TrueNAS might be a good middle ground then. Haven’t used it myself but I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about it (and it’s predecessor).

It really comes down to personal preference. A pure Linux distribution for example is certainly more flexible and will absolutely do everything and more that TrueNAS does. But a nice gui where everything just works and does exactly what you need sounds x100 times better than spending a whole weekend trying to fix something that you borked by accident. And if you want to learn how things work under the hood later on, you can do it at your own pace. At a certain point those terminal commands will stop being esoteric and start making sense.

If you have some old hardware just lying around, then install it and try it out. Just dip your toes and evaluate for a few days/weeks.

Also - after some quick googling. Mounting your windows disks shouldn’t be a problem. So no need for some temporary/intermediate storage unless you want another backup.

I also have a Pi with HomeAssistant that I’d like to migrate

I would (read: does) keep it that way. When your server inevitably goes belly up because of a misconfigured firewall or whatever you’ll thank yourself when the lights still turn on and your robot vacuum keeps going. No stress to fix things. And when your SD card eventually dies you just pop in the backup card you have lying around.

I am wanting to do this in the most efficient and economical way but I’m not sure what the best path to choose is.

What’s wrong with keeping your old hardware? Spend some money on a silent quality case, a few quiet fans, a suitable power supply and some disks. The rest can be bought used if you need it, dirt cheap. Find a somewhat new Supermicro motherboard with a mounted CPU on eBay for a few bucks and be done with it. It doesn’t sound like you need a monster machine. Some overhead is always nice, sure, but you can always upgrade in the future.

Migrating data is a PITA no matter what so can’t help you there.

As for the OS. “Not Windows” is probably a bit intimidating at first but you seem to be pretty technical so it isn’t really an issue as long as you can read and process information. Do some reading on Debian or FreeBSD (or both). BSD isn’t Linux but if you’re not familiar with either one it doesn’t really matter. Just a matter of taste. Try them in VirtualBox and see for yourself how you feel.

And let us know when you buy your first rack. It’s just a matter of time.

Beats Kodi.

I see. The multi user support in Jellyfin is arguably one of its strengths so that’s a shame. Don’t have a good recommendation in that case.

Adult or not, Android/Google tv lacks good media centers or video players. Jellyfin, Kodi, Nova or VLC are basically your options and they are all crap in their own way. If you don’t want to watch something on Netflix, HBO etc. It’s really a bummer.

Are you hellbent on using Jellyfin? It’s basically a Kodi for dummies where they removed the best parts, kept the worst and and slapped on a pretty ui. It’s bloated behind the scenes and does have it quirks.

An alternative could be to just set up an NFS share with your media and use whatever player you like. Nova video player on Google/Android TV isn’t as pretty as Jellyfin but it gets the work done.

I’ve had zero issues with Infuse on apple tv. Easy to navigate, looks good and plays stuff on my network shares. I think there is support for adding a Jellyfin library as a source as well but I haven’t tried it.

I remember the opposite - the discussions on Reddit had some quality threads with depth and actual knowledge. Someone would post a pic of some random ebay haul and they would receive 10 replies suggesting what they should have gotten instead, along with 18 bullet points explaining why.

The threads here are either people asking how to set up some crappy *arr service on their first raspberry or why god created Jellyfin on the seventh day and not the first.

I’ve been waiting since the exodus for the quality to increase here… Still hoping.

No, the FreeBSD version from the ports tree. Equivalent to installing a package in a Linux distribution from the built-in repo’s.

I rarely use it anyway and I could just upgrade, but enforcing an update by disabling all functionality still feels a bit excessive. Makes me wonder if any other artificial restrictions have been imposed.

Keep it as simple as possible to start with and then expand if you feel there is a need. No need for two servers. The first thing you should buy though is a book about basic network design and security if you’re not familiar with it. It may feel like overkill now but future you will thank yourself.

As for the family in the same house… I try to make it as seamless as possible. Sometimes there is no need to tell them because the new service I set up integrates nicely with our devices. And sometimes I tell them “we have X now which does this, you can go to http://x.y.z.lan or use the app”.

Some random and probably not very popular opinions.

• I would check out eBay for used parts and find a decent motherboard with an IPMI interface. Find an appropriate case with good reviews if you’re not gonna mount your server in a rack.

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• Install FreeBSD and use zfs in a raid configuration that fits you if you care about your data. Run all your services in separate jails and be done with it. You don’t need Docker anyway for your private NAS.

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• Plex, Jellyfin, the *arr stack and a few other resource hogging services have a nice web ui but that’s about it. Do you really, really, need transcoding and all the features? Set up NFS, DLNA or whatever and use whatever client you like. I can’t access my Jellyfin library right now because the backend is apparently too old (wtf). Meanwhile VLC and a few other more fancy frontend clients with cover art, ratings and stuff works just fine accessing the same files over NFS. You don’t have to run some convoluted bullshit and reinvent the wheel every time just because you can.