Home Servers\Homelabs: NAS, Plex, & Everything Else

[GoldenGlove]

Taking notes...

What's the best way about going for this primarily for file sharing (video files 4k or 1080p)? My brother and I run a creative agency and often need to access the same files. Plus Dropbox is expensive as fukk

 

[The Phoenix]

I have a 10 terabyte server running a basic pro build of Windows 10. In the past I've used Windows Home Server and Server 2012 I think it was as well as FreeNAS. At the end of the day Windows 10 has been the most solid for my needs. In lieu of a traditional raid setup I use this software from this company Stablebit called Drivepool. It basically lets you take a bunch of drives regardless of size or partition and combine them or mix and match them into groups. The best part is it keeps all the data in NTFS format so even if you needed to remove a Drive from the pool you could read the data on the individual Drive like you would any other hard drive. It also load balances all the drives. I've used it for about 5 years now and I swear by it. I use Kodi as my frontend. The way it was meant to be used before it got flooded with pirated movie repos LOL.

 

[TripleAgent]

Taking notes...

What's the best way about going for this primarily for file sharing (video files 4k or 1080p)? My brother and I run a creative agency and often need to access the same files. Plus Dropbox is expensive as fukk

Not exactly my forte, but my guess is a NAS or SAN with VPN (VPN can be achieved several ways. A good router can have it. You can make one with a 30 dollar Raspberry Pi and free software) if you need access on the road. The cost would be determined by your storage needs and what speed and features you need. If you're in the same building, a decent Synology or QNAP NAS will do it. You will lay out a chunk of cash up front, but as long as you get enough, you only spend once.

You could also build a file server, but that's more techie, and likely more expensive.

 

[Golayitdown]

I use Kodi as my frontend. The way it was meant to be used before it got flooded with pirated movie repos LOL.

I swear I thought I was the only one still using Kodi like this.

 

[Golayitdown]

Taking notes...

What's the best way about going for this primarily for file sharing (video files 4k or 1080p)? My brother and I run a creative agency and often need to access the same files. Plus Dropbox is expensive as fukk

Are you trying to share your files over a local network (LAN) or do you want to access them it over the internet?

 

[bnew]

I have aboud 46TB worth of movies and tv shows that I stream to friends and family. Anywhere to as much as 10 people stream at a time so far, but usually around 2.
What you should look into purchasing depends ENTIRELY on your use case. Otherwise we are pissing in the dark here

Whats your bandwidth speed? how long does it typically take for a video to start once you've hit play? transcoding or direct play?

 

[bnew]

Taking notes...

What's the best way about going for this primarily for file sharing (video files 4k or 1080p)? My brother and I run a creative agency and often need to access the same files. Plus Dropbox is expensive as fukk

Nextcloud
SparkleShare
Syncthing

 

[GoldenGlove]

Are you trying to share your files over a local network (LAN) or do you want to access them it over the internet?

Over the internet

 

[winb83]

If any of yall are looking to acquire extra storage Best Buy has this 10TB external drive on sale for $180.00
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...usb-flash-drive-black/6290669.p?skuId=6290669

Crack the external open and there's a 10TB white label drive in there which is a re-branded red drive.

 

[Golayitdown]

If any of yall are looking to acquire extra storage Best Buy has this 10TB external drive on sale for $180.00
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...usb-flash-drive-black/6290669.p?skuId=6290669

Crack the external open and there's a 10TB white label drive in there which is a re-branded red drive.

I have never purchased a retail drive outside of SSD OS drives. I always grab a couple of external drives and crack them open (shuck) to get the drive out. The easystores are easily the best value on the market right now. I got like 3 of the 8TB last year

 

[Golayitdown]

Over the internet

I've only used LAN based servers but as long as you have a good router/firewall and good internet speeds you will be ok.

The awesome thing about all of this is that you can use Docker on damn near any OS and this allows you to separate your OS and the apps you run.

For the OS, I have used OpenMediaVault for the last 4-5 years with literally zero issues. Even with all my tinkering and trying out new stuff, it's been rock solid with w no downtime. Other options such as FreeNAS have similar performance from my research.

For your particular need, I've heard good things about NextCloud. It allows you to serve your files and access them everywhere.

 

[soulfuljah]

If any of yall are looking to acquire extra storage Best Buy has this 10TB external drive on sale for $180.00
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...usb-flash-drive-black/6290669.p?skuId=6290669

Crack the external open and there's a 10TB white label drive in there which is a re-branded red drive.

These are what I've been collecting. Got 7 right now and need about 5 more, plus a few for backups.

 

[GoldenGlove]

If any of yall are looking to acquire extra storage Best Buy has this 10TB external drive on sale for $180.00
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...usb-flash-drive-black/6290669.p?skuId=6290669

Crack the external open and there's a 10TB white label drive in there which is a re-branded red drive.

Anybody use these drives with a USB/SATA converter?

 

[el_oh_el]

Whats your bandwidth speed? how long does it typically take for a video to start once you've hit play? transcoding or direct play?

Net speed is gig down, 40mbps up. Usually takes between 5 and 20 secs to start up the stream as my disks go to sleep after an hour of non use. Since I download high bitrate video, I rarely have direct streams to outside my network. Usually get them when folks watch TV shows as they aren't usually Blu-ray rips. With that in mind most of my streams are transcoding.

 

[Stir Fry]

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