The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/5meohd on 2025-07-11 00:21:45.
Hello!
I am working on a project to combine the collections of myself and a local irl friend. Between the two of us we have over 14,000 discs. Counting for overlapping titles its likely closer to 12,000.
So far I have just been testing PLEX, Make MKV, a 20TB external drive, an old 2015 MBP and various playback devices including my Shield Pro 2019.
We have been successful with ripping and playback of our discs, including UHD discs. We are keeping everything lossless, including supplements, commentaries, etc... Im a videophile with a nice Sony OLED and hes a film geek that actually works in the industry of disc bonus feature production. So between the two of us, we just cant budge on file size. In fact, we are most excited about the project giving us convenient access to compiling various versions and imports of the same film into one folder. So exciting!
My question for you experts -
If Im willing to start with a budget of $2K, can I build something quality that can just be expanded every year as more funds become available? Maybe start with some kind of DIY NAS with 8 bays and PCIe expansion capablities? I havent built a PC since Windows 7 in 2010 and Ive never built a server.
Outside of "youre in over your head, give up", I appreciate any and all thoughts or ideas!!
With gratitude!