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

[Ahole 14]

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 40082]

Hi, what model Synology is it? 

[Ahole 14]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what model Synology is it? 

DS920+

[bakes82 159]

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 63]

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 14]

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 43]

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 14]

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!

[kbeck 44]

Hi. I have a dedicated older Dell box for the Emby server connected to the Living Room tv so we can watch directly. All my data is on (4) 8 TB drives and (1) 16 TB. I have a copy set as backup and kept at out vacation house in case of disaster. Bring it home twice a year to mirror the drives. Need to add more drives and thinking about a 6 bay Expansion. Out of USB ports unless I go to a powered hub. Thinking 2 expansion bays will make the hauling back and forth easier.

[Gilgamesh_48 1131]

I have a dedicated Windows PC that is of about average performance on it I run my Emby server and I use StableBit's DrivePool to combine currently 13 USB hard drives into one large drive. Except for when I do something stupid it has worked for years with little problem. It even works fine when i use Emby's live tv functionality. 

I do keep all metadata with the video files and I make sure that Windows does not do anything screwy when upgrades happen. I even had ChannelsDVR running on that computer for a few years but I stopped using it so I removed it from the computer. 

With that number of drives it does take Windows a while 5-10 minutes to fully boot but that is not a problem as I never shut down my server except for those updates and once every month or so just to keep Windows fresh. 

Now to qualify the above I do NOT allow remote access and, mostly, I am the only user but I do know it handles 3 local users just fine. 
I do not use any SSDs or other things to speed up Emby and, except for where thee have been bugs or Windows get "confused" I find Emby plenty fast. 

For me DrivePool is the way to go for multiple drive for many reasons but the main one is that if something goes horribly wrong DrivePool stores everything in native format so any Windows or Linux computer can read the files and I can get any file I want off the drives and onto any other drive without much difficulty. DrivePool even has automatic folder duplication so every folder you enable duplication on has a redundant copy on another drive. If you lost a drive the only files lost are the ones you do not have duplication enabled on. 
I have had to rely on duplication a few times because of drive crashes and every time DrivePool just recreated the duplication after I replaced the drive. Note: Duplication is NOT backup it is redundancy and that is quite different from backup. 

If you were to ask me if my setup is the best possible I would have to say it is best for me. But it might not be good for others.