Plan storage and backups before deploying Immich

Start with the official requirements

Immich lists 2 CPU cores and 6 GB RAM as the minimum, with 4 cores and 8 GB recommended. It requires the Docker Compose plugin; the older docker-compose command is no longer supported. PostgreSQL data should live on a local SSD rather than a network share.

Protect two kinds of data

There are at least two essential data sets: original photos and videos, plus PostgreSQL metadata for users, albums and assets. Copying only the media folder is not a complete backup, while a database dump cannot restore missing media.

A practical policy is:

1. Keep the live media locally and replicate it to another device or object store.
2. Export PostgreSQL regularly and store dumps separately from the media copy.
3. Use retention so accidental deletions do not immediately remove every copy.
4. Back up the database, configuration and media before each major upgrade.
5. Run a recovery exercise in an isolated environment on a schedule.

Estimate capacity

Measure monthly photo and video growth, then reserve at least two to three years of capacity. Thumbnails, transcodes, machine-learning models and the database consume additional space. Separating system and media disks also makes migrations and failures easier to manage.

Sources

• Official Immich requirements
• Official Immich repository
• Immich 3.1.0 release