What kind of box to run Emby on? Seems like all NAS's having problems

[Bingie 99]

4 hours ago, cayars said:

That's the same processor that runs my Synology 920+.

If you pick this up and want to play a bit before installing Linux Mint on it try XPEnology on it.
That could be quite interesting.

This is a much better buy then the ATOM based unit mentioned earlier by far and worth the difference in price.

XPEnology!  That's a great idea, I think I will.

My biggest beef with any NAS, besides the proprietary OS, is they all seem overpriced, and you are also hardware locked.  This way, I can pick my hardware, and pick my OS as well.  I might do a dual boot configuration, so I can do testing.  If I don't like one OS, or prefer another, just reboot!  If one OS breaks from an update, just reboot!  Run the other OS.

My comfort level just shot way up with this idea.  No, it's not raid, but don't need raid for home use.  A simple backup that kicks in at 3am each day will do just fine, for me anyways.

[Carlo 4561]

You can load XPEnology from a flash/thumb disk as well which makes it even easier and no need to purchase a drive to use in the computer if it doesn't come with one.

You would have something approaching a DS920+ in this fashion at least CPU/GPU wise.

Edited July 3, 2021 by cayars

[Bingie 99]

Yeah a flash drive would allow me to keep the windows MBR unchanged.  Do that first, for testing purposes.  Great idea.  

Thanks!

[Bingie 99]

Okay I just realized a flaw with my idea, is the formatting of the external drive. 

I'll have to pick a common/generic format that both windows and synology can read, but will probably lower performance and also waste space for every tiny file allocating large clusters.  I guess that is the tradeoff when you want the flexibility of switching your NAS OS on the fly.  Might be okay though.  Will test.

[Bingie 99]

Also, that box has internal room to add a 2.5" SSD or HD, so for performance reasons, I'll drop in an SSD and install the Synology on it.  Then use the BIOS to switch boot device between windows and synology.  Nice and tidy.

[Bingie 99]

Okay I've decided.

Okay after hours of researching Microsoft support of Linux filesystems, and Linux support of Microsoft filesystems, I have come to the conclusion that there will NEVER be cross compatibility with any degree of reliability.  Microsoft hates all competitors and will never really "work" with them reliably.

On Windows, if you want a reliable filesystem, format in NTFS.  But if you read the linuxkernel.org site, kernel support for NTFS has severe limitations, severe performance penalties, and can easily corrupt the NTFS filesystem.  Linux writing to NTFS "works" but don't be shocked when the NTFS filesystem gets damaged.

On Linux, if you want a reliable filesystem, format in btrfs.  But if you read Microsoft support sites, Windows support is read only.  There have been some attempts to enable write to btrfs, but forget about reliability.  Doesn't look like it will ever happen.

Older filesystems, like ext3/ext4 in Linux, and DOS FAT32 and FAT64, there is "some" cross compatibility, but you can toss reliability and fault tolerance and recovery out the window.  None of those were designed with fault prevention and recovery in mind.

So, it's one or the other.  Windows running Emby, or Linux running Emby.  Both can't safely read/write the same filesystem holding Emby media libraries.

I haven't tried Synology's Linux distro for NAS's yet, but I do love Linux, and I'm hopeful it is a good OS for a generic pc running as a NAS.

I've hated Microsoft since the 80's when they stole OS/2 code co-developed with IBM and sold it as Windows.  Bill Gates couldn't be trusted in college (he actually stole/reversed engineered other people's software and then SOLD IT in his name, read the book Hackers), and Microsoft has stolen everything they sell.  Stole windows from IBM, Word from Word Perfect, Excel from Lotus 1-2-3, Access from Ashton Tate's dBase, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.  Even their DOS memory manager stolen from QEMM.  Even MS-DOS was stolen from Digital Research DR-DOS (remember that?).

I'm ordering the above mini pc, and will install Synology OS on it.  Really hoping it works well, better than windoze that is.

Cheers

 

[Bingie 99]

I'm sorry to dig this thread back up, but is anyone here running Emby on OpenMediaVault?

Not to beat a dead horse, but I just discovered OpenMediaVault, and it looks a lot more professional than XPEnology, to me anyways.  I'll take Debian over Ubuntu any day.  I'll also take one installation ISO over a-la-carte whack-a-mole guess which bootloader + package to install.

How is Emby on OMV?  I see we have OMV install files for both docker on OMV, and Debian on OMV.  I'm guessing the docker version gets more love, since it can be installed anywhere that supports docker, but I may be wrong, dunno yet.

btw I ordered the above mini pc, will be here Wednesday, and I have a funny feeling I need a few extra USB and SSD sticks, to test multiple platforms.  Here we go again LOL!

I'd love to hear from anyone here running Emby on OMV, or Emby as docker too.  Do you consider OMV a good platform?  Is it stable?  Responsive support?  Stuff like that.

Thanks!

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by Bingyyyy

[Luke 42078]

@zachattack83 may have some OMV insight.

[Bingie 99]

I've been reading the OMV website all day, and watching the videos, and all I can say is...

It's too good to be true

OMV looks amazingly fantastic.  First Class.  The documentation is thorough, complete and extremely well done.  The videos are extremely useful and well done.  My guess is OMV is gearing up to be sold for millions, and it would be worth it.  I'm blown away how professional everything is.

When I get the hardware I ordered this Wednesday, I'll be installing OpenMediaVault, the Emby Docker, and the Intel GPU transcoding docker.  Looking forward to it.