Linux Servers in the Home for Media, Backups, Etc.

[sphen]

We still listen to music from CDs, watch videos from DVDs, and take the photo albums off the shelf to look at them while sitting on the sofa together. We switched to digital photos and I keep backups of them, but my partner still likes to print them and make albums. At the same time, she depends on me to find photos that she wants and needs from the computers. I think I can move her photo viewing to a screen as well.

We recently talked about putting the contents of the CDs, DVDs, photos files, etc. on a server to drag ourselves slightly further into the modern world. I know that it will take time to load the contents, but those are "fire and forget" operations that can happen over time. This would be a small headless server running on a 10 year old Mac mini with a 64-bit Intel processor and 4 Gbytes RAM.

I have experience running Linux servers on the internet, but never a media servers in a home. Perhaps it is being lazy, but I thought that the good people here may have considerable experience with these types of home Linux media servers.

-> I am starting at ground level, so I your recommendations for where to learn the basics of home media servers. Without knowledge or experience in this area, here were some of the questions that popped into my head:

• Can you recommend good websites and other learning resources that cover this topic well for beginners? Where did you learn about media servers?
• Would I be better off buying, installing, or building a ready-to-run appliance, rather than setting up a Linux server and configuring the services it provides?
• How do you watch a typical show on a typical living room TV? What device or input do I need on the client side to watch shows, listen to music or view photos from the server, for example?
  • ... or do you connect the server to the main TV in your living room and use it as the display?
  • What about other "small" TVs in the house? Bedrooms, for example.
• How did you estimate drive storage needs? Are you storing and service the full data or using compressed versions of the media?
• What problems did you encounter? What should I do (or avoid) so that I do not share your bad experiences?

Stories, advice, recommendations, experiences, what to do, what not to do, etc. would be very much appreciated. If you can suggest a better way to learn what I need to know or do what I want to do, please say something.

 

[f33dm3bits]

-> I am starting at ground level, so I your recommendations for where to learn the basics of home media servers. Without knowledge or experience in this area, here were some of the questions that popped into my head:

• Can you recommend good websites and other learning resources that cover this topic well for beginners? Where did you learn about media servers?
• Would I be better off buying, installing, or building a ready-to-run appliance, rather than setting up a Linux server and configuring the services it provides?
• How do you watch a typical show on a typical living room TV? What device or input do I need on the client side to watch shows, listen to music or view photos from the server, for example?
  • ... or do you connect the server to the main TV in your living room and use it as the display?
  • What about other "small" TVs in the house? Bedrooms, for example.
• How did you estimate drive storage needs? Are you storing and service the full data or using compressed versions of the media?
• What problems did you encounter? What should I do (or avoid) so that I do not share your bad experiences?

Stories, advice, recommendations, experiences, what to do, what not to do, etc. would be very much appreciated. If you can suggest a better way to learn what I need to know or do what I want to do, please say something.

1. I have been running my mediaserver setup for about two years or so. I main run Plex but have been running Jellyfin along side Plex for about half a year and this last week I decided to install Emby again. I actually didn't follow any youtube videos or tutorials I just installed and when I didn't understand something I did a search with a search engine to find the answer. With Plex, Jellyfin and Emby most of the time you either end up on their official documentation, Reddit posts on their official sub-reddits or on their official forums.

Quick-Start & Step by Step Guides for Plex Media Server | Plex Support

Quick Start This quick-start is the fastest way to set up and start using your very own Plex Media Server....

support.plex.tv

Installation | Jellyfin

The Jellyfin project and its contributors offer a number of pre-built binary packages to assist in getting Jellyfin up and running quickly on multiple systems.

jellyfin.org

Setup Guide | Jellyfin

Add a TV Tuner to Jellyfin (Automatic Discovery)

jellyfin.org

Installation | Emby Documentation

emby.media

2. I don't know I prefer buy my own hardware and I also run other stuff on my setup but when you go searching there are more than enough device capable of running a mediaserver. One thing to keep in mind if you buy something look for an intel cpu that support "Intel Quick Sync", this will make video transcoding for your system mediaserver easier if a client device doesn't support the video format, the other option is to use an Nvidia gpu(I use that). Then you will have to find a good Nvidia gpu, if you go that way let me know I will provide you a link to help you make a choice.

Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming | Plex Support

Tip!: Hardware-accelerated streaming is a premium feature and requires an active Plex Pass subscription. To play your video smoothly and...

support.plex.tv

Hardware Acceleration | Jellyfin

The Jellyfin server can offload on the fly video transcoding by utilizing an integrated or discrete graphics card (GPU) suitable to accelerate this workloads very efficiently without straining your CPU.

jellyfin.org

Hardware Acceleration on Linux | Emby Documentation

emby.media

3. One thing to do keep in mind is that Plex and Emby offer more client support, I am talking about apps that are supported on different devices. Plex makes you pay for mobile device stream and Emby makes you pay for client streaming on any device which is a one time payment for both if I can remember. Jellyfin is free and you have the official apple and third-party source app but has way less client support. The idea is to be able to stream from your tv so most tv's like LG and other should allow you to install them. If they don't you can buy devices that make your tv smart tv, such as Nvidia Shield and others. I'll just give you several links that will get you the idea.

Best Media Streaming Devices | Live streaming apps powered by Plex

Plex can enable the best streaming devices available to serve your content anywhere. Our live streaming app will give your media the Hollywood treatment.

www.plex.tv

Clients | Jellyfin

jellyfin.org

Emby

media server for personal streaming videos tv music photos in mobile app or browser for all devices android iOS windows phone appletv androidtv smarttv and dlna

emby.media

This is especially important if you are going to have external users(friends and family) streaming from you but if you are only going to be streaming locally for your home you only need to make sure you can stream for the devices in your home.
3. I just bought two disks dedicated for my mediaserver content. I just buy more than I think I will need, so that's more a person decision based on what you think you want yourself and what you think you need and what you are willing to spend.
4. I really don't have much stories but I did have a disk break once so make sure you are prepared in the case that happens or use raid, except for the fact that Jellyfin may take you longer to setup since it's less polished than Plex and Emby but that's my personal opinion. I like Plex the best as in user experience and has the most client support but it's quite corporate so it's closed source and you need a plex.tv acount to view your media,which is also why I dislike it. Emby is a good middle ground not opensource but not so corporate like Plex and you can run local users without needing an account for Emby Connect but you can choose to make authentication go through Emby Connect if you want. Jellyfin is opensource and supported by the community but less client support and less polished but it's still does the job quite well but takes a bit more effort to setup and you may need to install some plugins to add more functionality if you want/need it. I don't know what else to say but if you have any questions be sure to ask me.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I misread your title and only saw the mediaserver part. Just to add to that I only do file backup to an external location for my important person files and of configuration files.

 

[sphen]

This is a great start and I hope it keeps going. Thanks to @f33dm3bits for suggesting additional terminology, use cases, and ideas. This stuff is great!

Here is some additional random additional info, mostly background:

• HARDWARE - The Mac mini is an example server that happened to be nearby when I was typing. I will probably repurpose something like that, but I am willing to buy a new system if that makes sense. I can change out hardware like RAM and drives or add externals as needed.
• LOCAL LAN ONLY - My initial plan is to use the media services inside the home network (local LAN) only.
  • I know how to configure our networks and firewalls to share outside while keeping the LAN safe, but have little interest in setting it up.
  • Besides, our internet connection is asymmetric - 300 mbits/sec down, but only 10 mbits/sec up.
• ADDITIONAL USE CASES I HAD NOT CONSIDERED -
  • We still consume media (watch movies) on a regular TV in the home, so I had not considered portable devices like phones and tablets as endpoints.
  • We have another adult living with us. They watch videos mostly on their phone, streamed from the internet. They are unlikely to use the media server much, but I want to think about that.
  • Speaking for myself, I do not like to read books or watch media on a computer, but prefer paper books and a regular TV.
  • I have never owned a reader tablet, but storing a future library of books on the server is a possibility that I had not considered until now.
  • I listen to music on the computer all whenever I type or work, but that comes from CDs ripped to the local hard drive. Those CDs would be moved to the new server eventually and would free up internal SSD drive space, too.
• CURRENT BACKUP STRATEGY - For the record, I run the following backups at home:
  • Hourly automated file change (incremental) backups of all systems to protect ongoing work throughout the day.
  • Weekly backups of my personal computer to alternating, very fast, bootable drives. I shutdown the computer, boot from a special backup/recovery drive, and match the internal to the external backup drive.
    • At that point, booting from either drive is equally fast and operational. They are matched until the one that boots does an automatic activity, like checking email.
  • I backup and sync my partner's phone and tablet for her from time to time. It is mostly sync'ing changes to her calendar and contacts. I created an account on my personal computer for that.
  • Less frequent backups of everyone else's computers to disk images on other drives to match individual recovery needs. The hourly backups do a good job of simple recoveries.
  • Several times a year, the backups are assembled onto a 6 Tbyte drive. The drive is cloned to an "offsite" drive. An out-of-state visitor brings the other "offsite drive" and we swap for the current one. At that point, I have the current primary copy (like a "rolling release") and the returned previous backup. The returned backup stays unchanged until it is matched to the primary just before the next swap.

Oh yeah, reading the notes above and typing this out reminds me that I would like to provide additional home-only shared services from the same server. Add these services for sharing or to synchronize two devices (like a computer and a phone):

• Calendars
• Contacts
• Simple "To Do" List management or synchronization
• ... and maybe, reluctantly, password and key manager sync ... but LOCAL ONLY, never the internet.

I will never put that kind of sensitive personal data on internet-based servers, not ever. The same is true for password managers - local sync only, never on the internet. If I cannot sync devices through a USB cable (e.g., connect phone to computer to sync), than I might be willing to put up a local server on the local LAN to do it. Otherwise, I choose one device only.

(Thinking about it, that server would also be available as a contingency to add software development / configuration management / project management / tracking capabilities or whatever in the future. I think I am past those days, but I miss it, and I already started a small software project that I need.)

Anyway, this is a great start, and I hope it continues.

IGNORE:
(I do not like typing this, because cocky people usually get burned later by the unexpected. When my laptop was stolen around 7:00 PM one night, I was up and running the next morning with a newly purchased, fully recovered system. I lost only the work from the previous day, which had been done offsite. Since then, I learned to copy the day's changes to a USB drive and put it in my pocket when I leave a site. The main point is that backups are like insurance. The cost and effort pay for themselves handsomely when everything goes well, but there are lots of ways where it does not. The effort to get it right is hard, but once you get good habits going, it does not take much time or effort and is the right thing to do.)

(... and yes, the stolen laptop was fully encrypted. I am confident that no data was stolen. It was probably fenced "as is" for drug money. I doubt that the thief knew how to restore the laptop back to "factory" for someone else to use, but it is easy.)

 

[f33dm3bits]

Oh yeah, reading the notes above and typing this out reminds me that I would like to provide additional home-only shared services from the same server. Add these services for sharing or to synchronize two devices (like a computer and a phone):

• Calendars
• Contacts
• Simple "To Do" List management or synchronization
• ... and maybe, reluctantly, password and key manager sync ... but LOCAL ONLY, never the internet.

I will never put that kind of sensitive personal data on internet-based servers, not ever. The same is true for password managers - local sync only, never on the internet. If I cannot sync devices through a USB cable (e.g., connect phone to computer to sync), than I might be willing to put up a local server on the local LAN to do it. Otherwise, I choose one device only.

I use self-hosted Nextcloud to for my calendar, contacts and todo list, there is an app for it called Tasks which you can install on Nextcloud. For Android I use this paid app for it.

Tasks.org: to-do list & tasks - Apps on Google Play

Sync with Google Tasks, DAVxâµ, Nextcloud/ownCloud, EteSync, or use offline

play.google.com

I do keep have my Nextcloud server accessible via the internet but I have two-factor authentication enabled on all of the accounts, that way I can sync my contacts from anywhere and also update my calendar from anywhere in the world.

Here is some additional random additional info, mostly background:

• HARDWARE - The Mac mini is an example server that happened to be nearby when I was typing.
• LOCAL LAN ONLY - My initial plan is to use the media services inside the home network (local LAN) only
• ADDITIONAL USE CASES I HAD NOT CONSIDERED
• CURRENT BACKUP STRATEGY - For the record, I run the following backups at home:

As for hardware I'm not too much into hardware, I spend most of my time playing around with Linux and software configurations. If you only stream from within your home you won't need to configure anything special but if you do want to stream outside of your home you will need to configure ssl for your connections. With Plex it is quite easy and with Jellfyin and Emby it's a matter of setting up a vhost and reverse-proxying everything through 443. As for backup strategy, as I mentioned before I only do file backup of my important files and configuration files. You will probably know what's best for your situation and what you need.