General question where Emby Server is running best on which OS

[Painkiller88 250]

This is a question more to the devs and admins.

What would you personally say on what platform is emby server running best and most stable? Would you use Windows or Linux as your first choice Server?

I know linux will need less resources but maybe support of hardware transcoding is better on windows.

So if you need to choose, what would be your choice?

Thanks

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  Choose the platform you are most comfortable with.  That should be the main determining factor.

[Carlo 4561]

Couldn't agree more.  I certainly wouldn't go for a Linux install if you have no Linux experience for example. Go for the OS you know best and if you want to "play" with another version to learn the OS by all means!

You could always port your Emby Server from Windows to Linux or NAS for example down the road if you find you like a different OS better.

[EmbyKiwi 14]

@Painkiller8818

One caveat on the "use what you are comfortable with" theory  is if you plan on using the DVR feature with OTA tuners. 'Some' users have experienced issues with corruptions occurring when trying to watch a show that is still recording. This seems to be mainly on Windows server. Many users with Windows servers do not have this issue at all but we haven't been able to identify the difference that causes it. 

Some of those users who were having issues swapped to docker or Linux servers (on the same hardware) and the issue went away so ... if you are comfortable with Linux/Docker and plan on using your Emby server to record the NFL and watch it with a delayed start and skip through the ads, then you might want to start on one of those platforms rather than Windows. If you are only comfortable on Windows then give it a go and you might be fine!

There is apparently a new TV engine being worked on which will hopefully resolve these issues but there is no ETA for that.

[Carlo 4561]

I would not agree with that at all.  DVR works just fine for 99.99% of people on Windows and I'd say better than with other platforms as some tuners ONLY work right now in windows.

What is far more likely for the hand ful of people who have switched platforms is that they had some misconfiguration or corruption on the main system and by starting fresh got rid of the problem.

 

[EmbyKiwi 14]

@cayars I've reinstalled Emby a number of times on the same and different hardware and have consistently had the same issues so I don't believe it is a "misconfiguration or corruption". I have learnt to let it record and watch it later and then I have no issues at all. I use other solutions if I know I am going to want to watch while still recording. 

While I may be part of only  0.01% it doesn't change the fact that it 'can' happen in some unknown use case so I thought it worth mentioning.  Certainly not trying to imply it happens in all or even many cases and if the Op is not planning on using DVR then an Emby Windows server is truly awesome!

[pwhodges 2012]

I routinely watch while recording and skip forwards over ads (and back when I overshoot) without any problems - with a Windows 10 server.  I can even play subtitles this way (which I can't watching live for some reason).

Paul

[EmbyKiwi 14]

@pwhodges Now you are just making me jealous!

[Ahole 17]

Interesting question and answers - furthering this question ---   I am currently running Emby on a Synology NAS.  Is there any compelling reason to believe that the experience would be better on another OS , like Windows or Mac?  The NAS seems to be doing ok despite some occasional glitches and I'm not sure if that is bandwidth or CPU "power" etc?

[rbjtech 5284]

1 hour ago, Ahole said:

Interesting question and answers - furthering this question ---   I am currently running Emby on a Synology NAS.  Is there any compelling reason to believe that the experience would be better on another OS , like Windows or Mac?  The NAS seems to be doing ok despite some occasional glitches and I'm not sure if that is bandwidth or CPU "power" etc?

Which synology model do you have - there may be options to install more memory or add SSD/NVME disk to accelerate things further.

[Carlo 4561]

Synology in general seems to use low end CPUs in their NAS likely to save $ on hardware as well as electric costs.
Because of that you really want to make sure the NAS you purchase (if running Emby Server on it) support QuickSync which allows some complex decoding/encoding to get shifted over to the GPU vs running on the CPU.

Amount of memory as well as strategic use of NVMe can make a world of difference as well to how fast Emby Server runs on the NAS!

Carlo

[GeorgeCalli 19]

I'm currently running Emby Server on an Android Box with Android version 7.1.2.

Runs well, unless it doesn't when it can't find compatible streams. 

I was informed the I need to update firmware to Android 9 and above (a mine field of its own). 

This got me think of maybe it's time to find an alternative platform - although on Android it's been simple, as I control everything from the web. 

Any thoughts would be appreciated!