RAW PHOTO & CLIP ML VAULT EgressZero Editorial · 2026-11-12

Immich Self-Hosted Photo & RAW Vault: EgressZero TCO vs Consumer Cloud & S3

Creative studios and families hit steep pricing tiers above 2 TB on consumer clouds, while backing Immich with AWS S3 triggers expensive GET storms during timeline scrolling. On EgressZero, we model splitting Immich PostgreSQL + WebP thumbnails onto local NVMe and original RAWs onto a $6/TB ZFS slice.

Never mount Immich PostgreSQL `pgvecto.rs` indexes over network S3-FUSE filesystems; EgressZero sizes local NVMe IOPS strictly for database safety.

EGRESSZERO SIZING VERDICT
A 6 TB studio RAW archive with 5 TB/mo client sync bills $416/mo across metered cloud storage, whereas our EgressZero ledger models $36.00/mo on InterServer 6 TB Price-Lock slices ($4,560/yr saved).

EgressZero Split-Tier NVMe Thumbnail & Bulk ZFS Library Environment

# .env — Immich Split-Tier FinOps Layout
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/mnt/bulk-zfs/immich-originals
THUMB_LOCATION=/var/lib/nvme-fast/immich-thumbs
ENCODED_VIDEO_LOCATION=/var/lib/nvme-fast/immich-transcode
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/var/lib/nvme-fast/postgres-pgvector
IMMICH_MACHINE_LEARNING_URL=http://immich-machine-learning:3003

EgressZero Production Cutover Checklist for IMMICH

Allocate 6 GB–8 GB minimum system RAM so `immich-machine-learning` ONNX models avoid Linux OOM kills during initial 50,000-photo indexing.
Keep `DB_DATA_LOCATION` (`pgvector`) and `THUMB_LOCATION` on local SSD/NVMe for sub-5ms timeline scrubbing.
Schedule nightly `restic` encrypted snapshots of `/mnt/bulk-zfs` to an independent secondary host for 3-2-1 backup hygiene.

Provision on InterServer via EgressZero ↗ Compare Hostinger Option via EgressZero ↗

EgressZero chart (immich-photo-vault): 1 TB to 50 TB/mo outbound bandwidth cost slope comparing AWS S3, Vercel, and fixed-pipe servers — Fig 1 (EgressZero): Metered AWS S3 ($87/TB) and Vercel ($150/TB) invoices scale linearly while fixed-pipe NVMe/ZFS servers stay flat.

EgressZero diagram (immich-photo-vault): zero-downtime S3 repatriation pipeline using staged rclone sync and 60s DNS TTL cutover to MinIO — Fig 2 (EgressZero): Background rclone sync plus a 60-second DNS endpoint flip migrates S3 buckets to MinIO without dual-billing spikes.

EgressZero architecture (immich-photo-vault): NGINX 4 MB byte-range NVMe slice caching shielding bulk ZFS and RAID media arrays — Fig 3 (EgressZero): NGINX 4 MB slice caching absorbs 94%+ of HTTP 206 byte-range pulls on NVMe before touching bulk ZFS spindles.

EgressZero topology (immich-photo-vault): continuous PostgreSQL WAL and Restic backup replication onto $6/TB Price-Lock ZFS with $0 restore fees — Fig 4 (EgressZero): Encrypted pgBackRest and Restic streams onto $6/TB ZFS slices enable weekly full-restore DR drills with $0 egress fees.

EgressZero Scale-by-Scale TCO Ledger (immich-photo-vault)

Dataset & Monthly Egress Tier	Metered Cloud Bill	Matched Fixed-Pipe Host	12-Month Net Retained
2 TB Family 4K Vault / 2 TB Sync	$218 / mo	$12.00 / mo (InterServer 2TB Slice)	$2,472 / yr
6 TB Studio RAW Archive / 5 TB Sync	$416 / mo	$36.00 / mo (InterServer 6TB Slice)	$4,560 / yr
16 TB Agency Catalog / 12 TB Sync	$964 / mo	$99.00 / mo (Dedicated 20TB)	$10,380 / yr

Modeled by EgressZero Editorial using published 2026-11-12 vendor rate schedules; live promotional rates remain subject to change.

INTERACTIVE FINOPS ESCAPE LEDGER (PURE DOM)

EgressZero Monthly Outbound TB Egress Bleed & Storage TCO Calculator

1. Metered Cloud Incumbent

2. Active Stored Dataset 5 TB

3. Monthly Outbound Egress 5 TB / mo

4. Target Self-Hosted Stack

METERED CLOUD BILL

$351.54/mo

Egress tax = 59% ($208/mo)

MATCHED FIXED-PIPE SERVER

$30/mo

InterServer 5TB ZFS Storage Array (Price-Lock)

MONTHLY NET RETAINED

$321.54/mo

Cuts monthly spend by 91%

12-MONTH RETAINED CAPITAL

$3,858.48/yr

12-month retained engineering budget

Metered Cloud Spend$351.54/mo

Capacity-Matched Fixed Pipe$30/mo

NVMe thumbnail cache + high-capacity ZFS/RAID bulk array for RAW photos & team sync.

Deploy #1 EgressZero Escape Architecture ↗

#1 EGRESSZERO OPTIMAL MATCH $30/mo · Save $3,858.48/yr

InterServer 5TB ZFS Storage Array (Price-Lock)

Lowest fixed per-TB storage floor ($6/TB slices up to 20TB+ dedicated) with lifetime Price-Lock renewal protection.

Inspect InterServer Specs via EgressZero ↗

CAPACITY-MATCHED OPTION #2 $58/mo · Save $3,522.48/yr

UltaHost High-Throughput Unmetered VDS Pro

True unmetered outbound transfer in Singapore, Tokyo, Frankfurt & US — built for high-egress Video Origin & S3 edge pulls.

Inspect UltaHost Specs via EgressZero ↗

CAPACITY-MATCHED OPTION #3 $124/mo · Save $2,730.48/yr

Vultr S3 Object + Compute Pool (SG/TYO/Global) + $300 Free Credit

Global bandwidth pooling across 32 edge regions (Singapore & Tokyo included) with $0.01/GB overage (89% below AWS S3).

Inspect Vultr Specs via EgressZero ↗

EgressZero Repatriation Thresholds for immich-photo-vault

Choose Hyperscaler S3 / Managed CDN (EgressZero Rule) If:

Total household photo storage is under 200 GB ($2.99/mo consumer plan) and nobody exports uncompressed Sony/Canon RAW or ProRes 4K footage.

Choose Unmetered / Fixed-Pipe VPS (EgressZero Rule) If:

Your library exceeds 2 TB, multiple photographers sync mobile/desktop albums daily, or you require full-speed bulk export without API throttling.

EgressZero Engineering FAQ: immich-photo-vault

How much RAM and vCPU does EgressZero size for Immich CLIP smart search?

We model Hostinger KVM 2 (8 GB RAM, 2 AMD EPYC vCPU, 8 TB transfer) for libraries under 200 GB, and KVM 4 (16 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 16 TB transfer) plus bulk ZFS storage when indexing 100,000+ assets.

How does EgressZero scale Immich storage economically past 4 TB of RAW files?

InterServer Storage Slices scale linearly from 1 TB to 20 TB at $6.00/TB with month-to-month Price-Lock protection, avoiding steep 6 TB–12 TB consumer SaaS subscription jumps.