First NAS Setup: Best 4-Bay Synology for Jellyfin

[evasivemammoth]

Hello,

I'm new to NAS and looking to set up a home server for media streaming with Jellyfin. I've heard that Synology is a good choice, especially for Jellyfin. Should I go for a 4-bay NAS instead of a 2-bay? If so, what's the best 4-bay Synology NAS for Jellyfin in 2023?

Regarding storage, I'm unsure about the ideal HDD size, considering anything from 4 TB to 16 TB. I'm a beginner with a relatively small media collection. What would you recommend?

I also have some questions about backups and RAID. Should I consider setting up a backup system or RAID for added data protection?

Are there any straightforward guides for setting up a NAS with Jellyfin? Do I need a VPN for added security, and should I consider using *arr apps for media management?

Your advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[mark]

Obviously get more disk bays if you can afford it. You can always add more disks later. If you can afford an 8 disk then go for it. Synology has a hybrid raid called HSR which uses BTRFS. This makes it better than Raid 5 and probably your best bet if you get a Synology NAS. Also make sure to always have a spare somewhere in case one fails. So budget for 1 spare. Also note that I am having a lot of trouble with this setup right now. The NAS is fine but there is something going on with Jellyfin specifically. It could be caused by using HSR... but I dont want to wipe it and try something else till I exhaust my options.

Im working on one right now for my brother and Jellyfin seems to have a serious scanning problem. Scans takes hours even when there are no changes or new files. This does not happen on my normal PC and it seems to only happen when scanning shows for me. Movies seems to scan fast. But to make matters worse, during the scan, the Jellyfin UI is unusable so you wont be able to do anything during scans. I have been looking for an explanation for a couple of days but havent found anything. BTW, I am running Jellyfin in a Docker. There seems to be no issues with CPU or Mem usage. Nothing seems wrong hardware wise. Its just choking.

I have a feeling that there is something wonky going on with the db and the fact that everything is running on the NAS. Some sort of unintended locking perhaps? I almost feel like if Jellyfin were installed on an external drive rather than on the NAS itself, these problems might disappear. I havent tried that yet because I just dont have an external drive right now but that might be what I try next.

[elephantLYFE]

1) Cant say, you just have to shop around, do some research on the product lines. Estimate your needs from a NAS.
(I do think it has to be a '+' model? the processor has to be able to handle certain transcoding? and capable of docker support?)
2) Again, estimate how much you want to grow, and # of bays can affect this decision, models have limits as well.
3) If they data is important, and you can afford it, yes always backup. easy rule 3-2-1, 3 copies, 2 different mediums, 1 offsite.
  Raid is not a backup, its for high availability. (yes Im guilty of running raid mirror, if one drive dies, statistically the other will die soon)
4) Plenty of good guides out there, ARR apps & VPN are separate conversations.
Jellyfin Official Documentation - https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/instal.../synology/
  3rd party site with setup guide - https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install...ology-nas/

My post signature has details about my own personal Synology setup.

[abpjf]

+1 on the "buy more bays / larger drives if you can afford it" - there's nothing wrong with leaving even the majority of the bays unpopulated, and it's always easier to populate an empty bay than it is to buy another NAS when you find your existing bays weren't enough.

if it helps in estimating your "content storage footprint" in the long term, my library (~7000 movies / ~2000 TV Shows / ~4200 Music Albums / ~3300 Music Videos) takes up about 50TB in a mixture of codecs (h264 / hevc / AV1 / FLAC / AAC / etc).