root@labs:~$ cat projects/home-media-server.md

Home Media Server

LOG-006 media-server ● active started 2026-08

The short version: a NAS, a media server, and an automation stack that finds, downloads, and organizes things without us babysitting it. This is the project that never really finishes, because there is always one more show to catalog or one more setting worth tuning.

James runs Jellyfin. Kyle still runs Plex, migration pending. The Arr stack (Jackett, FlareSolverr, Sonarr, Radarr, Overseerr, all managed through Portainer) runs in Docker on the Synology.

what we'd do differently

Started with Jackett because it's what we already knew. If we were setting the indexer layer up from scratch today we'd probably start with Prowlarr instead, since it talks to Sonarr and Radarr natively instead of needing a separate proxy step. Not urgent enough to rip out and redo yet, but it's on the list.

2026-08-22 media-server Jellyfin vs Plex: which one actually runs in our lab Every homelab eventually asks this question. You get a media library going, you want to actually watch it on a TV that… read → 2026-08-22 media-server The Arr stack, explained without the acronym soup The names sound like a pirate convention. Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Jackett, Bazarr. Once you understand what each one actually does, it stops… read → 2026-08-22 media-server Synology vs QNAP: the NAS argument we keep having This argument shows up in every homelab forum thread eventually, and both sides are right, which is the annoying part. The actual… read →
Media serverPlex (Kyle), Jellyfin (James)
AutomationJackett, FlareSolverr, Sonarr, Radarr, Overseerr, qBittorrent
Container managementPortainer
StorageSynology RS815+
StatusAlways growing, never finished