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1080p Downloads Of 4k Movies On Prime

@Killer B.

Like has been mentioned, all this shenanigans is about preferences. That's why I would not call anything you like or prefer to do wrong. Because it's all very personal, dependent on what YOU like and your own situation.

But with that said, to offer a different perspective, here is how I do it. I am not saying it's right or wrong or better but I know I have learned a TON here by finding out how others handled their stuff.

- So all my media is digitized and stored on a NAS (running RAID5)
-- This includes everything from CDs to UHD movies (which I store lossless)
- The NAS is connected to a dedicated Plex server
--So Plex is the "center" of my media world
- From there every TV has a Roku on it which the Plex app is installed and used
- I use an additional piece of software to catalogue everything so I know what form in came in and how it's been stored

So to bring in new titles is not just a "throw it on the pile" mentality. Everything has to go through the "process" and get digitized, stored and catalogued.

That's just how I do it but if you like discs there is nothing wrong with that.
I appreciate all of the advice; thanks for taking the time, DQ!

There's no arguing personal tastes & preferences... to each his own, and I do use both streaming & physical media, & enjoy the benefits that each brings.
The NAS & RAID and all are beyond my milieu... I know file conversion, disc authoring, etc. but no I don't have any "server" that I use among different devices other than printers, etc

If I want to play music in another room I take my memory stick with its gob of FLAC files & play them on high quality receivers and/or DACs, or else use my laptop and paired DAC & headphone amp.
I use a really nice portable android based music dac/amp for taking my music to the gym, etc. where I can either use wired or wireless headphones and have half a Tb of storage on the removeable card.

For video, I either stream from the providers or use physical media... I've never messed much with any file conversion of video, only audio, until I tried anystream, and attempted to save just a choice few downloads to set-top playable decks, eventually finding that I was limited to being able to save them to USB drive, play as files on my Oppo, which is my only player that seems to handle them with both audio and video output playing correctly.

These few choice titles that I've streamed, some of which I have actually bought, number in only the range of a dozen or so - and are those movies that I want to save to disc in the event that they should become unavailable for streaming at some point - are the only ones that I would want to save to disc really... at some point I might want to use a server, as you do... if or when I familiarize my self with that realm of plausibilities & think it woudl be beneficial.

I'm saving the text of this conversation for later reference and am sure it will be very helpful.
Thanks again for the help; all the best!
Brian B. (killer B)
 
I appreciate all of the advice; thanks for taking the time, DQ!

There's no arguing personal tastes & preferences... to each his own, and I do use both streaming & physical media, & enjoy the benefits that each brings.
The NAS & RAID and all are beyond my milieu... I know file conversion, disc authoring, etc. but no I don't have any "server" that I use among different devices other than printers, etc

If I want to play music in another room I take my memory stick with its gob of FLAC files & play them on high quality receivers and/or DACs, or else use my laptop and paired DAC & headphone amp.
I use a really nice portable android based music dac/amp for taking my music to the gym, etc. where I can either use wired or wireless headphones and have half a Tb of storage on the removeable card.

For video, I either stream from the providers or use physical media... I've never messed much with any file conversion of video, only audio, until I tried anystream, and attempted to save just a choice few downloads to set-top playable decks, eventually finding that I was limited to being able to save them to USB drive, play as files on my Oppo, which is my only player that seems to handle them with both audio and video output playing correctly.

These few choice titles that I've streamed, some of which I have actually bought, number in only the range of a dozen or so - and are those movies that I want to save to disc in the event that they should become unavailable for streaming at some point - are the only ones that I would want to save to disc really... at some point I might want to use a server, as you do... if or when I familiarize my self with that realm of plausibilities & think it woudl be beneficial.

I'm saving the text of this conversation for later reference and am sure it will be very helpful.
Thanks again for the help; all the best!
Brian B. (killer B)

Sure thing, anytime. This is a GREAT community for learning how to do what with just about anything media related. In fact, I speak about it all like it's something I have always done. But it's not. The processes I use and the tools I use all took time to learn and or build or acquire. So it's not something you setup or do overnight. I think most here (like myself) see this whole thing as a hobby and we enjoy going through it all as well as chatting about it.
 
I also used to burn things to DVD. But that gets expensive and takes up a lot of physical space. And sadly, discs does really not last forever.
I also use a Plex Media server on a dedicate Linux mint server. Best thing I ever got.
And Media Centre Master to get metadata of things I make digital copies of (not Microsoft Media Centre).

But I don't use Raid. I used to have Raid 5, but when two drives failed at once, that was that. Lost a bunch of things because one is not always so diligent with backups as one should be. Human nature. (even with great programs like FreeFile Sync)
What bugs me about Raid 5 as well is that one "have to give up a fair amount of space for the parity bits.

I briefly dabbled then with Raid 0, but that is just stupid. If one disk goes, you lose the whole lot.

So what I do now is this:
The server has individual drives mounted individually with the stuff I want to keep on it.
I also have external HDD's on which I store the backups.
So each time I add something to the Plex server, I copy the file to the external HDD's. Doesn't take long with USB3 at all.
I recently had a failing HDD in the server, and it was a simple matter to rip out the failing HDD and replace it with a new one and copy the items back.

The advantage of the externarl HDD backups is that it is offline firstly. So no one can mess with the files.
The other advantage of the external discs is that I can take them anywhere with me, even to places where the internet is not that good to continue watching what I wanted to.
I know Plex has a great feature where you can download things you want to continue watching, but what I whomever I visit wants a copy of the file and I don't have the full set with me? (remember slow internet).

But, as stated, to each his own. You do you.
From experience, DVD/BlueRays are just way more difficult to manage than deigital devices. The server also can be used for storing many other digital things, so not just a single use device.
 
Yes there is a trade off to using RAID but to me it is worth it. I also use Plex Media Server. It is running on a QNAP NAS. The NAS has 8 external bays and 2 M.2 internal "bays". I have 2 1TB M.2 drives for the firmware and VMs. I currently have 5 14TB drives in RAID 6 with 29TB free so I have lots of room to grow. I have a 50,000 track music library that I use with Logitech Media Server which is also running on the NAS. I have a Windows 10 VM running on the NAS that I use for Anystream. Since the NAS runs 24 x 7 I can start a download and shutoff my laptop. I can't wait for a queue to be implemented as I could queue a number of downloads.

I backup everything locally to another NAS and also backup everything except my movies and TV shows to the cloud. I figure it would be easier to redownload/re-rip the < 1,000 movies and tv shows then to recreate the 50,000 track music library if I lost everything at home.
 
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Sorry, no by home use.
Tip: never use Raid for NAS devices.
If you use Raid in your NAS device, can you also continue burn discs.
It's all unnecessary work, waste of time and money, but not a point more safety.
Yes = backups and backups and backups, but never use Raid.

Um, What? RAID is awesome. RAID isn't a backup solution, but RAID is great for uptime. With RAID 6, you can have lose two drives and your files will still be accessible.
 
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Yes there is a trade off to using RAID but to me it is worth it. I also use Plex Media Server. It is running on a QNAP NAS. The NAS has 8 external bays and 2 M.2 internal "bays". I have 2 1TB M.2 drives for the firmware and VMs. I currently have 5 14TB drives in RAID 6 with 29TB free so I have lots of room to grow. I have a 50,000 track music library that I use with Logitech Media Server which is also running on the NAS. I have a Windows 10 VM running on the NAS that I use for Anystream. Since the NAS runs 24 x 7 I can start a download and shutoff my laptop. I can't wait for a queue to be implemented as I could queue a number of downloads.

I backup everything locally to another NAS and also backup everything except my movies and TV shows to the cloud. I figure it would be easier to redownload/re-rip the < 1,000 movies and tv shows then to recreate the 50,000 track music library if I lost everything at home.

That is interesting. Folks don't normally talk about audio stuff here but I have a large sound collection too I built over the years. And when I say over the years I am talking all the way back to Amiga MODs. I have a whole collection of them I converted to MP3 although sometimes for fun I will run them in DOSBox and use the MOD player (DMP) from back in the day.
 

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My whole Cole Porter collection is on Raid 6, I would never do it any other way.
 
Feel free to use what you like.

A long time ago I also thought raid was a good idea.
After many experiences over the many years, I only use single HDDs and smart backups for my home NAS devices.
There is nothing better.
I would never do it any other way again.

Was just a hint for beginners with NAS devices.
Beginners always think that you have to use Raid with an NAS device.
This is not the case.
Raid also has disadvantages.
Strange, these disadvantages are never talked about.
 
I run RAID 5 on my QNAP NAS with 4x 8TB disks (running Plex) which holds all my media.

I copy it all to an external QNAP DAS which has my old 4x4TB drives in it running RAID 0 (so, basically a 16 TB drive). It is powered off 95% of the time but both are powered through a UPS anyway.

I realise I cannot copy everything from my NAS to my DAS but that hasn't become a problem yet.
 
Feel free to use what you like.

A long time ago I also thought raid was a good idea.
After many experiences over the many years, I only use single HDDs and smart backups for my home NAS devices.
There is nothing better.
I would never do it any other way again.

Was just a hint for beginners with NAS devices.
Beginners always think that you have to use Raid with an NAS device.
This is not the case.
Raid also has disadvantages.
Strange, these disadvantages are never talked about.

What disadvantages do you think people are trying to hide? There's no conspiracy here. If you don't want to use RAID, don't use it.
 
Raid also has disadvantages.

Agreed, but I find RAID risks are discussed on the right forums. Individual disks have risks too, of course.

RAID is definitely not a backup and RAID can fail. Different hardware has different reliability; this is also true for individual disks.

My personal experience of RAID has only ever been positive; I have never had RAID-5 system fail on me in the 11 years I have been using it. I did have 1 individual disk fail (which I replaced and the NAS rebuilt itself and continued along happily).
 
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Agreed, but I find RAID risks are discussed on the right forums. Individual disks have risks too, of course.

RAID is definitely not a backup and RAID can fail. Different hardware has different reliability; this is also true for individual disks of course.

My personal experience of RAID has only ever been positive; I have never had RAID-5 system fail on me in the 11 years I have been using it. I did have 1 individual disk fail (which I replaced and the NAS rebuilt itself and continued along happily).

Agreed. When you have a failed disc in a RAID, you simply hot swap with a new one. There is no down time. With a non-RAIDed drive, you replace the disc and restore from backup, which for multi-terabyte drives can take a long time.
 
Agreed. When you have a failed disc in a RAID, you simply hot swap with a new one. There is no down time. With a non-RAIDed drive, you replace the disc and restore from backup, which for multi-terabyte drives can take a long time.
Not actually a disadvantage, but it's a valid point:
During a rebuild after swapping a failed disk with a new one, all the remaining disks are stressed way more than usual because the parity has to be calculated and written to the new disk. that process can take many hours up to days depending on disk size. Due to that stress the risk that another disk might fail is quite high, resulting in a complete data loss.
I guess that is what Balor is referring to. That is why you should never use RAID without additional backup
We were discussing it here https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/qnap-raid5-additional-drive.82413/ because it doesn't actually belong to AnyStream topics (y)
 
Not actually a disadvantage, but it's a valid point:
During a rebuild after swapping a failed disk with a new one, all the remaining disks are stressed way more than usual because the parity has to be calculated and written to the new disk. that process can take many hours up to days depending on disk size. Due to that stress the risk that another disk might fail is quite high, resulting in a complete data loss.
I guess that is what Balor is referring to. That is why you should never use RAID without additional backup
We were discussing it here https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/qnap-raid5-additional-drive.82413/ because it doesn't actually belong to AnyStream topics (y)

Of course. No one is advising using RAID in lieu of proper backups.
 
Not actually a disadvantage, but it's a valid point:
During a rebuild after swapping a failed disk with a new one, all the remaining disks are stressed way more than usual because the parity has to be calculated and written to the new disk. that process can take many hours up to days depending on disk size. Due to that stress the risk that another disk might fail is quite high, resulting in a complete data loss.
I guess that is what Balor is referring to. That is why you should never use RAID without additional backup
We were discussing it here https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/qnap-raid5-additional-drive.82413/ because it doesn't actually belong to AnyStream topics (y)

Which is why I use RAID 6. To me the cost of the drives is far less than the time, aggregation, and loss of access while restoring from the loss of using single disks. But everyone’s priorities and finances are different.


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Storage costs are coming down, just look at Newegg or even Amazon, you can get 10TB WD Gold mechanical drives 7200RPM 256 cache, for 250 bucks.
 
In Europe currently 14TB drives are at 240 Euro or 17 Euro /TB. Check it out using your preferred search engine.
240€ is about $280 , we can have those prices here on the lower end 5400RPM mechanical drives, I am talking top tier server drives. The WD Gold 7200RPM, has less than a .05% failure rate, I have had some 8tb and 6 tbs ones for years now, no issues.
 
I dont use raid and i dont back things up... and one day i will cry... :(
 
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