What kind of specs matter most for a NAS?

Budget is really more about value than anything, I have money to spend, but I don’t like to overspend or waste. Otherwise there are things I know, and things I don’t. :) I do know linux, and some docker. I have built a few pc’s over the years. But I don’t really keep up with hardware stuff. The idea to have a NUC and a NAS just came from what I was reading as it seemed to be what people do. And the plan was to get a pre-built NAS and a mini pc. That way the whole project doesn’t get so big it is overwhelming. The software stuff can be complicated from what I read. But I work in software, and I could use more time with docker and such. I was pricing things out when I got thinking about the connection between them, and thus how many ethernet ports I needed on the minipc. It sounds like people are saying that network speeds through a switch should be more than fast enough. I know this is probably the more expensive route, but I think the total cost may be at least reasonable. The minipc is like $169. Seems like the NAS is like $500. And a few hundred for drives. So maybe under a k. The way prices are these days, that doesn’t feel terrible. But I don’t really have a scope on costs for hardware.

Can you elaborate on why you wouldn’t recommend it for someone just starting out?

Well, mainly it is just what I read in various “guides”. But also it sounds easier to assemble… the minipc is just a box, no need to do any hardware stuff. And I think the NAS is pretty much the same. Plus it would allow me to easily start small on space and then add more (I think).

Also, I think it would be quieter. I assume putting it all in one would mean basically a tower with lots of fans and what not. The minipc is supposed to be pretty quiet. Don’t know about the NAS though.

yeah, I am totally with you. For the media server, I just don’t know how much money I want to put into backing it up. For the important stuff. I really wish I knew of an offsite backup that I felt like I could trust. But most business models’ these days seem to be hinged on hoping nothing ever goes wrong… or just paying if it does.

I thought there was a raid setting where it basically duplicated the data across the drives such that if any one of them fail it can recreate the data. That should at least cover the “local” backup part. For more important things like family videos and such I have external drives that are offline unless I am uploading new videos and such. But really I should have some kind of offsite backup for that kind of stuff.

ok, I see. So network is fast enough. That works for me. The miniPC only has 500gb. So that is why I figure I need the extra storage. As for a backup, I figured I would have to raid it. The only other option I can think of would be to run a second NAS or something. And that seems like overkill.

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There are a lot of things there I don’t know much about… yet. People have said that the issues in the news don’t apply to the linked mini pc because it is a 12 gen. I haven’t even picked a distro to install on it yet, so I don’t know much about the versions. And I don’t have any idea what ReBAR is in this context…

while enabling the subtitle burn-in for all complex formats helped… the subtitles show up a little early. And instead of just forced, it shows them all the time. It also didn’t totally solve the problem. Seems like the issue is triggered at the transition points where forced subtitles would start or stop. The playback jumps to some others spot in the show, and the subtitles end up being from a totally difference scene. :(

Thanks to @[email protected] and @[email protected] Windows event viewer put me on the right path. The errors were coming from the .net installation. Which reminded me that I had recently uninstalled visual studio, and that jellyfin uses .net. Rerunning the jellyfin installer fixed the .net issue and I am up and running again.

Thanks, that had info I could work with.

Winner winner chicken dinner. It’s been a few years since I had to do any real debugging on windows and I totally forgot about the event viewer. Thanks for the tip.

For anyone reading along, looks like there is a problem with my .net installation. That is probably because I uninstalled visual studio recently. It “shouldn’t” have caused an issue, but M$…

Mine doesn’t handle forced subtitles right or something. But I haven’t started trying to tweak it yet. But when I watch like “invasion”. It struggles during the Japanese scenes. The subtitles get out of sync and then eventually stop showing up all in one episode. Someone else mentioned something that might be the same and a trick for it that I will try soon.

I don’t really understand the transcoding thing 100%. Like I get that something has to convert it from what is on disk to what you can see. But it isn’t clear to me if things like my roku streaming stick or tivo streaming stick are doing the transcoding or if my current server is. And I am not really sure which I would want either.
On the running out of storage situation… if I get like a 2 bay NAS. And I run out of storage, what are my expansion options there? I assume I would have to get a bigger NAS. And would I just be able to transfer the hard drives? Couldn’t I do the same with the PC, as long as I have a separate boot drive. (Just move the storage drives to a NAS?) And overall, I guess I probably want the easiest way. Seems like a NUC and a NAS isn’t too expensive, and I am assuming it is easiest.

Thanks. I don’t have anything leftover lieing around. I have two kids and used up all my old stuff to make computers for them during the pandemic. So right now I am seeing things on the internet saying to buy a NUC as the server. At least that should be pretty quite. And then add on a NAS. I will have to consider just building a PC and giving it a ton of storage though. Might not be much cheaper though, and certainly would be more work.

Thanks for the great info. It helped correct a lot of things I had wrong in my head. One odd thing occurred to me. Should I be using a NAS? If the NAS is for storing media, and all the clients will be going through jellyfin on the server, shouldn’t I just put the storage in the server? Seems like everything I read talks about having a NAS for a media server though, so I assume I am missing something.

My plan was to run linux and use docker to run the actual software. I have a decades of experience “using” linux, but while I technically administer linux boxes for work, I’ve never had to really dig deep. They are all in the cloud, so if things go wonky, you just setup a new instance. We use kubernetes and docker also. So linux and docker seem like they should be very doable for me, and even a great learning opportunity. I really should understand docker better in my line of work. :) So no need for a fancy UI on the box. Other than initial setup, I will probably just be SSH’ing into it.

oh, hardlink. Linux I am guessing then? I am on windows for now. And it has been years since I tried to make a link in windows. I don’t recall it going well back then. :) So what do you mean by finished seeding? Someone else implied they only seeded to some limit. What is the story there?

So you are intentionally keeping two copies of things?

but why would you want to stop seeding?