Storage / server setup Recommendations - how do you do it?

[Ahole 13]

So I have been a long term Synology NAS owner.  The main function for my NAS has been personal and business photo/video and probably most important document storage.  But also used for personal and business Surveillance.
I have ran Emby on the Synology for years.

Recently had a few issues with noticing that the Synology was running pretty hard (CPU-wise) with Emby usage - esp if I had several concurrent users (the most would be 4 or 5). I purchased a fairly high end NUC and setup Ubuntu server on the NUC.  And began learning Linu better.

Then I installed Emby in a docker container (within Portainer).  I have recntly had some issues that I think might be due to accessing network shares mounted on the NUC server accessing the Synology NAS data.  I have a thread in the testing or beta area discussing my issues with hanging media folder scans.

Anyway it got me thinking -- should I start keeping my media (most of which is downloaded anyway) not on my NAS - maybe on an external hard drive directly connected to my NUC.  The only issue is that I have about 10 or more TB of media.  So size is the biggest issue.  As far as keeping it on my NAS - the RAID redundancy isn't needed for this media and I don't even include it in my local and external NAS backups.  Do others have a NAS but not use it for your media data storage?

Thoughts or ideas are welcome  thanks

[Luke 39319]

Hi, what model Synology is it? 

[Ahole 13]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what model Synology is it? 

DS920+

[bakes82 151]

Id assume you didnt pass thru the GPU to docker and arent using hardware acceleration. There a numerous youtube videos on setting up plex that show you how to pass the gpu thru, not sure if there are emby ones but the method would be the same.

[Eigeplackter 79]

I can tell you the DS920+ is still one of the best NAS systems for native Emby Server deployment and playback with HW transcoding.

It's one of the last Synology systems that's based on an Intel CPU with a graphic chip.

 

I have been using the DS920+ since 2020, no problems.

If storage space is an issue, you have the option to expand it with a DX-517, which I did, but it costs nearly as much

as the DS920+.

 

Nowadays I'm running a RS2416 that just hosts the media, the emby server is still running on the DS920+ and uses the

smb share on the rackstation. There are cheaper options for a storage, but I got a really good deal fpr the used RS2416.

 

 

[yaksplat 62]

I bought a 24 bay server that holds and backs up all of my media.  But it's not good at transcoding, so I'm considering shifting the Emby server duties to my desktop that I'm considering decommissioning as my work computer. It's got a decent nvidia card in there as well. 

[Ahole 13]

13 hours ago, Eigeplackter said:

I can tell you the DS920+ is still one of the best NAS systems for native Emby Server deployment and playback with HW transcoding.

It's one of the last Synology systems that's based on an Intel CPU with a graphic chip.

 

I have been using the DS920+ since 2020, no problems.

If storage space is an issue, you have the option to expand it with a DX-517, which I did, but it costs nearly as much

as the DS920+.

 

Nowadays I'm running a RS2416 that just hosts the media, the emby server is still running on the DS920+ and uses the

smb share on the rackstation. There are cheaper options for a storage, but I got a really good deal fpr the used RS2416.

 

 

I agree that the DS920+ is an awesome machine but I noticed that I was often seeing over 50% cpu usage and occasionally more

 I use it for Surveillance Station, and all of my -arrs run through it.  I just felt like a separate media server was the way to go so it never even broke the slightest sweat

 I just forgot about permission issues and dependency on the network!   So that’s what made me think about media storage in a more rapidly accessible way for that separate media server.  Of course leaving everything on the NAS could be the simplest

[JuJuJurassic 42]

I have a dedicated box for Emby, 8 cores, 64 GB RAM, and another box, linked by 2x 10GB links to store the media. One share and link for films, another share/link for tvshows. I found a new Dell t340 for the storage server at a very good price and put trueNAS on it, which is excellent.

It gives me plenty of potential for expansion and just runs. Admittedly it's scheduled to turn on and off when we're all asleep, and still costs  £0.89 or $1.12 a day to run, but it's a very nice solution.

I hope this helps

UK Electricity is expensive!!!

[Ahole 13]

31 minutes ago, JuJuJurassic said:

I have a dedicated box for Emby, 8 cores, 64 GB RAM, and another box, linked by 2x 10GB links to store the media. One share and link for films, another share/link for tvshows. I found a new Dell t340 for the storage server at a very good price and put trueNAS on it, which is excellent.

It gives me plenty of potential for expansion and just runs. Admittedly it's scheduled to turn on and off when we're all asleep, and still costs  £0.89 or $1.12 a day to run, but it's a very nice solution.

I hope this helps

UK Electricity is expensive!!!

Would like to learn more about the "10gb links" between the 2 boxes and to specifically accomplish that -- if you have time give me some more details or DM THANKKS
And crap - UK electricity must be expensive!