Drunk & Root

u can prob get by with using old devices an connecting to storage like old laptops may be enough depending what your needs are

500 gigs in hdds i ripped of cable boxes all wired together an hooked up to my old thinkpad t470 running thunar

depends like for known projecte like curl i wont because i know its fine but if its a new project i heard about i do audit the source and if i dont know the lang its in i ask someone that does

searxng an matrix both on a vps an public an everything else i host local an are not on the web

u could prob find a way to do this with nextcloud i saw smth like this on fdroid for nextclouf