What server do I need to self-host Immich?

Which hold fits my photo library?

Start from the size of your library today, add 10 to 20% for thumbnails and transcoded video, then add room for the next years. A 4 TB library needs about 4.4 to 4.8 TB with Immich's own files. RAM and CPU are rarely the limit: the smallest hold has 32 GB DDR4 ECC and 6 cores / 12 threads. Every hold's processor meets the x86-64-v2 level that Immich's machine learning needs since v3.

Where should the database and the photos live?

Split them across the two kinds of disk in the machine. Immich says the database should ideally sit on local SSD storage, and never on a network share of any kind. The operating system sits on its own SSD (two mirrored SSDs on the larger holds); the data drives arrive blank and unpartitioned, so you can build ZFS, an mdadm array or a set of independent disks. If you want the team to prepare a RAID 6 or RAID 10 array before delivery, say so to support before the server is handed over. So keep Docker's volumes and Postgres on the system SSD, and point the upload location at the hard-drive pool.

The pool's file system must support user and group ownership; ZFS and EXT4 both qualify. The trade-off between the two disk types is on HDD or SSD for a rented storage server.

# photos and videos on the hard-drive pool
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/tank/immich/library
# Postgres on the system SSD, never a network share
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/srv/immich/postgres

Does Immich need a GPU on a storage server?

No: Immich's requirements list no GPU. On a hold, the CPU runs the machine learning jobs, such as face recognition and smart search, and the video transcoding. None of our holds includes a graphics card, so plan the first import of a large library as a job that runs for a while.

A storage server gives Immich room for the library; the processor, not a GPU, does the thinking.

How do I back up an Immich server?

Immich recommends a 3-2-1 backup strategy, covering both the media and the database. It dumps the database every day at 02:00 by default into UPLOAD_LOCATION/backups, and keeps the last 14 dumps.

• Back up: library, upload and profile, which hold your originals, and backups, which holds the database dumps.
• Can skip: thumbs and encoded-video. Immich regenerates them, by rerunning its thumbnail and transcoding jobs after a restore.

A storage server is not a backup of itself: we keep no copy of your data anywhere else, so a second copy in another place stays your job. Send the backup to a second place with restic or Borg; restic or Borg for offsite backups helps you pick.

Where will my photos be stored, and under which law?

Amsterdam (Netherlands), Bucharest (Romania) and Chisinau (Moldova): every hold in every city, at the same price. The machine follows the law of its country; the company does not change that. Basalthold is run by DomaineGoat LLC, a company registered in Panama and bound only by Panamanian law. Each datacenter that houses a server follows the law of its own country.

Of 23 storage-server sellers Basalthold checked on 2 November 2026, 8 sold storage servers in the Netherlands, 2 in Romania and 2 in Moldova. Moldova is outside the European Union; Amsterdam and Bucharest are inside it.

For documents and shared folders next to the photos, see what server Nextcloud needs for several TB.