TrueNAS and Other Custom NAS Builds

[CaseySJ]

The NextCloud integration for Home Assistant provides both manual and automated backups. Another use case for NextCloud that is running locally on my TrueNAS server.

 

[CaseySJ]

After building a custom TrueNAS Scale system, upgrading the home theater, upgrading the home network and automating most things with Home Assistant, it was time to start something that had been on the back of my mind for some time: Digitizing the entire Blu-ray collection.

The popular app MakeMKV is being used with two Blu-ray drives to backup a collection of 200 or more movies.

• Drive 1: Archgon Blu-ray 4K-UHD drive
  • Connected to Ryzentosh (Asus X670E Gene with Ryzen 7 7700X)
• Drive 2: Old LG Blu-ray HD drive
  • Connected to 14" Apple MacBook Pro

Blu-ray movies are stored in BDMV folders, which can be played by (a) Jellyfin, (b) VLC Player, (c) Infuse Player and some other apps. Unlike streaming services that justifiably minimize bandwidth by reducing bitrate, these BDMV movies are full bandwidth, full bitrate.

My favorite app is Infuse by Firecore because there are clients for iOS, AppleTV, macOS, etc. On AppleTV, the Infuse app provides an absolutely stunning user-interface. It can connect to TrueNAS via SMB or Jellyfin. It also supports Plex and other alternatives.

If connected via Jellyfin, however, Infuse cannot play back BDMV (Blu-ray) movies so I've opted for the SMB option. Infuse stores all metadata on iCloud, which allows immediate syncing between all Apple ecosystem devices.

Here's the Infuse app running on macOS:

Here's the Jellyfin interface via web:

Current size of various movie libraries on TrueNAS Scale. The Blu-ray dataset will probably quadruple in size when my entire collection has been digitized!

 

[gandem]

My favorite app is Infuse by Firecore because there are clients for iOS, AppleTV, macOS, etc. On AppleTV, the Infuse app provides an absolutely stunning user-interface. It can connect to TrueNAS via SMB or Jellyfin. It also supports Plex and other alternatives.

This is a fantastic find!
I have been searching for a solution for my system, and I honestly cannot believe I never found this.

My video library is all "home" video with footage from two cameras with two different formats: Sony (AVCHD-M2TS) and Sony (XDCAM-HD/4K-MXF)

The older AVCHD format is supported by JellyFin and Plex, so I went with Plex. The problem has been the XDCAM-MXF format. I was contemplating transcoding the footage but it would have been time consuming and eaten up more storage.

I upgraded my internal network with 10Gb switches and fiber, so I'm now 10Gb on all floors and workstations giving me excellent speed to my TrueNAS setup. I also upgraded to WIFI 7 (Only have 6E clients) but ready for the future. My AppleTV's are latest Gen and both are wired (limited to 1Gb).

I was really hoping to find a solution that worked on all my Apple devices and Infuse has helped me achieve this. It even plays back the newer XDCAM-MXF format- which is not all that new since the camera was purchased in 2014.

The only issue I'm having with Infuse is that it doesn't seem to see any of the embedded metadata. Dates are all over the place, which is the most important piece of info to me. I've gone through the support docs to ensure proper settings, but no luck. I'm now searching for a metadata solution.

Anyway, this is still a big win for me and certainly helped me reach my goal with this TrueNAS setup.

@CaseySJ Thank you!!

 

[CaseySJ]

@gandem,

I have become somewhat of an expert in the Infuse Metadata Department, at least for commercially released movies, TV shows, documentaries and mini-series.

How are you naming your files?

Have you seen the Metadata 101 guide?

Metadata 101

Overview Infuse will fetch info from The Movie Database (TMDB) for movies, TV shows, anime, concerts, short films, and collections. Below are some naming guidelines which will allow you to get the ...

support.firecore.com

You can see some of my struggles here, which are all resolved now thanks to their moderators:
https://community.firecore.com/t/match-metadata-for-blue-planet-ii-discs/46704/15

Infuse handles multi-part shows very nicely. Here are some examples:

 

[Feartech]

@gandem,

I have become somewhat of an expert in the Infuse Metadata Department, at least for commercially released movies, TV shows, documentaries and mini-series.

How are you naming your files?

Have you seen the Metadata 101 guide?

Metadata 101

Overview Infuse will fetch info from The Movie Database (TMDB) for movies, TV shows, anime, concerts, short films, and collections. Below are some naming guidelines which will allow you to get the ...

support.firecore.com

You can see some of my struggles here, which are all resolved now thanks to their moderators:
https://community.firecore.com/t/match-metadata-for-blue-planet-ii-discs/46704/15

Infuse handles multi-part shows very nicely. Here are some examples:
View attachment 577252View attachment 577253View attachment 577254

had some fun and games using Plex Media, using Filebot helped a little

 

[CaseySJ]

Current Status:

4K UHD Blu-rays:	62
1080p HD Blu-rays:	286

• 3 Blu-ray drives in use:
  • 2 that support both 4K and 1080p
  • 1 that supports only 1080p
• 3 computers in use:
  • Apple Silicon M1 14" MacBook Pro
  • Ryzentosh Asus X670E Gene with Ryzen 7 7700X
  • Hackintosh Asus Z690-i ROG Strix mini-ITX with Intel i5-12600K

Just when I thought I was done, I found another 50 Blu-rays...

 

[UtterDisbelief]

@gandem,

I have become somewhat of an expert in the Infuse Metadata Department, at least for commercially released movies, TV shows, documentaries and mini-series.

How are you naming your files?

Have you seen the Metadata 101 guide?

Metadata 101

Overview Infuse will fetch info from The Movie Database (TMDB) for movies, TV shows, anime, concerts, short films, and collections. Below are some naming guidelines which will allow you to get the ...

support.firecore.com

You can see some of my struggles here, which are all resolved now thanks to their moderators:
https://community.firecore.com/t/match-metadata-for-blue-planet-ii-discs/46704/15

Infuse handles multi-part shows very nicely. Here are some examples:
View attachment 577252View attachment 577253View attachment 577254

No chaps, I'm Spartacus!!!

 

[CaseySJ]

And finally all Blu-ray discs have been backed up to TrueNAS.

Here's the final damage! 15.64 TiB

Now I need to back this up to a secondary NAS for safekeeping. Yikes.

 

[CaseySJ]

* Revisiting Home Lab Home Page Apps *​

A couple of days ago the YouTube algorithm selected for me a video from Techno Tim that introduces the Homepage home page app! Among the various such apps that I've tried (Homarr, Heimdall, etc.) I think Homepage is my favorite.

Thanks to the informative video and accompanying web page, I was able to install and configure a copy of Homepage on my TrueNAS system. It currently looks like this:

Things to notice:

• This app is only configurable by editing a couple of yaml files; there is no GUI method
• Fortunately these files are quite easy to modify and well documented
• We can group items into categories, which in my case are:
  • Infrastructure
  • HomeAutomation
  • Applications
• Many items support optional widgetsthat use an API to query information from the service; in the screenshot we can see:
  • UniFi has a widget querying 4 fields
  • TrueNAS has a widget querying 3 fields
  • NextCloud has a widget querying 4 fields
  • Home Assistant has a widget configured to query 3 fields
  • Jellyfin has a widget querying 4 fields
• We can choose all fields by default or sub-select fields
• On the top right corner of each item we can see a ping check, which is green if the service is up and running, or red if the service is not responding
• We can change the background image, background blur, background opacity, background brightness, etc.

 

[CaseySJ]

* TrueNAS Space Warning *​

Well it had to happen...

After backing up hundreds of Blu-rays, the used space grew by 18 TiB. This leaves 14.23 TiB free out of a total of 50.73 TiB, or 72% full.

TrueNAS Scale is now raising the following warning:

This of course does not leave much headroom before the 80% threshold is reached. Fortunately my NAS accommodates 8 drive bays, of which 5 are currently in use (RAIDZ1).

The latest version of TrueNAS Scale has an option to expand a ZFS pool:

I'll read through the pros and cons of this option before deciding to add one or two more drives...