So as I look to build my first dedicated media server, I’m curious about what OS options I have which will check all the boxes. I’m interested in Unraid, and if there’s a Linux distro that works especially well I’d be willing to check that out as well. I just want to make sure that whatever I pick, I can use qbittorrent, Proton, and get the Arr suite working
I use Unraid on my NAS. I like it for storage, I don’t like it for running services. It’s still running my media stack, but only until I get that moved to a Debian server.
Depending on how involved you want to be and what you want to learn, Unraid might be a good fit for you. It’s easy and mostly just works.
I second UNRAID, but also for your media stack. I have my home server running UNRAID and around 20 services, with zero issues.
I use Unraid and I’m loving it. Super stable, easy to manage, set up dockers, let’s me pool my hard drives and set up parity. Highly recommend. Only thing that I’ve had a hard time with is finding a stable flash drive - you’d be surprised how many start to fail when used 24/7
The thumb drive isn’t used all the time. I’ve been using a cheap USB drive that cost me like $12 several years ago, and haven’t had any issues yet. It’s been running constantly for the last year or two.
I have an overkill 128GB SanDisk flash drive I got for 13 dollars and it works great for my 24/7 unraid setup
Came here to suggest unraid as well. There are probably better options, but for a first timer, I can’t imagine a better solution. The ability to just add a hard drive to the array with virtually not configuration, as well as adding up to two parity disks is great. Caching is super easy too.
Plus they now support zfs so there’s that.
Unraid would be a very good choice for someone who is reaching out and asking this question. Debian can do the same but I suspect it’ll be easier to setup and manage on unraid.
Disk management in unraid is also great.
Using debian 12.
I’m currently playing with setting up a home server on an old PC, using Proxmox as the main OS and using LXC and VMs for the services, not fully set up yet (still working on figuring out reverse proxy to make my services available on the internet)
It’s neat tho, and there’s some helpful scripts for installing various containers and things online.
I would need that because I’m basically starting from zero with learning all this stuff lol. Using Tautulli remotely is a challenge for me right now if that gives any indication of my level of knowledge here
remotely is a challenge for me right now
I’ve seen you mention this a few times and like mentioned elsewhere in here, set yourself a Tailnet up.
It’s fugging brilliant, the docs are wrote by some very clever people (note, I am best described as a copy / pasta person?) and are through, and you can use a github or even a Google account for authentication.
Even grabbing a cheapo raspberry pi4 gives you a 1GB port (the rpi3 only has a 100Mbps rj-45 port and would still suffice for lesser needs) for your own
VPNWireguard to home, that is P2P encrypted and can be used as an Exit Node / subnet routerie: if you’re on someone else’s internet/cellular you can simply hit up your exit node to break out of any nanny filters, stop anyone else noseying at your traffic (obv bar your ISP seeing outgoing requests unless you have a another…VPN on your router), and also view and/or manage any devices on your home network/Tailnet by IP address.
Hell, I dumped a rpi down at a family members house that is part of the “stack” so I can help out remotely but it seems someone has knocked the aerial out of the HAT again :/
Best thing ever.
Mmm good stuff, I’ll have to check out tailscale.
I ended up going with a traefik setup, which works well but more options info is always good.
I use Alma because RHEL is designed for enterprise stability. Debian is also a good option.
Just don’t use Ubuntu. They do too much invisible fuckery with the system that hinders use on a server. For basic desktop use it’s fine, but never for a server.
Just don’t use Ubuntu. They do too much invisible fuckery with the system that hinders use on a server.
Would that warning also apply to Mint, since it’s based on Ubuntu, as well as other Ubuntu-based distros?
I wouldn’t use Mint or other desktop-focused OS for a server. Ubuntu’s advantage of newer packages gets largely negated by how long Mint takes to release a new major release, so I’d rather use Debian.
I do think Ubuntu is fine for servers too, like almost any other point release distro.
Probably. I don’t know what Mint or others do under the hood, but I do know they’re definitely targeted at desktop use.
I’d assume its probably Linux even if it’s the worst in terms of Proton support but, its not like you need all the bells and whistles.
Yeah I’m not surprised. Weak Proton support sucks, but for a dedicated media server it’s not the priority
Yeah I mean its understandable why Proton does not prioritize Linux but its a bummer.
Like others in here, I also set mine up with Debian and docker compose. Since it’s an always on server I wanted maximum stability. I don’t use unRAID, so not sure about compatibility for that.
Data protection is a big concern. Is that something you have in your setup?
I run nightly archiving backups using Borg Backup.
It’s compression + de-duplication algorithms have me able to store 18 historical backups of about 422gb ea, in only 367gb of disk space.
That then gets mirrored to a cold storage drive manually every few months.
Ooh so I could do this to my media library?
Unfortunately not in my setup, but that’s just because I don’t have the money to upgrade it at the moment and nearly everything I have is stuff I can easily redownload.
Once I can save up for it I will up my storage and get some back ups set up.
I’m very happy running lxc containers in proxmox
This has worked well for me too, for many years now!
I just recently discovered proxmox and am slowly moving my docker containers off my NAS. Picked up a used Intel NUC, i5-8259, 32gb ram, 512gb HDD. It’s been great so far, very happy with its ability paired with proxmox.
any specific reason why switch?
Performance mostly, encoding is better, reducing load on my NAS and using it specifically for storage. Immich performs better as well, it’s pretty resource hungry I found. I also am planning to set up Frigate for home security and that’s the main reason I wanted something with a bit more power.
Depends on your experience, hardware, and other stuff.
You could easily use Debian or Ubuntu server and install Docker if all you want is those listed services installed on unRAIDed drives.
You could try something like Dietpi (which is what Ive used since I started self hosting) which simplifies a few things and gives some helpful scripts on top of a basic Debian installation. It’s a simple setup but still just plain ol’ Debian so easy to set up however you like.
You could use something like CasaOS or ZimaOS which offer Web interfaces and integrate with docker for those with a “no tech” background up to technical users.
ProxMox is an option, but takes a lot of learning proxmox-specific stuff and IMO might be a bit overkill for your first server.
Personally, I’d go for something accessible to your tastes because everything nowadays has some kind of “easy setup” path for Plex/Jelly + Arr. Once it’s set up, use it! Then once you need a big change for better hardware or more bespoke software setups then start digging into more fancy setups.
I actually want to prioritise the data protection of some sort of RAID setup, and support for torrenting and whatnot would be secondary to that. Really what I’m trying to avoid is installing and setting up my system only to find out that the OS I’ve picked is terrible for torrenting afterwards.
I have a workable setup on consumer Windows 11 right now, so I see the next step as having a dedicated Media Server box which can give me plenty of storage, data protection (right now a drive failure would wipe out half my server), and room for future expansion. Once that’s sorted, then I’ll look into the Arr suite and more advanced torrenting stuff. I want to pick something good for that stuff now, though, so I don’t have a ton of headache down the road
I think there’s some deffo better OSes than my suggestions for RAID setups and stuff, bar ProxMox. Maybe it is worth you looking into those options!
That being said, any OS can torrent shit just fine. If it can run Docker or other containers (so 99% of suggestions here) you’re set.
Maybe if you can spare the hardware try setting up a RAID on a couple of different ISOs to test em. That’ll be the harder, or more permanent, aspect of the setup I think.
Now that Truenas Scale supports just plain Docker (and it’s running on Debian) I think it’s a great option for an all-in-one media box. I’ve had my complaints with Truenas over the years, but it’s done a really great job at preventing me from shooting myself in the foot when it comes to my data.
I believe raidz expansion is also now in stable (though still better to do a bit of planning for your pool before pulling the trigger).
The raidz stuff, as I understand it, seems pretty compelling. A setup where I can lose any given drive and replace it with no data loss would be very ideal. So I would just run TrueNAS scale, through which would manage my drives, and then install everything else in docker containers or something?
I’m sure any server oriented Linux distro will do fine. I use Debian.
I will note, I don’t know if you’re planning on having remote access (e.g. through tailscale or reverse proxy), but if you are, I found it quite a challenge to get proton to play nice with them
For newcomers I’d recommend docker and images like gluetun for setting up the VPN. It makes it easy to forward ports (for remote access) while keeping the torrent client behind the VPN.
What did you end up using instead? It’s not a necessity, but remote monitoring and access has come in very handy in the past
For a while I split tunneled tailscale through an openvpn .conf file, but recently switched to using qbittorrent in docker with gluetun. Qbittorrent is realistically the only service that needs to be behind a vpn so it works out well
I assume any Linux or *BSD distro will work, especially one with Docker (which is most/all of them?) so you don’t have to worry about things being packaged for your distro so long as there’s a docker image. My server is Alpine Linux.
Debian with docker compose or podman.
That’s what I’m running. I’m sure you could squeeze more performance out of a specialized OS, but headless Debian is fast and easy enough.
This. Besides, stability beats out 2-5% performance gains any day of the week, for servers.
Are there any resources available for how to do this? I feel like I more or less understand how Docker works conceptually, but every time I try to actually use it, I feel in over my head very quickly
look for docker-compose + whatyouwant specifically, it’s way more straightforward. once you have one set up, it get easier adding on different software.
The best thing is: if something doesn’t work, you tweak the compose file instead of having to retype or edit a command.
And you can have a GitHub of your compose files and any supporting config files.
I don’t get how some people can raw dog a docker run command!
Search for dockstarter and trash guides. It will give you the foundations of what you need
Debian!
Always Debian.
openmediavault + Docker or TrueNAS Scale
So openmediavault running on the server, and then use one of the other two to get PMS, Proton VPN, qbittorrent, etc.?
