Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:56 am by atc98092
Yes, your media does not have to reside on the device running Serviio. The media location just has to be shared with the network. When you add this shared folder, you use a UNC path, rather than a drive letter (i.e. \\nas_device\media\ instead of H:\media).
The single biggest issue with doing this is ensuring Serviio has permission to access your networked location. By default, Serviio runs with a system account that usually has limited networking permissions. The simplest solution is to change the account that Serviio uses to the same account you log into the computer with.
How you configure it will depend on which device you want to use as your primary Serviio source (NAS or PC). If you want to use the NAS as your primary, then sharing your Windows media location and giving read permission to everyone (and probably the Guest account as well) should be enough. If you want to use the Windows PC as primary, then changing the Serviio user account is simplest.
If you decide to add videos to you library in the future, it might be best to use the PC as your primary. If your media player doesn't support your media, transcoding will be necessary, and most NAS storage devices don't have sufficient CPU power to transcode video. They can usually handle audio fine.
Dan
LG NANO85 4K TV, Samsung JU7100 4K TV, Sony BDP-S3500, Sharp 4K Roku TV, Insignia Roku TV, Roku Ultra, Premiere and Stick, Nvidia Shield, Yamaha RX-V583 AVR.
Primary server: Intel i5-6400, 16 gig ram, Windows 10 Pro, 22 TB hard drive space | Test server Windows 10 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 965, 8 gig ram
HOWTO: Enable debug logging HOWTO: Identify media file contents