially exposing every domain name you visit to your ISP even when you believe your connection is private. Running a VPN does not automatically guarantee that all of your …
UsenetWire is the official integrated newsreader bundled with TweakNews, a Dutch Usenet provider. It gives subscribers instant, preconfigured access to over 100,000 newsgroups without requiring a separate client setup. UsenetWire has been in development since 1995, built around a simple premise: most newsreaders at the …
UsenetServer Global Search is a proprietary, web-based Usenet search tool bundled into every UsenetServer subscription. It lets you search across all available newsgroups, filter results by keyword, age, poster, or group, and generate NZB files directly, without relying on any third-party indexer. Searching Usenet has …
Easynews search is the web-based Usenet search engine built directly into the Easynews platform, letting you find, preview, and retrieve articles from Usenet newsgroups through any modern browser without installing a newsreader or handling NZB files manually. Usenet has traditionally required a dedicated newsreader, a …
The Newshosting Newsreader is a bundled Usenet client included with every Newshosting subscription, giving you a fully integrated way to search, browse, download, repair, and unpack files directly from Usenet without installing or configuring a separate application. If you have ever looked at SABnzbd configuration …