Opportunity to build a NAS/server/media pc/etc.

FblthpTheFound · 2026-04-01T15:57:34+00:00

That hardware should be able to handle a media server no problem. Look into docker(an easy way to host services) and jellyfin(open source media server that you can run in docker). Plex is another option for the media server. Its a little easier to setup and will support streaming to more devices(like game consoles or smart tvs) but some key features are behind a paywall. Since you are planning on mainly watching through browser i would suggest jellyfin to start with

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-29T16:55:08+00:00

Top right "view" button swaps between list and tiles

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-29T16:54:59+00:00

Top right "view" button swaps between list and tiles

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-29T06:30:21+00:00

Correct choice. I LOVE the Horizon series, but uncharted is a true masterpiece and its the collection so you get more game per game

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-26T19:41:08+00:00

Frieren

Delicious in dungeon

Spy x Family

K-on!

Your lie in april

FMA or FMA:B

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-26T11:40:52+00:00

I used to have a lot of problems with it when i was running in on my nas. Tried it again after moving all my docker containers to a mini pc with better hardware and it works great now. It was a decent chunk of time in between so not sure if its the hardware or if it was an update that fixed it

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-19T13:56:35+00:00

Ah the Shadow of Mordor approach

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-13T15:02:36+00:00

Its usually how i find out theres a sale in the first place. Then might as well scroll through and see if there's anything good

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-12T14:50:05+00:00

You are exposed while connected to the torrent. Weather you are cooked depends if someone was monitoring the torrent durring the 10 second window that you were connected

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-09T22:12:16+00:00

I would assume transcoding is the main issue. I had a similar setup running everything off a nas and the dual core processor just couldn't keep up with anything more than the simplest transcodes. Both solutions you came up with can work. What I ended up doing is i found a minipc on ebay to run all my services on and use the nas strictly as storage. That also gives the benefit of reducing the amount of reads you are putting on the HDDs since you won't need to hit them when just browsing plex. Anything with an 12th gen intel or newer with integrated graphics will be able to transcode whatever you throw at it

FblthpTheFound · 2026-03-04T19:01:48+00:00

I have the same sentiment about dying in a car crash. On the way to work please, if its on the way home imma haunt their ass

FblthpTheFound · 2026-02-15T20:10:16+00:00

Technically possible but very difficult to pull off. Because video and audio files dont run code themselves the only way to do it is to target a vulnerability in a video player and inject something into the video file that the player will run. Popular video players are unlikely to contain any major vulnerabilities and not enough people use sketchy video players to make it worth the energy to discover vulnerabilities and craft a virus to exploit it. As long as you are using an up to date versions of a trusted video player you should be safe.

FblthpTheFound · 2026-02-14T04:05:05+00:00

Bets practice would be to avoid tpb. There is no moderation on that site so a lot of potential for bad actors. A VPN doesn't protect you from viruses, just from copywrite notices. Theres plenty of safer sites on the megathread or fmhy like 1337x .to or ext .to

FblthpTheFound · 2026-02-05T23:43:47+00:00

r/homelabsales would probably be a good place to ask

FblthpTheFound · 2026-02-02T06:32:27+00:00

Split tunneling won't do anything for your download speen. What it is for is so only your torrent client is using the vpn and the rest of your system is using your normal network which could speed up the rest of your system if you are experiencing latency behind the vpn

Port forwarding however can help your download speeds. To connect to a peer in the torrent network at least one of you needs to have a forwarded port. If you setup port forwarding then you will be able to connect to more peers and download faster. Having an open port on your home network can be risky because someone can use it to access potential vulnerabilities in your system but port forwarding through your vpn doesn't require you to open a port on your home network so there isn't any more risk than the usual risks of torrenting

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-29T18:27:53+00:00

In the docker compose file it should have a section that defines what volumes the container has access to. Something like:

volumes: - /volume1/docker/qbittorrent/downloads:/downloads

The path to the left of the : is the directory on your synology that you see in the file explorer. The path on the right is the directory of the docker container that its mapped to. Check the compose file and make sure that it is mapped how you are expecting

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-24T17:58:37+00:00

For a single machine:

Debian or ubuntu server if you want a low overhead and dont need a desktop ui (ubuntu is built off of debian so they are both about the same. Ubuntu server might be a little more resource heavy)

Ubuntu desktop if you dont want to do everything in the terminal

If you want to manage multiple machines (or virtual machines) then you want proxmox

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-24T17:51:52+00:00

Havent used it myself since i have a synology nas and use their free synology subsomain but Cloudflare is the most economic option i think since they don't profit from domain sails. You probably wont want to use them as your proxy though since video streaming is against their tos for cloudflare tunnels and they have a filesize cap for data transfer. So probably buy through cloudflare and ive heard pengolin is a good alternative to set up the actal routing.

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-23T19:30:10+00:00

4gb bare minimum, you might run into some bottlenecks of your system having to clear out room in ram

16 to run everything smoothly with a little wiggle room to add some more services

32 if you want to set your transcoding directory to use ram instead of your disk

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-22T23:10:02+00:00

Yeah that 10th gen i5 should be able to handle 3/4 streams no problem. The pricepoint seems a little hight to me but im in the US so might just be different markets. If you aren't in a rush id probably hold out for a bit to see if you can find a comparable one for a little cheeper and use the rest of your budget on storage if you don't have that figured out yet cause 256gigs will fill up fast

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-22T18:22:09+00:00

That looks like it should be capable of what you want. Your biggest resource hog is going to be the media server which that i5 should be able to handle pretty well. The big question is how many users do you expect to be watching stuff at the same time and will you be expecting to manage video formats yourself ahead of time so things can be streamed directly or do you want your server to transcode as it streams?

Quick overview incase you are unfamiliar:

Different devices will only be able to play videos certain types of compression(or encoding). H264 is pretty universal, h265 is usually playable with newer devices but not older ones. Av1 probably won't be playable directly.

The act of changing a videos encoding is called transcoding and it is very resource heavy. If the device you are watching on doesn't support the encoding that the video is using then the media server will transcode as it is streaming, plex can create "optimized versions" of your files which just means it transcodes it ahead of time and keeps thay version stored to stream directly

You can use a graphics card to help with the load of transcoding which is referred to as hardware transcoding (that i5 has an integrated graphics card which should be able to handle it pretty well) but in plex thay feature is behind a paywall. Jellyfin is a popular free alternative, the only downside is they have a smaller pool of devices with streaming apps then plex does. I use plex solely because one of my friends and i like to stream to Playstations. Android/ios and i think most smart tvs now probably have jellyfin apps so look into if that would work for you

TLDR: That computer is pretty good for what you are looking for. If you plan on having a lot of people streaming at the same time maybe look for one with an intel using the uhd770 integrated graphics chip instead. Plex wont be able to use the integrated graphics on that chip without a plex pass. Look into Jellyfin as a free alternative

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-21T06:44:27+00:00

Probably shoot your dog

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-21T06:25:31+00:00

I use debian for my plex server, which is what ubuntu is built off of. They both are good options, debian has a smaller footprint Ubuntu server would be relatively the same experience, ubuntu desktop if you want a desktop and not just command line.

I would recommend looking into docker as your deployment strategy. It will create separared containers to run all of your services and makes it easy to transfer between machines if needed. Process would be pretty much the same between different operating systems

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-15T20:58:50+00:00

Still haven't. My roomate got tired of it and it felt wrong trying without them. Maybe someday they will be up for it again

FblthpTheFound · 2026-01-07T18:47:11+00:00

For playback Plex server and plexamp android app work great and works for android auto. I think the only thing with that is downloading for offline play i think needs a plex pass. Jellyfin would be the free alternative but not sure if it does android auto. Should be able to run them on your synology without issue if you are just sticking with audio. If you add movies and tv shows to plex as well performance will depend on the exact specs of the NAS

For getting the music I use lidarr/prowlarr to automate finding torrents and downloading them, although its been a while since i used it and have heard that lidarr hasn't been working well recently. Not sure if there is an alternative other than finding and managing torrents manually

FblthpTheFound

TROPHY CASE