I have a mini-PC running windows. On that, I run home assistant in virtualbox, have plex installed, and a cheap USB harddrive plugged in to keep my plex media. I’ve turned on sharing for a folder in this drive so other devices on my network can access it.

I’ve watched some videos and read some tutorials. I have a pretty good idea on how I’m going to run HA and Plex, but I’m unsure about turning my USB drive into something the rest of my devices can access as well as something Plex can directly access too.

What would you recommend as the most beginner friendly, easy way to accomplish this? I keep seeing TrueNAS pop up, but I’m not convinced this isn’t way overkill for what I want to do. So what would you recommend I look at to start out? The amount of information and things I don’t know yet is a little overwhelming.

After I get more familiar with the system, I’m totally happy to branch out and try more advanced things that most people prefer, but that’s down the road for me now.

Edit: to be clear, I’m planning on completely ditching windows and setting everything back up in proxmox

  • Nawor3565English
    2·
    1 year ago

    How come the folder share you currently have isn’t sufficient? Most systems should be able to access Samba, so what particular goal are you trying to accomplish?

    • alexrmay91@lemm.eeOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      I want to completely switch over to proxmox and ditch windows on the server. Sorry if that wasn’t clear in the post.

      I just want to replicate the functionality but proxmox (and Linux in general) is very new to me.

      • Nawor3565English
        3·
        1 year ago

        Ah, I see. If you’re really looking for a beginner option, I might just setup a Samba share for the drive. Then you can get into more advanced options once you get more comfortable.

        • alexrmay91@lemm.eeOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          That’s really helpful thanks. I should be able to Google around and figure out how to install samba. Would you recommend installing samba directly on the host or spinning up a dedicated VM or LXC to install there?

          I’m planning on running Plex in a LXC. Maybe install Samba on that container alongside Plex?

          • MelmiEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Ideally, you’d spin up a dedicated container for every service. Combining services somewhat undercuts the advantages of having them in containers to begin with.

            • alexrmay91@lemm.eeOP
              1·
              1 year ago

              Thanks. That’s what I was thinking but I wasn’t sure if it was easier to have Plex and samba in the same container since I want both to directly access the hard drive.