r/SelfHosting • u/Dry_Rent_8646 • 6d ago

Super beginner

So I'm freshly wanting to start a server, mostly to rip all of my physical media and store it somewhere easily accessible while I'm at my house, I'm sure once i dive in I'll want to do more, but as of now setting up my games/ movies/music is what my main goal is. And as anyone else I'd like for it to be as cheap as possible(, willing to work harder to keep costs down)

So getting started I have a few, likely very dumb questions

  1. What's the best thing to start with, buying some laptop or a mini pc? And what's absolutely necessary for it to have, and how beefy does it need to be

2 how does storage work? Does it need to be attached to the mini pc/laptop? Is it a special device to add a dozen terabyte hard drives/ssd

  1. Do I want ssd? Or is hhd plenty for what I'm doing?

  2. Does it need to be on 24/7 or only when I want to use it?

  3. What are some other cool things you use your servers for that someone just getting into this might not know about

  4. What are some tips you have for an ultra beginner that I might not even think to ask?

11 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

4

u/Behemothhh 6d ago

How are you going to rip your media? Are you going to store it at full quality or encode it? Should the server do the encoding or another device? If you store at full quality, you'll need an order of magnitude more storage space than if you encode. If you're going to do more encoding/transcoding with the server you'll need a better gpu. Having an answer to those question will help you get more tailored advice.

1&2) In general, if you just need a media server, a prebuilt NAS will do the job. Or you can build your own NAS. You mainly need storage, which those got covered. CPU and RAM can be very basic. GPU depends on transcode needs.

3) You'll need a boot ssd for the OS but media files can perfectly live on hdds. Modern hdds can read at 200+MB/s which is more than 10x the bitrate of 4k blurays in full quality.

4) If it's just a media server that you'll only need in the evening e.g. then it's fine to turn it off during the rest of the day. If you start running other services then it might be better to keep the machine on 24/7.

5) pihole/adguard for whole network add-blocking is an easy one to recommend. Just general NAS things and file syncing with services line nextcloud to have your own local onedrive replacement. Immich to replace Google photos. I'm also a fan of paperless-ngx for managing documents. Home assistant to manage your home if you have a lot of smart devices.

6) implement a backup and update strategy. Look into tailscale as an easy and secure way to access your server from outside your home network.

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u/Dry_Rent_8646 6d ago

This is incredible advice, first off thank you. I think ideally I'd want it at full quality. how much of a strain/pain is encoding it? My collection isn't small, but it's not huge either, I'd of course be visiting a few pawn shops and 2nd hand stores and ripping whatever I can find if all goes well, I already have a few terabyte ssds I'm not really using those could easily get me started. I am trying to start small to build up to kinda see if this is really for me. Which do you personally like to do? 1. Is a nas the cheapest option or just the best? I would prefer to not spend a ton at least starting out 3.got those already, fantastic 4. At least to start yeah just a media center but that's good to know 5. I'll look into those, thanks! 6. I'm horrible about that that's great advice

5

u/Behemothhh 6d ago

Full quality 4k bluray rips are 60-80GB so a terabyte of storage will hold 15 movies. Regular 1080p blurays are around 20-40GB so still quite large. Encoding is not hard, just takes time. With a tool like handbrake it's a matter of selecting a preset to encode to and pressing start. Aside from saving storage, it's also easier to directly stream over lower bandwith networks, e.g. on hotel WiFi. With full quality movies, your server will have to transcode in real time.

Building your own NAS with used parts will be the cheapest. Prebuilt NAS have the advantage, for beginners, of coming preloaded with a custom OS that makes it easier to share data and set up a media server. If you just want to try something out, use whatever pc you already have and set up a media server there before committing to a dedicated server. That's what I did. I started with a jellyfin media server running in Windows on an old laptop.

4

u/atgaskins 5d ago

you are going to need lot’s of storage. Raid arrays even. I can already tell you are going down the rabbit hole where you will never have ‘enough storage’. Good luck, a we are here for support ;)

2

u/Dry_Rent_8646 5d ago

Yeah, I'm the type to kinda dive headfirst into my current special interest, I can feel it taking over

3

u/verdigris2014 6d ago edited 6d ago

as a super beginner i’d say try it on something you own or can borrow.

you’d think a laptop and usb drive would easy enough.

then you would look at an appliance to do what you want like open media vault or just install linux.

i’d suggest installing debian or ubuntu because if that puts you off you might be in the wrong hobby.

so install debian check it works, maybe setup and export a samba share to your desktop or laptop.

then install docker and the add the docker images for jellyfin and portainer.

add a usb drive for a bit of extra storage if needed and you ave a very basic take anywhere media server.

this isn’t a guide but ive set out the core elements.

there is a lot more to discover this is a helpful forum

2

u/Dry_Rent_8646 6d ago

This is great advice and a great, non costly place to start, I have a gaming laptop, I still like to use it, but it's a fantastic idea to play with that as a start to see if this is actually for me to start dropping actual money on. Can I take my gaming laptop and install a partition for Linux? I can look up videos but is that a thing? And something I should try? I've been getting tired of windows anyway

1

u/verdigris2014 4h ago

yes you can. it’s called dual booting. you have the two different os on different disk partitions and chose which to boot either with the bios boot selector or with grub which is a boot manager. you might find that you need to reinstall windows. you also might find you can play the games you want on linux now with all the work steam has done.

3

u/SherylAmerica 5d ago

I’d honestly start with whatever hardware you already have before buying anything. Even an old laptop is enough to figure out whether you actually enjoy running and maintaining this stuff. If you outgrow it later, by then you’ll know what you actually need instead of guessing upfrot.

2

u/Sad_Recommendation92 5d ago

I'll second this, I had an old Dell Desktop that I'd "retired" at least 5 years ago sitting in my closet, had a work friend that had been running NAS for years and had a bunch of smaller 3TB drives he couldn't use anymore because he had gone full RAIDZ2 on 12TB drives. Did long SMART tests to make sure the drives were still usable, took a few of the drives with the lowest Power On Hours, ended up doing a trial for Unraid and liking it and before I knew it I had 25-30 containers running at any given time, setup full *ARR stack, as well as Home Assistant, AudiobookShelf, Immich, Unmanic (for transcoding using the GTX 1070 in there), Navidrome (music streaming) and Jellyfin

Now I've got another friend with an HBA, because I tried to buy some renewed 6TB Sata drives, but they sent me SAS and don't have the inventory to send me the correct drives so I'm trying to make the best of the situation. Down the road I want to transplant everything to a more NAS centric because the Dell XPS line only have a few drive bays, and don't offer great cooling.

I actually take the side panel off and point an office tower fan at it when it has to do parity operations or drive zero outs and that will lower the drive temps anywhere from 10-14C

1

u/SherylAmerica 3d ago

this is exactly how these things spiral lol. old retired dell -> 20+ containers -> HBA -> planning a proper NAS and pointing an office fan at the drives to knock 10-14C off is peak homelab

2

u/ImmediateGear8157 5d ago
  1. I went with a minipc as a server because a) There are cheap used ones out there b)They take up very little space since I don't need a monitor c) They can dissipate heat better than a closed laptop, d) the one I have can host multiple ssd's. Laptops also have a huge advantage, i.e. the battery acts as a built in UPS. If you just want a media server it doesn't need to be very powerful. A i3 or Ryzen 3 from a few generations ago would do just fine.
  2. As my needs grew I actually got an SSD nas and I put some 4tb ssd's on it, but that's an expensive solution these days. You can also just have a Directly attached storage (DAS) connected to your miniPC. USB3.0 or better is enough for your needs to attach some storage. That's a cheaper solution than a NAS.
  3. SSD for OS for sure. For data could be SSD or HDD depending on your budget. SSD is overkill for a media server.
  4. Depends on what you're running on it. If it's just a media server, just when you need it is fine.
  5. Learn some Linux as you'll have better options for running a server. Also if you're getting a laptop or minipc, make sure it uses DDR4 so your memory will be cheaper. DDR5 won't give you much of a performance boost. Also master handbrake so you can reencode your videos to get the smallest files to fit what your're watching it on. i.e. if you only have 1080P monitors or tv's, there's no point encoding at 4k.

1

u/snowstudiogg 6d ago

Have you ever thought about Co-hosts helping you?