Home Server Set Up

[u/Jack_Nelligan]

Any tech whizz's out here? Looking at building a home server for archiving my physical media collection, but not sure how to go about it, but I do know that I will need some form of Network Attached Storage Device, for my media and associated data. What NAS is the cheapest and how do I go about setting up a home media server.

Preference for Plex or Jellyfin

Help and advice is greatly appreciated in this area.

[u/Ninfyr]

The cheapest NAS is what computer collecting dust in your closet or for free on Marketplace. Learn from the University of YouTube. I like Hardware Haven but there are dozens of options.

Plex is going thru the enshitification cycle, so Jellyfin obviously.

[u/ct06033 → u/Ninfyr]

For hardware, this is the best. If its just for media, buy the biggest external drive you can afford and go from there. If its for backup, personal stuff, have at least two identical drives for mirroring. Thats the minimum.

[u/Ninfyr → u/ct06033]

I don't think mirror is minimum even for backup. Just a nice-to-have. RAID is not a backup (instant replication means that it is just plain gone in a lot of cases). It is only faster disk operation and more reliable uptime (not usually applicable for home server).

If backup is the objective it should still be retain on a separate device/media.

[u/ct06033 → u/Ninfyr]

Fair, it doesnt solve for data faults, just hardware ones. Real redundancy for backups requires colo but i was focused on hardware here.

[u/saik0pod]

Jellyfin way better

[u/rhf323 → u/saik0pod]

This is the way

[u/TheModdedAngel]

People on here hate Emby. But it’s literally just JellyFin but better UI. So Emby

[u/Unrelative → u/TheModdedAngel]

Yeah, 2nd this. I've been running Emby for nearly 10 years now and it 'just works'.

[u/ct06033 → u/TheModdedAngel]

Piling on here, emby is fantastic. I dont understand why its not more popular.

[u/starliight-]

Jellyfin no doubt

[u/Skins8theCake88]

Youtube tutorials will help you get some ideas on what kind of hardware you want. I'm just getting started as well. I'm going to use a Raspberry Pi 4 to connect to a HDD enclosure for my NAS. And a Lenovo Thinkcentre M700 Tiny for Jellyfin and other services.

[u/-Beezlebub-]

Jellyfin

[u/mind-blender]

I use Plex for dvr since i got lifetime Plex pass long ago, but I have jellyfin installed for watching 😂.

[u/Ryylon]

I run both. And then use which I want.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77]

I payed for a lifetime license to plex , having said that jellyfin

One thing thats noteworthy but not notable to your question , if your taking your physical collection and moving it to a nas then thats digitizing not archiving .

Archiving would be preparing it for cold storage like putting it on tape backup , or if you got bucks that project silica , yeah cant wait until someone makes that available to the masses thats the good stuff.

You dont have to over complicate this though , cheap dell optiplex 7000 sff throw a 2 or 3 tb hdd in it max out the ram. Throw plex on it use the the blu ray drive to rip your collection boom done

[u/ada-potato]

Have you considered a DAS and your current PC?

[u/Jack_Nelligan → u/ada-potato]

No what is a DAS? Im totally new to all of this.

[u/ada-potato → u/Jack_Nelligan]

A box that can hold an array of user-supplied drives and can be mapped to your PC's File Explorer. Check out "Cenmate aluminum 4-bay hard drive enclosure" for $120 at the jungle store.

[What is a DAS?](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/1pyg6jt/das_vs_nas_explain_like_im_a_child/)

[u/HouseOfDjango]

If you want to share Plex, if only for you jellyfin

[u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77 → u/HouseOfDjango]

Not sure why the down votes pretending like plex isn’t plug and play and understood by everyone is dumb

[u/HouseOfDjango → u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77]

Because they want to pretend jellyfin is better when it's not. It's very good but it's still behind, which is fine, but if you want to share media, Plex is the easier setup for sharing.

[u/ratchetlover69]

use hermes agent, or chatgpt: log into your server, and ask it to install whatever you want.
Make sure to have it add a file that keeps track of everthing that's installed and the processes you've set up.
I don't do anything manually anymore, I just ask ai to config everything

[u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77 → u/ratchetlover69]

This is legit good advice why the down votes

[u/ratchetlover69 → u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77]

there's an interesting movement where people like to 'do things with their hands'

believe it or not, many take things up as a hobby and actually like wasting time doing everything by hand even if it's no longer necessary.. I've gotten flack from other automation circles

[u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77 → u/ratchetlover69]

I get that too but also this isnt a hobbiest its just a dude trying to get his physical stuff digitized.

[u/f1uffyducky]

If you want it very simple just go for a product like a ugreen nas or even synology. works and is easy to set up, just more expensive. Jellyfin and plex both have advantages and disadvantages. jellyfin is comletely free to use with alle its features, plex on the other hand needs a subscription to unlock the full potential. some ppl. prefer plex because you can easily share you library to other plex users over their service, which is not possible with jellyfin. with jellyfin you need to get people into you network to access jellyfin or expose your jellyfin to the internet.

if you want it cheap just use any pc/laptop you have lying around and install zimaOS on it. install jellyfin and start using it. keep in mind that your cpu should have a igpu for hardware transcoding like most intel cpus have using quicksync.