I have network storage. That’s it.
I want to watch anime? I open the series folder from the mounted network share and watch it in VLC. I want to listen to music while on my walk? I open Solid Explorer on my phone and play the MP3. I want to read ebooks? I just open the file in whatever reader app I want.
I have 5TiB of media and I’ve never felt the need to set up any kind of hosted frontend.
What am I missing out on? Anyone else run their NAS like this?
Thanks all.
You must log in or register to comment.
Today I’m dependent on my Jellyfin and Truenas setup, and I am exposing only one folder via SMB to manage my media from my laptop when I need to. This works great for me as I can stream my media to any of the multiple TVs and FireTV sticks around the house, and Jellyfin allows me to pause play on a device and resume on another.
My setup grew over time to adapt to my changing needs. If your setup works for you, that’s great! Keep it, use it and adapt it as soon as your needs change. This is the beauty of self-hosting: you setup what you need, how you need it.
I open the series folder from the mounted network share and watch it in VLC.
Similar, but I have a RPI by the TV running LibreELEC and Kodi.
I like front ends so I have a record of what I have and have not played, and so I can easily pickup where I left off with series and playlists, but to each their own
I see! That makes sense. Thank you :)
What do you prefer using?
Jellyfin, Immich, and Paperless-ngx are three of the apps I use the most but you do whatever works best for you. That’s half the advantage of self hosting. You can have a solution that’s custom tailored to your needs.
Absolutely!
What do you like about those that make your experience better?
Not me. I need nextcloud and jellyfin. I use nextcloud for my calendar, task, note, photos, contacts etc. Jellyfin, well, media.
I dont have gdrive, icloud, spotify stuff like that. So, i need to host it myself.
Makes sense! Thank you :)
I ran mine like this for years. Then a few weeks ago I installed Immich so we can browse photos directly from the NAS on our phone. That’s how it will stay. I don’t want it to turn into an application server.
I run my NAS that way too. I just mount it and play videos with VLC if I want to watch something I have on it. The main reason I have a NAS is because I ran out of drive bays in my main system a few years ago… Works fine for my needs currently; no need to make it more complicated.
I’m a fan of simplicity.
Which software do you use to run your NAS? I have TrueNAS scale.
My NAS just stores, its my stack of tmm’s that do all the heavy lifting.
Though I use a front end for everything, like jellyfin, audiobookshelf, kavita, etc.
What is a “tmm” stack? Sorry for my ignorance.
I’ve basically got everything thrown into a Samba share on Linux then most media is consumed via the Infuse app for iOS, macOS.
As for music, I have some lossless/hifi that I can stream via Apple’s Music app too.
I’m one or those as well, but instead of VLC I use NOVA player on Android devices because of the remote sync.
Said that I’m using WebDAV shares as SMB is way slower. Is it just me? Any other protocol suggestion?
No. I like my laptop to backup over the internet. I like my phone to use my nas for photos instead of Apple.
Yes. And No.
I have a home made (arch btw) NAS that stores all our files - mostly via syncthing, even from remote family.
That was it.
Then I installed Immich so that we could see the photos… so… it’s technically just a NAS, but it does now have a web application running on it…
Videos & Music are on a completely separate MythTV box which existed before the NAS - I saw no point in moving ~3TB of data to a separate box that would need to be powered when I want to watch / listen to something… my NAS powers itself up & down throughout the day to save electricity (and it was interesting to learn how to make it know when it was / wasn’t being used)
Nice! Thank you for sharing your experience. :)
How did you get your NAS to know when it was being used?
I have much the same:
- Files on the network with NFS
- Kodi on an old laptop under the TV so we can watch said files.
- Syncthing on our phones and laptops to pull films from there onto that file server.
The only difference is that I’m using a Synology 'cause I have 15TB and don’t know how to do RAID myself, let alone how to do it with an old laptop. I can’t really recommend a Synology though. It’s got too many useless add-ons and simple tools like rsync never work properly with it.
I don’t really get the whole NAS thing i must admit. Most of what I read about what people are doing is enabling slacker family and friends ? (That’s not a critisism, just an observation)
I have a TV, a HDD connected on the router and Kodi on the Nvidia Shield Pro. Any music is stored on my phone, or streamed via Netradio
I very occasionally copy media across to my phone to watch and then… it sits there and I dont watch it.
My parter uses Kodi on the TV occasioanly.
I don’t stream anything aside from some YT occasionally (DIY etc)
I get people do endless shit with their NAS, or server but I’m am retired and don’t have the time
Books are managed via Calibre on a a Kobo.
My NAS ist almost exclusively backups. Just installed TrueNAS to have a GUI for ZFS and NFS.
I used to. I once turned a laptop into a Windows media server just to host movies and music for the house. That was fun
