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jkirkcaldy

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  1. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from wanderingfool2 in Floatplane DOES NOT provide users with better audio quality   
    yeah it's a bit of a nothing post. It seems like they know enough to be dangerous but they haven't actually showed how they came to their results. What their download commands are, whether they downloaded the file from floatplane or used youtubedl for that too. They are also comparing bitrates of different codecs as if they are like for like. 
     
    It would be a pretty stupid thing to lie about, especially as it could be checked so easily. 

    It seems like they are just jumping on the bandwagon at the moment. 
  2. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Loopers in Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity   
    I can't reply to this on reddit as the subreddit is in community only mode. 
     
    The testing here seems extremely suspect.  I suspect that the person downloading these files is encoding as they download. My test gives drastically different results to their results. 
     
     
  3. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Ben17 in Looking for advice on a DIY Home Server Build   
    My server usage is almost identical to this so this is what I'm using.
    CPU: i7 3770
    MOBO: Gigabyte z77-udh5
    RAM: 32GB (can't remember what ram)
    PSU: some random 850w (needs replacing with something more efficient/reliable)
    Case: Logic Case SC-4316 (4u rackmount)
    OS HDD: Crucial 250gb ssd
    Storage HDD: random assortment of drives that I am slowly replacing with more nas specific drives. around 35TB total raw storage.
    OS: Windows Server 2012r2
    RAID: FlexRaid Transparent raid. 
     
    I use plex for my media server, this does all of what your requirements are for serving your media and transcoding it on the fly for different devices with different codec support. 
     
    OS is windows so if the game runs on windows - it will probably work on this too - you could always use a hyper-v VM or some other vm to host it on another os if needs be. 
     
    not too sure what the policy on the forum is about talking about torrenting and piracy probably not a good idea, but there are a couple of automated systems that you can implement with remote access to add and search whilst away from your server. DM me for more info. 
     
    I use filebot to run a script on my downloads folder to check for new files and rename and move into the correct folders for plex as plex is pretty strict about the file structure and file naming if you want it to work properly. 
     
    Cloud storage - I use nextcloud running in a linux vm using a shared folder on the server for it's storage. This basically works like dropbox or other cloud providers, i.e. multiple users, desktop and mobile clients, file sharing etc etc.  All accessible outside of the house but for it to work properly you are going to want a web domain and a ssl certificate. 
     
    VPN, i actually don't bother with a vpn, I did but tbh the internet at my home isn't good enough to bother. And the whole reason I use a vpn is to stop my isp logging all of my web traffic so it would kind of defeat the purpose. But it's fairly easy to get set up.
     
    I use crashplan to backup my computers to the server and then I backup the server (minus plex media which is about 15TB now) to crashplan's servers, probably about 1TB of important documents and the computer backups. Os drive is backed up to an internal drive to protect against a drive failure, that's about it. 
     
    I also just set up a second linux vm using ubuntu server to cache all my steam downloads as well as the games my flatmates download too (we play a lot of similar games so makes sense to do this.) so the game/update downloads to the server and the client at the same time then the next time it needs to be downloaded it comes from my server rather than over the net. 
     
     
     
    The whole thing runs at about 160w average, but it's never idle really. it's always doing something. 
  4. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from djboy6480 in Domain: 1 IP, 1 Server, Multiple Applications. HELP PLZ   
    You can't use port numbers in DNS entries as far as I am aware. 
    But if I am wrong, please send a link to where you can because I would like to see that.
  5. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from djboy6480 in Domain: 1 IP, 1 Server, Multiple Applications. HELP PLZ   
    That doesn't really work. not unless you add the port to the domain (eg plex.example.com:32400). In which case there is literally no point to using different sub domains because plex.example.com:32400 would go to the same place as ts.example.com:32400
     
    Also if services need specific ports to be open, these will need to be open regardless of whether you use a reverse proxy or not. 
  6. Informative
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Psittac in Multi User Steam Library?   
    A caching server is a good way to go about this, probably the only way to go about it really. 
     
    As far as I know, you can't use the same files hosted on a server to serve the game to multiple client PCs. So you would still need to download the game onto each PC in the LAN party.
     
    The caching server can take some of the strain off your internet connection, so you would need to have a dedicated machine that would act as a cache.
     
    Basically you would download PUBG on your computer and the server would save the files as they came from Steam. Then in theory, anyone else that needs to download the game on your network would pull the files from your server rather than the steam servers. With the correct setup you can get some stupid speeds from the cache server.
     
    But a word of warning, I tried to do this with a Virtual machine, and you actually needed to dedicate a large amount of resources to the caching server in order to get really fast download speeds. 
     
     
  7. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from leadeater in Domain: 1 IP, 1 Server, Multiple Applications. HELP PLZ   
    A reverse proxy is what you're after. I have a single static public IP address then a load of services running on different virtual machines. Here's a brief list of some of them:
    Plex Organizr Monitorr sonarr radarr ombi nextcloud hastebin gitlab homeassistant Bookstack wiki There are probably more but you get the idea. I have a single VM dedicated to being the reverse proxy. So all my traffic is forwarded to this internal IP address then it separates it out and forwards the traffic to where it needs to go. It can be quite a daunting task at first but it gets a bit easier as you go and there are a shed load of tutorials online. 
  8. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from djboy6480 in Domain: 1 IP, 1 Server, Multiple Applications. HELP PLZ   
    A reverse proxy is what you're after. I have a single static public IP address then a load of services running on different virtual machines. Here's a brief list of some of them:
    Plex Organizr Monitorr sonarr radarr ombi nextcloud hastebin gitlab homeassistant Bookstack wiki There are probably more but you get the idea. I have a single VM dedicated to being the reverse proxy. So all my traffic is forwarded to this internal IP address then it separates it out and forwards the traffic to where it needs to go. It can be quite a daunting task at first but it gets a bit easier as you go and there are a shed load of tutorials online. 
  9. Agree
    jkirkcaldy reacted to Jarsky in Do i even need windows server OS?   
    It comes with Hyper-V, just turn it on through the Windows Features
  10. Agree
    jkirkcaldy reacted to ItsJo in Storage Server - is this feasable for RED 4K Editing   
    Alright, thank you everyone! We decided to go with a DAS instad of a NAS.
  11. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Electronics Wizardy in Storage Server - is this feasable for RED 4K Editing   
    If he's an indie film maker I'm going to assume he only really works/edits as a one man team. In which case I wouldn't get a nas. I would get a DAS.
     
    If a NAS is needed, Qnap do one that I have used on a feature film before that had 2x10GB rj45 and 2xThunderbolt2 as well as a couple usb3 and 1gb ethernet. I can't remember the exact model as it was a couple of years ago now. It was about $2500 for the NAS and then the disks were extra. 
     
    It had 8 x 8tb disks and in a raid array it had a throughput of around 700mbps. 
     
     
  12. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from leadeater in Storage Server - is this feasable for RED 4K Editing   
    If he's an indie film maker I'm going to assume he only really works/edits as a one man team. In which case I wouldn't get a nas. I would get a DAS.
     
    If a NAS is needed, Qnap do one that I have used on a feature film before that had 2x10GB rj45 and 2xThunderbolt2 as well as a couple usb3 and 1gb ethernet. I can't remember the exact model as it was a couple of years ago now. It was about $2500 for the NAS and then the disks were extra. 
     
    It had 8 x 8tb disks and in a raid array it had a throughput of around 700mbps. 
     
     
  13. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Mikensan in Best FREE, easy-to-use and set up monitoring software   
    Wildcards are the best.
  14. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Mikensan in Best FREE, easy-to-use and set up monitoring software   
    Grafana and telegraf. There's a bit of a learning curve but you can monitor everything from one web page. 
     
    This is my dashboard for some useful info: https://grafana.themainframe.co.uk 
  15. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from Electronics Wizardy in How to make a Raid 6 w/ SSD Cache   
    The problem is with things like the benchmark tests is that they do great usually because the files that they are writing and reading are all still contained on the ssd. So if you are reading a lot of files shortly after writing them you will see a huge increase in performance like you did above. But I would wager that if you were to copy a large file onto the array then copy it back again immediately, record the results, then wait until the file isn't on the cache any more and copy it off the array you will see far less impressive numbers. 
     
    But if it's as much a technical exercise as it is a practical one, and you can spare the SSD then it's worth it. 
  16. Informative
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from TechLabs in How to make a Raid 6 w/ SSD Cache   
    I wouldn't bother adding an SSD. Especially as you will only really see a performance increase in the write speeds, of which, unless you are backing up loads of clients at once, the speed of a normal mechanical HDD will be fine.
  17. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from KieuVanQuan in Others can see my apache web server, I can't. Help?   
    It's DNS, it's always DNS.
     
    ^ This would be the easiest way of accessing it from your computer but it means you won't be able to access it from any other device unless you change the hosts file for them as well.
     
    The best solution would be to et up a DNS server on your lan, have all your devices point to this which will resolve your website to an internal ip address and forwad everything else to an external DNS provider.
  18. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from newgeneral10 in Private cloud   
    Depending on how deep you wanted to go you could look into something like nextcloud. This is a self hosted alternative to dropbox/google drive. It installs on top of a linux OS so you would likely need a server to run it on. Although you could run it on a low power Nuc and run the storage on a nas device but that may be complicating things.
     
    You can share links or emails with documents with passwords and download expiration dates. You can give each employee a user account and share files internally between users. You can also integrate open source office software to let people edit word documents etc online.
     
    A word of warning though, this can be a very involved process and if you install it - as with anything you install - you become the tech support for it. So if it ever goes down, you will probably have to fix it.
  19. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from leadeater in High-End File/Cloud/VM Unraid Server recommendation??   
    This doesn't really wash with server builds. Unlike a workstation/gaming system where you just buy this years most powerful cpu and gpu, slap as much ram in as you can afford, throw it all on a decent motherboard and you will have spent around 5K, Servers can go up to the hundreds of thousands £££/$$$
     
    Some indication of budget can vastly change the nature of the advice given. Eg. advice for £500, I'd say go second hand. For £5000, there is a lot more options available to you.
     
    Buy Second hand - Something like an Dell R510 with 12x3.5" drive bays would be good. Although if you can afford it going for the newer R520 or R710xd would be better on power. Then you have Xeon cpus, ECC ram, and there is a shed load of support for them on forums etc.
     
    If you want to build for the experience of building a server, InWin have some pretty sexy 2u cases that are kind of like the Dells but without all the proprietary connections so you just use standard off the shelf parts. Or do you already have a chassis? They also have SAS expander backplanes that take sata drives so you can throw in a raid/hba card and bob's your uncle.
     
    Either way I would look for a supermicro board with IPMI support. This can be really useful for troubleshooting when you are out of the house. Look for a board that can hold a lot of RAM as you will probably need somewhere around 64GB+ for running a lot of VMs. I would also recommend looking at redundant power supplies, they can be quite a bit more expensive than normal power supplies but they don't use any more power (maybe a Watt here or there) and it gives you a little more protection from hardware failures.
  20. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from paddy-stone in AIW Media Center Storage Options   
    What's your storage space setup? I ask because back when I ran storage spaces for a while I jumped in without really understanding them and just wanted to pool my drives so I saw one big drive not loads of smaller ones. I didn't realise at the time but it basically turns your drive into a RAID 0. One of my drives died and I lost everything. 
     
    If you have a similar setup I would recommend getting a backup solution in place pronto. Or do like you said and get some drives to keep a second copy. 
     
    You can get external raid enclosures but to get one that's worth it you will be spending a similar amount to getting a prebuilt nas unit anyway. Which is what I would recommend over the external RAID.
     
    Synology and QNAP seem to be fan favourites at the moment. 
     
    Something I have come to accept is that with computers a lot of things can be done cheaply but not storage. (I mean you can, but it will be inconvenient and you will lose data eventually) It's best to think about your long term goals and invest in something that will see you through the next few years. Or at least have a clear upgrade path or when you need to. i.e. if you need 5TB today, buy 10 so you have room to grow. And if you are filling an 8 bay nas, do it with 3x 5TB drives in a RAID 5, giving you space to add 5 more drives in the future. 
     
     
  21. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from paddy-stone in Noobie media server setup   
    Yes to all. 
     
    Plex can handle files with multiple audio streams embedded in the file, it can also read subtitles in the video file too. Allowing you to easily select the audio and subtitles you want either before you start playing the video or whilst streaming. You can set the default language, so it will select english audio and forced english subtitles as a default but you can change this like I said earlier. 
     
    Plex can do 4K currently although it should be noted that 4K is much more taxing on the server running plex and not many clients support it. As far as I know (and I'm sure there is probably more) the Xbox One S and the Shield TV will do 4K playback. My 4K LG OLED TV transcodes the 4k to 1080p for some reason so it may not be supported on my TV.
     
    In terms of your network bandwidth, if you are using a hardwired connection it shouldn't really be a factor. As the streams, even for 4K Blu-ray. A 4K Blu-ray disc has a maximum bitrate of 128Mbps just over a 10th of gigabit ethernet. Wi-Fi is a different matter and can have so many factors play into the performance, such as the quality of the router/access point. Position of your device and the router, whether someone is using a microwave, how many devices are connected, other Wi-Fi networks around you. It can work fine with the right setup for full 4k Blu-ray quality playback, it can be a little more challenging. It really depends. But I would say that for most 1080p content you should be fine if you have a semi decent network. 
     
    Playback of 4k media is fine when your device supports it so it can be directly streamed and won't be any more taxing on your system than a SD direct stream as it is just serving the file. When you need to transcode 4K that becomes a whole different beast. The CPU in a NAS or lower powered CPUs just wont cut it for 4K streaming. 
     
    If you are going to be building something as a server and 4K is something you want to be ready for without upgrades, you should read up on the hardware transcoding for plex. With newer generations of processors from Intel (not sure about AMD) you can use the build in GPU on the CPU to give a substantial performance boost. Which should help with 4K transcoding. Alternatively, one of the other cool things plex will is optimize your media. So you can have a full 4K copy of the film, then before you go to bed one night or when your server is quiet, tell plex to optimise the file for playback on another device, you can change the setttings of this too, and it will create a 1080p/720p/480p copy of the file. Then you can select the 4K quality for your 4K tv and for anything else you can use the lower, easier to play versions. 
  22. Agree
    jkirkcaldy reacted to dalekphalm in Video Editing NAS or SAN   
    The main thing enthusiasts tend to overlook on this forum is how valuable vendor support is when in a business scenario. Downtime = lost productivity and lost revenue. 
     
     Each part in a custom build having an individual warranty is not the same as having single source vendor support with next day priority parts delivery and - if necessary - on-site tech in the same timeframe is invaluable. 
  23. Like
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from leadeater in Video Editing NAS or SAN   
    No, I don't think you did. It's more that I have seen this question pop up a few times and DIY is always suggested. If places like DDP are still well over budget (which I think they could be for 300TB) check out Indistor. They may have something that could suit your needs.
     
    TL:DR - DIY is great but it has a time and a place. Professional video editing is usually not either.
     
     
    DIY is fine in and of itself, it's just that the advice that often comes with that suggestion tends to be off. There is a very big difference in creating a SAN for a homelab and creating a SAN for a business. And as much as love the videos where Linus and the team show off their servers and as jealous I get at the ridiculous power they have at their disposal. I'd probably categorise their setup as a homelab (An amazing setup that I'd give a kidney for) rather than a setup I would recommend anyone try and replicate.
     
    Which is why I think people often suggest stupidly fast drives are needed to edit from. I can't think of many situations where editors would need a server with 48 nvme SSDs to edit from. Even 10GB (from server to workstation) is overkill in most situations. I often wonder if they would go down a similar route if they weren't sponsored by Intel or have the relationships with manufacturers that they can use in place of tech support.
     
    That being said, Premiere is a PITA on a 1GB network and it can also be a PITA on a 10GB network too. It's just the way it works, it's just not designed to run on a network drive. It's getting better as they take more and more market share, and you can see this with the way they are trying to implement things like sharing projects between multiple editors at the same time. So in a year or two this may be a very different conversation.
     
     
  24. Informative
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from dalekphalm in Video Editing NAS or SAN   
    These questions always get me worked up as a lot of the information in the replies can be very misleading. 
     
    If this is for a business, and you rely on being able to edit and deliver videos on a deadline. Buy video editing equipment. Don't build your own, and definitely don't build your own storage system. Don't get me wrong, gaming hardware is great and the performance to price ratio these days is amazing. But, when something goes wrong, being able to call various support teams will be invaluable. (Also for the company I work for there are specific requirements that the insurance company says we must meet.) 
     
    If you have a budget of 50K go and speak to the vendors who specialise in video editing network storage. Look at companies like DDP (DiskDrivePool) or edit share.
     
    The problem with building your own SAN or NAS is that this is for business use! If you are paying editors to come in and work, if something goes wrong you need to be able to get everything back up as soon as possible. If you are your own support, you're going to run into problems. Editors are not cheap. 
     
    Depending on what editing software you use. Premiere can be a nightmare on network storage for anything longer than a short video. Avid is the industry standard and is designed to run on a network I would recommend looking into Avid, you can get a subscription for the same sort of price as adobe these days. One caveat with Avid though is you need to be working on approved machines, as if you call for support, the first thing they will ask is are you using an avid supported machine, if you say no, they tell you to use an avid supported machine. 
     
    The workstations do not need 10GB , You will likely need 10GB from the san to a switch but after that 1GB should be plenty.
     
    I work in Broadcast television in the UK, In the production company I work for currently there are up to 10 editors working at once. All the footage is transcoded to XDCAM 50Mbits and the TV shows are all around 45 minutes long. Each edit machine is working off a single slow mechanical hard drive, there are no SSDs anywhere in the workflow and apart from the fact that the machines boot fairly slowly and it can take a couple of minutes for avid to open in the mornings, there is no noticeable bottleneck.
     
    You may want to think about some sort of workflow that means you don't have to have everything on your storage machine all the time. Backing up to tape is a good plan Or alternatively for video you should look at Sony's alternative ODA machines. They work the same way as tape in a lot of ways, but they work via usb3 and can be read and written to by any machine with no special software as they appear as an external disk. 
     
  25. Agree
    jkirkcaldy got a reaction from geo3 in De-Googling Myself- storage advice?   
    It depends on what you want? If you want network storage then building/buying a nas with or without RAID is fine. But whilst you may be protected from a drive failure it's still not a backup. But then again it you want something that it just going to replace google drive, that's not really a backup either so you'd be in exactly the same position. The difference being you would be responsible for the hardware and infrastructure.
     
    You could build your nas, a couple of 2TB drives in RAID 1 for hardware failure protection and buy an external 2TB HDD and back up your NAS to the external HDD. Then you have both protection from hardware failure and a backup. If your backup disk is formatted as NTFS or exFAT or HFS then if your nas dies you can plug in your drive and still have access to your data.
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