Newbie needing advice

[Mixerman6342]

I am a plex user at present. I have the plex server running on my home PC and I just stream movies/tv shows via ethernet to my TV in my lounge via a roku ultra. I am looking to move along to creating a 4k movie catalog and more of a dedicated server as opposed to using my gaming PC. At present all my media is stored on a external HDD connected to my PC. Does anyone have any advice where to start here. I have never setup a dedicated NAS or anything like that and don't want to make any mistakes.

In terms of cost, it's not a big deal i'm willing to pay for something reliable and decent. I see a lot of people talk about Synology, but looking at their site I don't really know where to start. Storage wise i'd like around 8TB and from what I understand I will need a Intel CPU which supports quick sync incase I run into any transcoding issues. Is there a off the shelf solution to what I am trying to do, as that would be great. Everything will be hard wired, no wifi and it's basically just me and the wife using the system.

EDIT: After looking around, I was thinking of something along the lines of this Synology 2 Bay DiskStatiion DS224 , does anyone have any experience of going this route rather than the using a regular PC. I do like the small size and the fact I can just put it on the shelf and forget about it. I assume to set it up, you need to connect remotely to it?

[mikesulsenti]

Synology NASs are useful for storage, not media servers. They just don't usually have the hardware resources for it

If you're willing to build, you can utilize a tower PC build with a case with like 8+ drive slots like Fractal Design cases
You could also opt for a 2U rack server if you want to be advanced. they're cheap on ebay for $280-$350 but they are power hogs and noisy and require a rack to slot them into

You can use a Ryzen CPU in the tower build. Just put in a $99 or $120 Intel Arc A310 or A380. An Intel CPU with iGPU works fine too.

You can also get cheap high capacity hard drives on ebay 10TB - 16TB. Recommend utilizing RAID with at least 4 drives not just for speed but to prevent dead drives from taking out your library

For OS look at Ubuntu or Proxmox

[Mixerman6342]

Synology NASs are useful for storage, not media servers. They just don't usually have the hardware resources for it

If you're willing to build, you can utilize a tower PC build with a case with like 8+ drive slots like Fractal Design cases
You could also opt for a 2U rack server if you want to be advanced. they're cheap on ebay for $280-$350 but they are power hogs and noisy and require a rack to slot them into

You can use a Ryzen CPU in the tower build. Just put in a $99 or $120 Intel Arc A310 or A380. An Intel CPU with iGPU works fine too.

You can also get cheap high capacity hard drives on ebay 10TB - 16TB. Recommend utilizing RAID with at least 4 drives not just for speed but to prevent dead drives from taking out your library

For OS look at Ubuntu or Proxmox

Thanks for the reply. I do have a older system laying about that may work. I do want to keep the system as small as possible. I'd rather not have a big tower in my spare room and I don't have a spare monitor at the moment either. As for the OS, i've never messed around with Linux, but am willing to give it a go.

[mikesulsenti]

Well if you setup a computer to act as a server, it doesn't need a monitor hooked up after the OS has been installed and SSH is configured for you to login. You could get away with a good synology intel iGPU enabled NAS if you can find one, or use an Intel mini pc with the NAS attached to USB or network

There's also cube style server cases to use as well. Either way you're gonna have a decent sized cube somewhere for this

[tmsrxzar]

"Synology NASs are useful for storage, not media servers. They just don't usually have the hardware resources for it" +1

look into a minipc with a decent igpu and a good usb3.2 enclosure, it should be more than good for general use

if you're not already a linux user the learning curve can be quite steep
while i don't want to discourage new linux users please do keep in mind that there are jellyfin server releases for other platforms if those better suit you

[Marcelo Linhares]

I use a Macbook Pro from 2012. It is connected via cable with the router. And rests with close lid behind my rack.
I access everything via wifi and works great.

Even 4k movies stream perfectly via wifi to my tv. (when I direct stream the content)
Old machines will suffer if they have to transcode many files simultaneously.