Thanks, I’ll give Samba a try as that seems to be a free option for me to dabble with. If it seems to work well, maybe I’ll explore this further. Samba seems like a good starting point though. I appreciate all the help with this! I may ask for more guidance later depending on how things go

Tailscale does sound pretty cool, and could be an option. It sounds super easy to setup which I like. I have Comcast as my service provider, so I’d have to see what they offer DNS and Static IP addresses.

I have not looked at what all my fileshare options are but doing a bit of digging it sounds like maybe I should look at Samba and see if that would work. They don’t mention mobile device support, but it is free open source software, which I love. I wonder if having a Samba service just for local network file sharing is a security issue. I would assume it is not, but I could be wrong. I’m willing to bet I’d need to be cautious with the configuration of Samba.

Oh no need to sell me on Linux, I’m a fan of Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but my current laptop is an Apple M2 Pro, so if I can keep using that as my daily driver, I think I will. I’m most interested in more of a file sharing server type of service perhaps. Some way I could decouple from Google Drive for file storage is probably a good entry spot I’d think. I have an Ubuntu laptop with a dead battery I’ve not turned on in years I could repurpose as a server I’d think. It started it’s life as an MSI “gaming” Windows laptop, so it should have enough horsepower to be a file server if I knew what software to use and how to safely configure it and what software to use on my other devices to safely access it.

I’m interested in this a bit. I worry about setting up some sort of server that is going to be facing the Internet though. Is there a good guide or starting place for something like this? If I just want an easy or approachable solution with some limitations as a trade off for easy and safe setup? I feel like I’ve heard of Plex servers before, but no clue if that’s the best way to go or not. Where would one start to learn more?