Open Media Vault server
For years, I had owned a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device from Western Digital – a My Cloud Home – with 4 tera-bytes of storage. On it, I stored home media, and device and computer backups. Well, one day the software that manages the device became non-responsive. Fortunately, I was able to disassemble the WD device and retrieve its hard drive – which still worked.
I took this as an opportunity to learn something new and try to create my own home server, using the rescued hard drive.
I also had an old desktop PC kicking around, and the ensuing research I did led me to Open Media Vault Server (OMV). It’s Open Source and free and fit well with my objectives.
Simply put, OMV runs on dedicated Linux on the old PC (onto which I installed the 4 TB hard drive), and manages a variety of server related functions through a web browser interface on my home network. The key features I use on my OMV install include:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| File sharing | Allows the large volume hard to be accessible from all of the computers in the house to facilitate near real time file backup |
| Plex media player* | Allows smart TVs and devices to connect to and play media stored via OMV through the popular Plex application |
| Home Assistant* | Brings all of the IoT devices together in one spot and makes them available through a web interface |
| *Docker/Portainer | Docker takes a slice of the server and simulates being its own little virtual system. It’s what enables Plex and Home Assistant. Portainer is a Docker application that manages Docker apps |
