Do you have a dedicated server for hosting video files? If so, what do you use?
I use a Dell Vostro 15 3568 running Windows Server 2008 R2. I connect to it via RDP and the qbittorrent web client. I don’t use Plex or any other Media program and just share an external 1TB drive as a SMB share.
I’m using a QNAP TS328 with three identical drives which allows for a drive to fail and not lose data. The downside with that approach is that you only get 1/3 of the total storage, e.g. 3 x 4TB drives basically gives you 4TB of storage with good insurance against a drive failure. You need to use drives made for servers.
This QNAP has many options for serving the data in differing ways, but Infuse is just accessing the files directly in my system. Setting it up was a headache, and a bit expensive, but it runs well, updates automatically and sends emails to me if it needs attention.
Using a self built Xeon server system with Truenas Scale, mirrors. Running Emby as the media server, one of 25 apps and 4 vms on this host which is mostly idle cpu wise despite the load. Was pretty inexpensive with no ongoing costs.
NAS Synology DS220+
File access is organized using SMB/FTP/WebDAV.
Also, in addition to local access, access to files from the external Internet is open. This way, I can view my files from any location.
3 * 4 TB drive should give you 8TB of storage, on raid 5 with one drive failure reliability. Your system is not setup correctly.
You most likely are on a RAID 1 setup, and thus you can withstand two drive failure.
I find the QNAP software very hard to comprehend and use. I expected to have more drive space available but their terminology beats me. I thought I was setting up RAID 5. I suppose it can be fixed, but everything you do on this server takes a l-o-n-g time to happen. The thing sounds like it’s grinding coffee for hours and hours. So after a couple of attempts I decided to just let it alone. I did have to add a UPS as it totally trashes itself and has to rebuild if there is a power outage. It does serve media up quickly and never glitches, but I reckon I could have just had a big external drive sitting on the network with a lot less hassle (and cost).