I have recently repurposed and old Hp Stream to a home server and successfully run Immich. I really like it and even a small 500GB disk is way more than the 15GB Google offers.
My issue though is about backup. I would only be comfortable if all the data is backed up in an off-site server (cloud). But the back up storage will probably cost as much as paying for a service like ente or similar, directly replacing Google photo.
What am I missing? Where do you store your backup?
For me the answer is that I need off site backup anyway for stuff like important digital documents, passwords and more. For me a dedicated storage provider I trust far more than Google/Apple/Microsoft which all have a financial interest in understanding me and my patterns to better sell additional services too me. So I use Dropbox but if you’re more technically inclined and have a lot of data then something akin to say Wasabi could make financial sense.