korn

Unraid doesn't use images you can download. They check the USBs ~~UUID~~ GUID before installing. I am not defending this, but as it's going to be the boot device for the server this is a little handy feature.

3 Devices: Main, Storage and Compute

• Main is a Futro S740 running Debian, it handles my Cloudflare Tunnel, Nginx Proxy Manager, Git (Forgejo), Portainer, Paperless and some smaller services. Debian just like others said, rock solid, super small and just works.

• Storage is a custom built Unraid Server with an ASRock N100M, an SSD and a bunch of HDDs, it runs Plex and some Media related containers. Unraid is amazing as it turns off the drives and only spins up the one drive that has the file I want to stream. I get under 17W at idle with 9 HDDs with no stream running.

• Compute is an M1 Mac Mini running Asahi Linux Fedora. This one has a Minecraft server, Immich, Handbrake to transcode. Things that need a little more horsepower.

All systems have their pros and cons, I wish there was another Server OS like Unraid that had a great WebUI just like Unraid, but others like TrueNAS put their focus on ZFS, which is great but not for power efficiency.

... and that one judge.

My short answer: you're overthinking it way too hard and I think sticking that microSD-Card into the device you want to watch on is your best bet.

You're chasing ghosts.

Your post is very confusing. You want to use it only locally (on your home), but it can't be a local-only instance.

You want to e2ee everything, but fail to mention why. There is no reason to do that on your own network.

I do not know why you want to use a VPN and what you want to do with it. Where do you want to connect to?

What is the attack vector you're worried about? Are there malicious entities on your network?

Vielen Dank, Kapitän Offensichtlich.