Is your Synology running a ton of stuff other than ChannelsDVR? Get a Raspberry Pi!

Channels DVR Server
#1

So I have been reading the threads here about users getting Channels running on a Raspberry Pi.
I already have a good NAS for Channels, but I couldn't help but want to get one and try it for other things.

I was running a bunch of services in Docker containers on my Synology. And use it for security camera surveillance. Plus DNS and DHCP there too. With all the tasks that were using the CPU, sometimes IO wait would increase and cause a high load average if an above average amount of recordings were happening. With 3+ OTA recordings going in Channels DVR and also watching TV and playing back recordings (all simultaneously), sometimes load would increase substantially and the system would get slower and there was the possibility of a glitch with one of the recordings.

I knew the NAS could handle the Channels DVR service perfectly well if I wasn't also running so many other services and I wanted to offload some of this stuff to the Pi. So I got an rpi4 on Amazon for $90... thats the full 2GB RAM kit with heatsinks, fan, power adapter, board case, and 32GB SD card.
I put Unifi Controller on it, Homebridge, and Pi-Hole ad-blocking DNS & DHCP. Set Unifi to do daily backups to the NAS in the early hours of the morning and set all services to boot with the system. Also hooked it up to gigabit ethernet and a UPS in my network closet. It runs headless, but can ssh and vnc to it from any of my other computers.

And then I stopped Unifi, Homebridge, DNS, DHCP, Pi-Hole, and Docker on the NAS. Don't need Docker at all anymore. My NAS load averages have plummeted. No more IO wait. Channels DVR is faster than ever. And the tiny little Pi is running fast. This was a great addition that improved my Channels setup, without even putting Channels software on it.

I'm still following the threads about running Channels on the rpi4, even though I don't intend to do that. I intended it to be a supplement to the NAS, and for that it is perfect. I would recommend a similar setup to anyone. If anyone else who runs a Pi as a server like this has other good uses for it, let me know!

  • Dave
#2

With the pi, aren't you now losing hardware transcoding? And I would imagine commercial detection would be pretty slow, right?

#3

There are threads of users running Channels on the rpi4. Transcoding is confirmed working. I don't know about the commercial detection performance, since I don't run Channels on Pi. But, if you run a lot of other stuff on your NAS, Pi works great to offset the load.

#4

Derrr. It would have helped if I read your full thread. :slight_smile: I thought you moved Channels to a pi, but instead you offloaded your other apps to it.

1 Like
#5

I would never put my DVR that is constantly used and needs to be reliable on a PI .. it requires external USB storage that can be flakey... I find the PI to be more of a tinkerer tool than a high performance appliance. My synology nas is reliable has plenty of storage and also saves me in the event of 1 drive loss.

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#6

Rather, it is a perfect place to run a Unifi Controller. It is much more versatile than a Cloud Key and can run as a server for multiple other things. And significantly cheaper.

What I am saying is that this is a performance booster for the synology.