I started reading through the Narrowlink URL, but the frequency of typos was frustrating enough the I came right back to HackerNews to read the comments and synopsis of what the kerfuffle is about.
Thanks for the pointer to headscale - will take a look ;)
MAJOR two thumbs up on this one - the pibox is a very cool product, great for learning, easy to deploy on, and powerful enough for smaller tasks. the Kubesail folks are responsive (both in email and on their Discord server). Couldn't be happier!
Another option for open source aficionados might be https://www.pgedge.com - with their spock extension they also achieve multi-master replication. Looks very interesting!
Just to add context - I do have backups, but they're spread across a myriad of different hard drives. I had used Amazon Photos to consolidate, and benefit from the facial recognition to be able to quickly locate pictures of family members quickly.
I think that I'll give DigiKam another go, against the NAS loaded up.
Thanks Apple