Migrating CDVR and Project containers from Synology NAS to Mac Mini M4?

Playground Hardware
#1

I'm looking at moving my Channels DVR Server docker containers and docker container Projects off my two Synology NAS's to a Mac Mini M4 instead of getting a new Synology NAS.

I would assume that since a Mac Mini M4 is many times more powerful than a Synology NAS that it shouldn't be a problem?

I'm currently running these 20 containers on my two old Synology NAS boxes and would be migrating them all to a Mac Mini M4.

Channels DVR Server 1
Channels DVR Server 2
Channels DVR Server 3
Channels DVR Server 4
Channels DVR Server 5
Channels DVR Server 6
Channels DVR Server 7
diun
EPlusTV
frndlytv-for-channels
olivetin
pinchflat
plex-for-channels
portainer
samsung-tvplus-for-channels
slm
static-file-server
tubi-for-channels
vlc-bridge-fubo
vlc-bridge-pbs

Since I've never used a Mac, I'm wondering if it's possible and what's the best way to run these docker containers on a Mac Mini M4.

One of the things I remember reading here is that Docker Desktop for Mac CANNOT use host networking. Not sure if that's true now, but if it is, I cannot run 7 Channels DVR Servers in docker containers, so migrating to a Mac Mini would be a non-starter.

Can I run multiple Channels DVR Servers natively (different executable directories and different ports)?

#2

I own a Mac Mini M4 myself, and although it's a solid box, I don't consider it a particularly good Docker platform. It's not that it's a bad Docker platform -- it's just not great.

Personally, I'd suggest selecting a recent generation i3, i5, i7 or i9 and install Proxmox on it (select something that has a decent number of cores/threads and at least 32GB of RAM). It'll change your world. There's very little you can't do with a Proxmox setup, as it's such a fabulous platform for the production and the experimental to live side-by-side.

I think for someone with your knowledge, and interest, Proxmox will allow you to explore whatever catches your fancy without having to worry about impacting your important everyday virtualizations. The key is to leave Proxmox itself as absolutely out-of-the-box as possible, and virtualize everything.

For the technically inclined, interested in something more server and Docker host oriented, it puts the Mac Mini (and MacOS for a server) to shame. More here:

#3

Why are you migrating off your Synology NAS's? Are you out of some resource?

One thing to consider is leaving your storage on the Synology NAS's and accessing it via SMB. This leaves you open to chose a host environment for compute be it physical box(es) or VMs or as suggested a container environment or a combination of any of them.

I've taken this approach and am very happy. When I've had issues with my host computer, I brought channels up on an old laptop in about 10 minutes and all my shows were ready to go on my NAS. Need storage, it's very easy to grow the storage on most NAS while host computers usually require a migration.

#4

Thanks, but I don't want to go down that road.
Since I will be getting a Mac Mini M4 anyway, I figured I could use it to run multiple Channels DVR Servers on it.

#5

I'm keeping the Synology NAS's for storage, just wanted to move my Channels DVR Servers and Project containers to the Mac Mini M4 I will be getting. Figured I could use SMB to record directly to the Synology.

#7

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#8

You could run Channels in the OS of your choice as a VM:

#9

Does it work for you?
See

#10

I think I'll be using this option so I can take advantage of hardware transcoding on the Mac.

#11

forget docker desktop, use orbstack instead on the Mac

#12

That this will work fine for Channels DVR itself, but as far as I'm aware, it won't for docker containers. At least with current Macs running Apple Silicon and not the much older ones using Intel chips, Docker containers cannot use QSV for hardware-accelerated transcoding. They can use VideoToolbox acceleration natively, but only outside Docker. This issue has come up a few times with other add-ons like CC4C and Weatherscan.

#13

I looked into this too and considered it but with about 20 running containers I wasn't confident it would be an easy or seamless migration. Does it work with all containers out there? Any significant differences we should know about?

#14

Thanks for that link.
Appears it supports host network mode, but not video device passthrough.
I could use it for my CDVR source containers and then run CDVR natively.

Do you know if Portainer works with it?

#15

Thanks for confirming.
I plan to run my Channels DVR Servers natively to take advantage of hardware transcoding and run my CDVR sources in containers.

#16

Just found some more info about this issue, along with some suggested workarounds

#17

It works on Intel boxes. I have not used a Mac in over a decade.

#18

:question: :question: :question:
I was replying to bnhf about using host network mode in Docker Desktop for Mac

#19

Im not using host networking on my setup. I remember when I was first setting all this up- docker desktop, portainer, etc - chatgpt led me on a very very long painful wild goose chase with host networking, which I did not need in the first place.

Im not running channels in docker. Its running on my Mac and I have never seen the system stressed in the very least in activity monitor.

I did have issues with having my channels database and recording drive be on a networked drive using smb on another MAC. To stabilize the system, I moved the channels drive (its an external ssd) locally on my machine. Performance been rock solid ever since.

As far as transcoding and deinterlacing, I have always used hardware, on my CDVR server. The M4 mini is so fast that Ive never had to think about it.

Hope some of this helps

#20

Thanks for the reply.

I found out I can't run my Channels DVR Servers in containers on macOS and passthrough the video GPU for hardware transcoding (like I can on my Synology).
So I plan to run them bare-metal on the Mac mini.

I'm planning on using SMB and UNC paths (instead of SMB mounts) to my existing Synology \\192.168.1.4\folders for recordings.
Was your problem with SMB mounts, or was it just because it was between two Mac's?

#21

I never fully understood the underlying issue with the drive mounts. I had moved my channels server from a outdated mac mini running High Sierra to the M4 mac mini running Macos 18.xx. I kept the channels database/recording disk on the old mac, and used a network share so the new server could use the existing disk that was plugged into the old mac. Somewhere, either because of a smb networking bug, or a networking bug in general between an outdated machine with an old OS and a new machine, these drive mounts would disappear for no reason whatsoever.
These were networked over a fast robust ethernet connection.

I even wrote some recovery software to parse the channels logs and remount the disks if channels detected a missing drive. In hindsight, this pushed the problem around and wasnt a robust fix.

After a lot of experimenting , I found that by moving the same channels recording/database SSD disk locally to my M4 everything has been extremely robust.

Except - one thing some of us mac users have reported, is MACOS security and privacy settings clobbering channels disk access, sometimes at seemingly random times, and also during software point updates. You might run into this regardless of networking strategy with your synology. They are pretty infrequent, but can be annoying especially if you are away from home.

Good luck. Keep us posted!

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