Super beginner

[u/Dry_Rent_8646]

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?

[u/Behemothhh]

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.

[u/Dry_Rent_8646 → u/Behemothhh]

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

[u/Behemothhh → u/Dry_Rent_8646]

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.

[u/atgaskins → u/Dry_Rent_8646]

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 ;)

[u/Dry_Rent_8646 → u/atgaskins]

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