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Buy physical media (CDs DVDs and Blu Rays) when possible and burn your own as backups when you get stuff digitally.
Set up a computer as a Linux-based server running 24/7 with Plex or Jellyfin or similar. Even most consumer tier motherboards these days can support many sata hard drives, and you can get ones that are 10Tb+ fairly inexpensively. Set them up in RAID of some form to avoid losing data.
It’s good to have a remote backup as well but that can be expensive and more complicated.
Nerds like to argue but this the easiest set-it-and-forget it way is to get a raspi or old PC and put some home server OS on it like CasaOS, Umbrel, or TrueNAS. Then get the following apps:
Trash guides are useful for getting it all set up. There is a learning curve but once it's up and running you don't need to think about it.
Personally, I run the following:
Hardware:
Software/OS
One of the top comments mentions starting with plex. I also recommend that. Jellyfin is cool but plex makes a lot of features such as sharing and subtitles much easier. You also can with jellyfin but it's much more technical. The only reason I went away from it was I felt the direction plex was going seemed a little too commercial for me. And I also like to use open source when I can.
Hop over to [email protected] and I'm sure there's reading material in the sidebar.
If you want most of the work done for you, I'd just buy a Synology unit.
I've used one of those Synology devices for something at work and really liked the interface and all that, everything worked well and without issues and with minimal admin required (which is my main issue, i don't really wanna admin stuff in my free time), but will that work when what you want is to set up a NAS media server thing full of downloaded stuff despite being a commercial thing that may or may not phone home at some point in our sad enshittocene? I do believe it works for this but haven't heard much in this community related to this, it's usually people advocating to set up a normal machine as a NAS
Yes you can use a NAS like you describe. Some Synology models can run Plex directly on the hardware but it's not ideal as it isn't super powerful if you need to transcode.
I think my doubt was less "Can they do it?" (as i believe they can, should have in mind the transcoding limitation as i didn't knew) and more "SHOULD you do it?" given that it's gonna be filled with movies/series/whatever, and it's still a megacorp product
I wouldn't really worry about it as they just manufacture storage devices and have no reason to scare off their customer base by snooping and snitching. Furthermore, they have no real way of knowing whether you're entitled to have those files or not.
with minimal admin required (which is my main issue, i don't really wanna admin stuff in my free time)
that's actually one of my fave recent things they give up with their security reports and points out I installed Entware (aka Optware for alt devices) even thou it's not been used. They're nifty things
Break your system down with a block diagram. Define the minimum functions and properties for each block. Then create an inventory from that.
In short, break down your problem into smaller bits. No one knows your requirements and vision better than you. You can do it.
I use a laptop connected to some external drives managed by a Sabrent 5-Bay Hard Drive Docking Station. The laptop runs Ubuntu Server and hosts media via Jellyfin on raid5 logical volumes shared between disks (to increase read speed).
I learn by writing documentation. Learn how you learn, that information will be priceless in value to you.
You don’t need a NAS or RAID to have a decent media streaming setup. I have a 42TB RAID5 and I use a 5TB Sandisk SSD as my daily driver on a 8 year old Lenovo running elementary OS. Can support probably 4 streams simultaneously before it’s chugging.
Look into plex (people will whine about this but I say do it given your current comfort level - Jellyfin is likely not a good option for you yet)
Get some external drives (research “3-2-1 backup” if you want industry standard practices to protect against data loss)
Get a battery backup surge protector. These kick on when power goes out and protects your hardware better.
Good luck!
Not sure if this is helpful foryouright now but it is a good resource: