Serviio

Hi guys,

I have been using serviio now for some years and besides some hickups once in a while it has been perfect.

However I am not super happy with my current router and setup of storing my media so I was thinking about a new setup:

I was thinking about buying either the "Google Wifi" or "Netgear Orbi" due to needing Internet on two levels in the house. On this new router I wanted to plug in some external hard disc drive, some 3-4TB should suffice for me.
The content of this HDD (mostly music, and videos - but also backup for my Mac) should be available for everyone in the network (TV upstairs, TV downstairs - and in theory also for iPhone, iPad etc. but the latter is actually not really important - so I don't need a cloud version that is accessible from everywhere - just within my network is fine)

I have a
Samsung UE55KS7080
MacBook Pro
iPhone/iPad

Those things won't change

Reason why I want to change my current setup (which is: all Wifi, Media is on my macbook and I stream videos via serviio and DLNA to my Samsung) is that I don't want to keep the laptop running all the time. So I thought I can just buy a HDD and connect it via ethernet to the new router.

Question is though: When I buy this HDD and connect it with ethernet to the router my Samsung probably won't see it right away right? (at least that it what I found out from google) So maybe I have to install serviio somehow on this HDD? Or can this all be done via setting it up like I do now on my mac. By selecting the folders I want to share for the network?

So to sum up: I want a network drive that is available for the internal home network all the time. And best case: Plug and Play into the router. But maybe it's not that easy.

Also if you guys have any recommendation for a proper HDD I would be happy. I found the WD MyCloud but reviews on amazon are rather mixed. Equally happy with unhappy customers. Also there is something like Apollo Cloud.


OR if anybody knows if this might work: Apple Time Capsule - which has a 3TB HDD and is a router at the same time. But can the Samsung TV read this?


Thanks in advance

I'm unfamiliar with Apple products, so won't comment on those.

You cannot install Serviio to a router. There are some NAS devices that have a Serviio version, but I believe those are supported by individuals, not Serviio themselves. Serviio has Windows, Mac and Linux installs. Most NAS devices offer some sort of DLNA server built in, but don't expect them to support transcoding video very well. They aren't really designed for that, so don't have the horsepower necessary.

Many routers will allow you to plug an external hard drive into a USB port, but to my knowledge all that does is make it available as a network share. DLNA players will not see network shares. I did have an older Panasonic Blu Ray player that was able to connect to a network share, but that was a specific capability it had, and wasn't related to DLNA.

So, a NAS storage device is most likely the way you should go. If you want to stick with Serviio (and I don't blame you for wanting to), check the NAS subforum here for suggestions about which one.