Labthrift Labthrift What to buy. What to skip. Why.

Written 26 Aug 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card. Buy links are not tagged yet.

See if the leftover box still has room

After the house folder is working, check that the leftover box is not filling up. Photos stop copying when the disk is full. You do not need a NAS for this look.

This is a look, not a shopping trip. The house folder is already on the leftover box. You are asking whether that disk still has room, before a phone copy fails.

Skip until the share works

If phones and laptops cannot open the house folder yet, stop. Fix that first. That is a file share on the leftover box. Disk room does not help a share that is not working.

What this is

The leftover box has one main disk. House photos go on that same disk. A leftover laptop disk fills faster than people expect. This is a look, not a shopping trip. You are not buying a file box this weekend.

Ask how full it is

From the couch, SSH in, then ask:

df -h

df is the leftover box reporting how full its disk is. Point at the line that ends in /. That is the leftover-box disk. When Use% is in the 80s, it is time to clean. 100% is why copies failed.

See what the house folder is using

The share lives at /srv/share/. Ask how big that folder is, not the whole disk:

sudo du -sh /srv/share

That number is the shared folder size. Old Downloads and a full Trash on a leftover laptop also eat room. If this leftover is a laptop that still has a desktop user, you can look at those two:

du -sh ~/Downloads ~/.local/share/Trash 2>/dev/null

If it is filling

Delete obvious junk. Empty the Trash. Clear old Downloads you do not need. Do not buy a NAS because a leftover laptop disk is small. A second copy on a USB disk you already have is a backup of the leftover-box folder. A real file box is later: a first file box (NAS).

What next

If there is no second copy yet, that is a backup of the leftover-box folder. After one manual copy works, back up the leftover-box folder every week without remembering. If weekly jobs wake at the wrong hour, set the leftover box clock to your house. Skip a new 4TB drive this weekend.

Skip

Sources

Debian: df. Debian: du. Ubuntu: df. Ubuntu: du. Official pages only. For the share this looks at, see a file share on the leftover box. For the login, see SSH from the couch. For a second copy, see a backup of the leftover-box folder. A dedicated file box is later: a first file box (NAS).

Also on this topic

A file share on the leftover boxA folder on the leftover box that the house can open from a laptop or a phone. You do not need a NAS for this. A backup of the leftover-box folderA second copy of the house folder, on a USB disk you already have, or on another leftover computer. You do not need a NAS for this. Back up the leftover-box folder every week without rememberingAfter one manual USB (or second-box) copy works, let the leftover box run the same rsync on a weekly timer. A phone reminder is still fine if you prefer. A first file box (NAS) for one personA quiet box for photos and backups. Two drives if you want sleep.