I run a full media server, as well do a few friends. Now we had the idea to share our media libraries. In a first quick attempt we, mounted each other’s library folder via an smb share and imported those in jellyfin (all servers connected by VPN) Works quite well, but is kind of cumbersome the more people get in. I had the following idea: distributed storage, not as in redundancy, but more like mergerfs. Each “node” allocates a certain amount of storage, say node A, B and C provide 1TB each, these get fused into a singe mount that shows up as 3TB volume. If one node goes offline, the volume will only be 2TB and all files on the offline node will of course be unavailable.

Did a bit of research and found stuff like ceph,.glusterfs or seeweedfs, all of which I guess have a lot more functionality and thus are quite complicated and a little over my head. Do you do something like that or have any good ideas how to do that easily?

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
    107·
    11 months ago

    plex uses a centralized service for this kinda of nonsense. most of us are using standalone server products.

    this use case calls for either centralized storage (s3 bucket) or access mechanism(all them vpns) to distributed channels (ala plex)… but friends dont let friends use plex.

    im curious about ipfs as distributed file systems sound like a new kink i should have

    • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
      111·
      11 months ago

      but friends dont let friends use plex.

      I would love to get rid of Plex, but jellyfin failed the spouse test last summer and it never really liked my GDrive mount

      Plus, Plex clients are everywhere, so it’s all but guaranteed that whoever I decide to onboard is going to have something compatible. I’ve even had early smart TV’s from like 2013 with that weird Yahoo app store thing that had a Plex app that still worked even when the Netflix app didn’t lolol

      • Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        Funnily enough, my wife is the only person who likes jellyfin. It works perfectly for her. Everyone else? I’ve never had it work even once. And I have no damn idea why.

      • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
        21·
        11 months ago

        ha, i feel ya on the spouse. in the house i use local kodi on pis with a shared backend. that same source runs jellyin for the kids/outside the house

        ive had the same interface for the wife on kodi/xbmc for probably 10 years

        ive found kodi+jellyfin fits all my use cases

    • density@kbin.social
      71·
      11 months ago

      tell me why i shouldn’t use plex as I’m always tempted by it whenever these threads come up and everyone who uses it is so happy.

      But free/libre is so much more delicious.

      But don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

      • AtariDump@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        Does Plex work for you? Keep using it.

        Jellyfin is nice but has a long way to go to replicate the features of Plex [like PlexAmp and Sonic Analysis] and features that are “Plex adjacent” [like Tautulli].

        • Inui [comrade/them]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          There’s apps called Finamp and Jellystat that cover two of those things. You have to pay Plex to get sonic analysis.

      • Inui [comrade/them]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        You have to pay for Plex to access features you just have on Jellyfin. Like being able to stream to a mobile device.

        I don’t know how so many people seem to have issues with it when its always been as easy as installing it directly on my computer and booting up the web interface, or now running it in Docker with a simple compose file.

        There are alternatives for most features people think are missing. There are several apps that work on mobile if you want to stream music and alternate clients for video playback as well.

        • Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          I’m surprised the client doesn’t support switching between servers. When I had jellyfin running I exposed it through traefik to allow external playback. Figure it would make sense that you could just show multiple servers in the UI. Add several reverse proxied addresses and boom.

          • suntzu@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            Then I have multiple jellyfin servers in the app… That’s not what I want, I want a single mount where all the media of all nodes is accessible

          • theRealBassist@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            You definitely can. Idk why the commentor above you thinks its local only?

            I have two severs I swap between exactly like you describe.