In high school, I built a file server to store my computer backups, which evolved over the years from a Windows server to an Ubuntu Linux server. In the process, I learned about shell scripting, networking, disk encryption, and other facets of the operating system.
Today, it runs encrypted ZFS on Linux, and hosts a VPN server, a multimedia server, home photos and videos, and my family’s computer backups, as well as video footage generated for my model-making projects.
When I have time, I love to create and tweak scripts to automate maintenance procedures and add functionality. It isn’t just the software that I’m proud of, though; it’s also the hardware, a shock-mounted, suspended chassis that stabilizes and protects the drives from seismic activity.