I’m a good chemist, but not IT advanced. Started using Debian out of the box last year on miniPC. Running Jellyfin only on that local machine. Don’t understand coding, but copy/ paste terminal instructions from trusted sites. Have 1TB music, films and documents. Want to move all photos from Google.
Don’t worry, its made for you to pick it up as you go. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the 3-2-1 backup principles first. The idea that your data survives regardless of anything that may happen is important. You (and I trust me) will bork things and accidentally erase precious data. Be prepared to recover from that. Simple solutions you understand and test > complex info secondhand.
You ddint ask but I will mention you shouldn’t encrypt anything yet that you dont have to. Also use as little software as possible I.e. stay away from github repos.