VPS or dedicated server that allows running emby with 10 or more users

[Dannick 1]

AWS took down my Windows VPS instance (US location) just after 3 days. I run emby through port 8096 and mount google drive for emby libraries. I only have movies and TV shows in my drive and I did nothing more but my VPS got taken down after few days (maybe due to copyright laws)

So, please recommend me some VPS or dedicated server which allows running emby and mounting google drive for 10 or more users.

Should I choose offshore VPS for running emby and mounting google drive?

I'll be direct streaming movies but most users are going to transcode videos (because they have pretty bad internet)

Plus

Does Hetzner allow running emby and mounting google drive?

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, no one can really answer this question because we don't know the format of your media or clients that will be used and what bandwidth they have available.  That will determine if you can get by with just direct playing or if you will need transcoding of files.

If these 10 users will be using your system everyday you may have issues trying to run your server off of Google Drive as you could easily hit their limits for the day.

I just wanted to throw that out there.

Hopefully some other users who use Google Drive can comment to give you a better answer based on real world experience and have already figured out the best way to achieve what you want to do.

[Dannick 1]

11 minutes ago, cayars said:

Hi, no one can really answer this question because we don't know the format of your media or clients that will be used and what bandwidth they have available.  That will determine if you can get by with just direct playing or if you will need transcoding of files.

If these 10 users will be using your system everyday you may have issues trying to run your server off of Google Drive as you could easily hit their limits for the day.

I just wanted to throw that out there.

Hopefully some other users who use Google Drive can comment to give you a better answer based on real world experience and have already figured out the best way to achieve what you want to do.

@cayarsMy media format is mostly H264 and of high quality which doesn't need transcoding but most of my users will transcode them because they have bad internet. Plus, users will mostly use Emby Web app.

Some companies like Hetzner provide 1Gb/s internet speed and allow unlimited traffic which is good for streaming from emby.

I know Google drive has daily limit and it's okay for me.

I just want to know some VPS or dedicated server recommendations which is good for running emby for 10 or more users

Edited July 20, 2021 by Dannick

[Carlo 4561]

The question I would want to know is how many transcodes the VPS is going to be able to handle at one time.  That will likely be your main factor.

 

[Dannick 1]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

The question I would want to know is how many transcodes the VPS is going to be able to handle at one time.  That will likely be your main factor.

 

@cayars Can you tell me if simultaneous transcoding depends on CPU cores? or other CPU factors?

What type of CPU can handle about 5 simultaneous transcoding?

I think it's not quite possible that all 10 users are watching movies at the same time. (transcoding at the same time) 

[rodainas 191]

Cpu dependant

[rodainas 191]

If you want that many simultaneous transcodes with a vps you will have a hard time, thats dedicated territory

[Carlo 4561]

1 minute ago, rodainas said:

If you want that many simultaneous transcodes with a vps you will have a hard time, thats dedicated territory

That's my thinking as well.  You either need a lot of cores or access to the GPU of the machine to use for hardware based transcoding.

The only other alternative is to have a "lite" version of each file that can be played back on almost any client.

[Dannick 1]

3 minutes ago, rodainas said:

If you want that many simultaneous transcodes with a vps you will have a hard time, thats dedicated territory

@rodainasPlease recommend any dedicated server company for running Emby that meets my needs

Edited July 20, 2021 by Dannick

[rodainas 191]

Every case is different

I serve like 10-15 users

maybe one or two simultaneous transcodes max, from 1080, forget 4k if doubting.

Using Hetzner, is very good, best bang for the buck, the peeing to America is not the best, but with cloudfare I can stream at least 30~mbit videos with rare or none interruptions.

[rodainas 191]

Also you want to avoid transcode as much as possible, because of the peering with the clients can be sometimes unstable.

I would recommend media with 5~mbps bitrate max.

[Dannick 1]

4 minutes ago, cayars said:

That's my thinking as well.  You either need a lot of cores or access to the GPU of the machine to use for hardware based transcoding.

The only other alternative is to have a "lite" version of each file that can be played back on almost any client.

@cayars Does using CPU mean hardware based transcoding?

(Hetzner gives Hexa-Core CPU if I buy AX41)

Sorry for my dumb question

[Dannick 1]

7 minutes ago, rodainas said:

Every case is different

I serve like 10-15 users

maybe one or two simultaneous transcodes max, from 1080, forget 4k if doubting.

Using Hetzner, is very good, best bang for the buck, the peeing to America is not the best, but with cloudfare I can stream at least 30~mbit videos with rare or none interruptions.

@rodainasWhat type of Hetzner dedicated server are you using?

                         AX41?

[rodainas 191]

No need for me to go to that dimension.

95% of the time my users direct play, I try to mantain low bitrate 1080p media for everyone stability.

I use a vps as I only need 1 transcode, it can handle 2 if the scenario arises, using the cores to the limit.

[rodainas 191]

If you are curious its cx21

[Dannick 1]

9 minutes ago, rodainas said:

Also you want to avoid transcode as much as possible, because of the peering with the clients can be sometimes unstable.

I would recommend media with 5~mbps bitrate max.

@rodainas Now I'm testing with AWS. I can't play videos well (buffering) at first due to peering difficulties as you said.

                         but I can play 20 Mbps movies easily with no buffering and no interruptions when I'm connected to NordVPN.

                        For your info, I'm not using Cloudflare and I'm not living in USA.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Dannick

[rodainas 191]

If you are in Europe, it should be easier for you than me, as Hetzner has Germany and Finnland datacenters.

[rodainas 191]

Hetzner allow you to test, they charge per hour until you reach the monthly quota.

You can do a test for a couple of days and cancel anytime before the month if you want.

[Dannick 1]

2 minutes ago, rodainas said:

If you are in Europe, it should be easier for you than me, as Hetzner has Germany and Finnland datacenters.

@rodainas I'm living in Southest Asia and I think it's going to be a problem with peering.

I don't know why NordVPN works to solve my peering problems.

Could using VPN become the solution for my peering problems if I don't have Cloudflare?

CX21 is shared CPU, right?

How much percentage of CX21 CPU can you use at most?

[rodainas 191]

The only way is testing, as nordvpn has servers around the globe with good peering, the same for cloudfare, they get better peering than trying to connect to a server that far away directly, in the majority of cases of course.

CX are shared correct, they are all vps.

With two transcodes at the same time testing it, it reached 95% (the 2 vcores).

Running java, emby, rclone mostly.

Edited July 20, 2021 by rodainas

[Dannick 1]

32 minutes ago, rodainas said:

The only way is testing, as nordvpn has servers around the globe with good peering, the same for cloudfare, they get better peering than trying to connect to a server that far away directly, in the majority of cases of course.

CX are shared correct, they are all vps.

With two transcodes at the same time testing it, it reached 95% (the 2 vcores).

Running java, emby, rclone mostly.

@cayarsThanks for info

Do you use rclone to mount google drive?

Can you share what rclone commands and flags you use for smooth streaming in Emby?

Cause what you're doing is pretty much similar to me.

[rodainas 191]

Sure

rclone mount --config=/root/.config/rclone/rclone.conf --allow-other --fast-list --uid=1000 --gid=1000 --umask 002 --timeout 1h --transfers=16 --checkers=8 --tpslimit 10 --max-read-ahead=256M --poll-interval=1m --dir-cache-time 1000h --vfs-cache-mode writes --vfs-cache-max-age 1h --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 2048M  --vfs-read-chunk-size 64M --buffer-size 64M

[rodainas 191]

Just to let you know.

Tested 2 transcodes with 2 clients simultaneously at 5mbps@1080p, it worked with no pauses or slowdowns. With 3 the playback for all 3 gets stopped.

[Carlo 4561]

2 hours ago, Dannick said:

@cayars Does using CPU mean hardware based transcoding?

That would be considered software transcoding.

Hardware transcoding would be using the GPU (graphical processor unit) and the built in decode/encode functions of the GPU.

[Dannick 1]

11 hours ago, rodainas said:

Just to let you know.

Tested 2 transcodes with 2 clients simultaneously at 5mbps@1080p, it worked with no pauses or slowdowns. With 3 the playback for all 3 gets stopped.

@rodainasDid you enable throttling or not?

I think CX 21 has 2 cores vCPU.

So, does it mean it can handle up to 8 simultaneous transcoding if I use 8 cores vCPU from Hetzner?