Beginner here (to Linux and networking anyways), running Unraid for about 18 months now. Fully agree, it’s been great for actually getting up and doing useful things quickly and relatively pain free.

Eventually I would like to try working backwards and getting things running on a more “traditional” server environment, but Unraid has been a great learning tool for me personally.

It’s like… Maybe some folks learned to overhaul an engine before they got their driver’s license, but lots of people just need to a car to get to work and back today, and they can learn to change their oil and do a brake job when the time comes.

No you’re right, the hardlinks themselves are not directional. I just misunderstood the advice as meaning that Radarr would create a hardlinked file in my torrent folder, using the existing file in my media library. (It will not)

The part that was tripping me up was that it seemed like I had to manually add the movies to Radarr’s library before it would let me import any of my torrent files. Otherwise it would give me an error saying the movie was unknown.

I think I’m starting to get the hang of it though.

Thanks, that makes sense.

I’ve been going cross-eyed staring at the Trash guides and Servarr wiki trying to get hardlinks and all the file paths working correctly (stupid simple fix in the end), so a little nudge in the right direction is appreciated.

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Sure, that would get all the torrented content into radarr quickly, but I guess I should have stated that my intent is to continue seeding that content from the qbittorrent client on my media server.

Unless radarr is somehow smart enough to hardlink the opposite direction (from the media library back to torrents folder) and let qbittorrent know that content is ready to seed…?

Not OP, but I can answer part of your questions:

if I migrate to Jellyfin do I need to fuck around with my folder structures ? No special case just /movie/title | tv/title in my use-case with the usual arr stack for grabbing.

I have Plex and Jellyfin running off the exact same media library no problem at all. So there should be zero need to modify anything–if anything Jellyfin seems a little better at catching “extras” folders than Plex.

I don’t need remote playback for movies/tvs but I have no idea how to replace Plexamp and if you have suggestions, feel free to mention it.

The Jellyfin app plays music–but it’s definitely NOT a music app. I always hear Symfonium highly recommended, but have not yet given it a whirl myself.

Absolutely. They are not going to share metadata or things like played status, but I have been using both simultaneously since almost the first day I spun up my media server.

I definitely prefer Jellyfin overall, but Plex is more convenient for sharing with less techy family so I keep it spun up. Jellyfin also requires some finicky network configuration (so I have heard) to cast media to a Chromecast, so Plex wins out there.

Thank you, this clears up some misconception i had about how the *arrs work!

Got it, thanks!

If all your current files are still in the “download” folder, you could probably setup the arrs and qbit as recommended in the guides

Yeah, that’s the rub… they are all currently in separate movies, shows, and music folders as Plex/Jellyfin want them to be.

But it’s sounding like the best bet is to leave the existing content alone for now and spin things up per the guides until I have a better handle on how it all works. Appreciate the input!

Yeah, I’m using Unraid, so this would all be in dockers.

I think maybe I had a false understanding that radarr (for example) interposes itself between the actual media files and Plex/Jellyfin… which sounds like a PITA to undo, and was giving me pause.

Thanks, this is helpful!

If I do a “clean” install, can i later identify specific pieces of media within a library to monitor?

I don’t have specific troubleshooting advice to give, but I have been using an Nvidia Shield Pro as my main streaming device for about 4 years now. It is overpriced for what it is, but it has been rock solid for streaming via both Jellyfin and Plex.

The official Jellyfin app is definitely not as polished as Plex, but it has consistently worked for me on the Shield.

I mean, 20TB drives will work in an array just as well as 8TB 😉

Honestly with the price of refurb enterprise drives, it’s really hard not to justify not going that route and just keeping a spare drive formatted on warm standby at all times.

A bit of a digression though, since OP isn’t looking to cram a bunch of drives into an old mini case.

Fully agree.

I’ve purchased refurb drives from both them and GoHardDrive.com. So far I’m 5/5 for a mix of Exos and HGST Ultrastar drives working perfectly out of the box.

Anytime these drives pop up on Slickdeals, the thread is full of 3 types of people: People who have never bought a refurb/recert drive but insist they are all going to burn your house down, people who have bought several with no issue, and people who have received a failing drive that the seller promptly replaced.

On the power disable feature topic, I’ve only bought a few used enterprise drives from Goharddrive.com and Serverpartsdeals.com, but they both included a handy little SATA power adapter with each drive for exactly that reason.

The first desktop I installed them in worked just fine with the factory PSU cables, but when I upgraded I was left scratching my head for a few minutes until I remembered those adapters!