Creating a media server to be accessed across the country

[BO55PL8]

Hello, I need help. I'm trying to figure out how to create a server that multiple people can access from across the UK. The server is going to be used to hold a large amount of raw media from filming. Currently, nothing has been put in place, but I'm looking to find an old PC and add extra hard drives to add bulk storage. Software-wise, we don't have the funds to dish out on Hex OS or the sorts and are steering away from any subscriptions if possible. I like the look of Immich and would love to use it to manage the media. We are currently using Google Drive, but it is only a temporary solution which we want to steer away from. The team can use both Linux and Windows. (I am not the one experienced in Linux)

 

Important Requirements for us:

- Anyone can access at the same time

- Mass upload at good speeds

- Be cost-effective, we can dish out some cash, but not a lot (we are a small team of uni students making a gig separate from uni)

- An easy front-end to understand

- Mass download at good speeds

 

 

However, I have no clue how to set it up correctly to allow everyone to import media quickly without waiting hours or even days from anywhere in the country. I don't know whether I require Jellyfin, Plex, or generally what basics the server requires. We don't have the funds or time to sit down and try each one, so I would like to ask for recommendations on the whole setup from generally minimum requirements to find for the PC, to software-wise for each piece I would need to sort, and in what order. 

 

Thank you for the help 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Your network speed is likely going to be the biggest limit. Does this server have a good network connection?

 

Do you have a backup plan?

 

What type of files are you working with? A lot of the photo/video hosting services don't like the raw files from higher end cameras like RAW files.

 

How much storage

 

I'd probably setup something like nextcloud, so you can download/upload and sync the files you want.

[Madii]

19 minutes ago, BO55PL8 said:

(we are a small team of uni students)

Have you talked to your school about solutions? iirc my university offered rental equipment and some software (including subscriptions) could be requested and basically provided by the school (at worst for a reduced rate).

 

In terms of self hosting, you're main complaint about endless uploads are always going to be bottlenecked by your connection to the server, less about the efficiency of the software used to do it.

 

I'll echo NextCloud as your best bet as it is meant to replace Google Drive, but there's a reason System Administrators make so much money

[manikyath]

not sure if it's gonna fit in your workflow, but i recently bumped into this one, which is basicly as "dumb" as file ingest can be.

https://github.com/DumbWareio/DumbDrop

 

it's sort of meant to only be a frontend, and have either someone at the back sorting what comes in, or have scripts handle what comes in.

 

for the base OS, i'd say either use truenas or just some form of linux desktop. whatever you slap on the front is up to what fits your workflow best i suppose. might be a very old-timer suggestion.. but you can totally just tunnel into the server and use SMB. as long as you're a patient human being SMB will work from the other side of the world.

[BO55PL8]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your network speed is likely going to be the biggest limit. Does this server have a good network connection?

 

Do you have a backup plan?

 

What type of files are you working with? A lot of the photo/video hosting services don't like the raw files from higher end cameras like RAW files.

 

How much storage

 

I'd probably setup something like nextcloud, so you can download/upload and sync the files you want.

We are at the level of looking at options, so we haven't set anything in stone. I posted this to gauge whether it is a solution for us to make a server or whether to get a subscription service that is more adequate than Google Drive. Storage wise would be around 10TB initially, with expansion to 20TB max. Not a clue whether we use JPEG or RAW files, I do assume both, as some of us are going to invest in nicer cameras.

[Electronics Wizardy]

46 minutes ago, BO55PL8 said:

We are at the level of looking at options, so we haven't set anything in stone. I posted this to gauge whether it is a solution for us to make a server or whether to get a subscription service that is more adequate than Google Drive. Storage wise would be around 10TB initially, with expansion to 20TB max. Not a clue whether we use JPEG or RAW files, I do assume both, as some of us are going to invest in nicer cameras.

What internet connection would the server have access to? Thats the big limit speed wise.

 

How bad would data loss here be? I'd be tempted to go with a large provider so your not on the hook if data loss occurs.

[BO55PL8]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What internet connection would the server have access to? Thats the big limit speed wise.

 

How bad would data loss here be? I'd be tempted to go with a large provider so your not on the hook if data loss occurs.

The server is going to be in one of our rooms(we all live in different places in the UK btw), so regular household internet speeds ranging from 20 Mbps to 50 Mbps in the UK, as no one has the money to get higher speeds. Your mentioning of data loss inclines me to ask if we may run into an issue using nextcloud with data loss. It is quite important we don't lose any during upload. Is it a big issue or more of a keep a copy before you upload incase something goes wrong sort of deal?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, BO55PL8 said:

The server is going to be in one of our rooms(we all live in different places in the UK btw), so regular household internet speeds ranging from 20 Mbps to 50 Mbps in the UK, as no one has the money to get higher speeds. Your mentioning of data loss inclines me to ask if we may run into an issue using nextcloud with data loss. It is quite important we don't lose any during upload. Is it a big issue or more of a keep a copy before you upload incase something goes wrong sort of deal?

Those internet speeds are pretty slow and moving large files will take a while(run calculators on line for exact numbers). These speeds would make me cancel any plans of hosting a photo/video server as I make 100+GB projects easily and that would take 10+ hours to copy at 20mbit.

 

I'd always make sure all the files successfully upload before deleting a local copy. I'd keep extra copies just in case.

 

Storing data well costs money, so if you want to keep your data safe unfortunately it won't be super cheap.

[BO55PL8]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Those internet speeds are pretty slow and moving large files will take a while(run calculators on line for exact numbers). These speeds would make me cancel any plans of hosting a photo/video server as I make 100+GB projects easily and that would take 10+ hours to copy at 20mbit.

 

I'd always make sure all the files successfully upload before deleting a local copy. I'd keep extra copies just in case.

 

Storing data well costs money, so if you want to keep your data safe unfortunately it won't be super cheap.

Each person tends not to upload more than 100GB at one time, as far as I'm aware. So even if it takes 2- 3 hours, it will still be better than what was tried before, in which data was transferred at 5 Mbps (from what I was told). For us, it's more about whether we can leave it for a while and come back to it all sorted, no worries, and everyone can access everything.

 

We do eventually want to be able to access nextcloud from a website we are going to create, that way we can upload rough shots from our phones and get quick access to the nextcloud via our website. I saw that nextcloud has a website plugin, so not too sure how it works, it might be the case of me needing to experiment with it first. 

 

Tbh I'm more steering towards using docker and immich because it gives us the visual aid for each image and we can access through our phones too, do you think it is still better to go with nextcloud in general for better file management or is there a way to use both?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, BO55PL8 said:

Each person tends not to upload more than 100GB at one time, as far as I'm aware. So even if it takes 2- 3 hours, it will still be better than what was tried before, in which data was transferred at 5 Mbps (from what I was told). For us, it's more about whether we can leave it for a while and come back to it all sorted, no worries, and everyone can access everything.

 

We do eventually want to be able to access nextcloud from a website we are going to create, that way we can upload rough shots from our phones and get quick access to the nextcloud via our website. I saw that nextcloud has a website plugin, so not too sure how it works, it might be the case of me needing to experiment with it first. 

 

Tbh I'm more steering towards using docker and immich because it gives us the visual aid for each image and we can access through our phones too, do you think it is still better to go with nextcloud in general for better file management or is there a way to use both?

With that internet connection and no backup plan I'd forget about hosting your own server. The other issue is those speeds are best case, often residential to residential internet connection speeds are pretty bad as the internet isn't wired up to work well for those type of transfers, its mostly made for CDN/Datacenter to residential connections.

 

Does your ISP allow hosting? Do you have a static IP? Do you have CG-NAT? Is this a business grade connection? 

 

Nextcloud also does thumbnails for photos.

[BO55PL8]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

With that internet connection and no backup plan I'd forget about hosting your own server. The other issue is those speeds are best case, often residential to residential internet connection speeds are pretty bad as the internet isn't wired up to work well for those type of transfers, its mostly made for CDN/Datacenter to residential connections.

 

Does your ISP allow hosting? Do you have a static IP? Do you have CG-NAT? Is this a business grade connection? 

 

Nextcloud also does thumbnails for photos.

ISP-wise, absolutely no clue at all , believe it is a static IP, no CG-NAT and no hosting unless we switch to Zen as our provider.  We have basic household internet, so from the sound of it, we should only steer to a server when we have somewhere with business-grade internet, which we won't get any time soon. 

 

So for our use case do you have any recommendations of what we should do?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, BO55PL8 said:

ISP-wise, absolutely no clue at all , believe it is a static IP, no CG-NAT and no hosting unless we switch to Zen as our provider.  We have basic household internet, so from the sound of it, we should only steer to a server when we have somewhere with business-grade internet, which we won't get any time soon. 

 

So for our use case do you have any recommendations of what we should do?

My thoughts are with 10TB of files and a 20-50mbit connections, things will take a while to move over the network. To the point that its gonna be almost unusable for large files. But I don't know what size files your working with.

 

If your in school they typically have a cloud provider + email they work with, so I'd talk to them and use the services they already pay for if possible.

 

Otherwise setup a VM and do testing to see how the speeds and UI would be, then build a server if it seems usable.