[Ps3 Roms Torrent
Saija Grzegorek
What I did was delete my entire rom collection, downloaded a newer and more complete one (GoodNES 3.14) and then what I did was I got this app called RomCenter which basically reduced the entire rom set to just the essential roms. After that I scanned these roms, and Retroarch seemed to scan them fine.
No, no change in overall behavior, though the databases themselves have undergone changes since then. Regardless, the scanning has no effect on whether or not you can actually run the games, just whether they show up in a playlist.
Having the ROMs/Images on NAS is usually not an issue, particularly anything non-CD based. The time needed to pull a relatively small size ROM file for cart based systems isn't a big issue and the lag would be at the beginning of the game so once running wouldn't see any difference. The bottleneck will be images and media caching if that is not done locally. If you run LB locally then won't have issues there. One thing to think about is how to synchronize the local LB setups as well as emulators on the local setups (if at all). Something like FreeFileSync works well to sync media to the other local installs.
Also, for CD based emulation (or MAME CHDs), those files are much larger so if you have slow network or doing wireless that can lag on retrieving parts and pieces. So, a key piece is what your network speed is as well as what type of emulation you are wanting to do. There are a couple threads here with people's experience and for some it isn't a big deal with lag. For me, when first tried it, the lag was noticeable on a wireless setup (several years ago generation wise on wireless).
However, I haven't been running games off the Synology and use it strictly as a "master file backup". I then use FreeFileSync to sync the 3 different setups from the master: 1) kids - stripped down simple games 2)TV Room - subset of games good to play on large screen 3) main PC with full setup. For setups 1 and 2, rarely change them so those are pretty static and size wise the installs are small since not the whole rom set. I did this originally since the place we were living in at the time was all wireless to the clients and I just couldn't get good consistent speed to the NAS (upstairs..far side of house). So, I just did local installs inclusive of any games/ROMs. My main PC and the NAS have full sets of each because I had too much time invested to lose my setup (i.e., have a backup..Synology has a file sync tool to do this as well). This new place has wiring to each room and can mostly get 2.5 Gb speeds to clients as well as have 10 Gb cards on the Synology's. I did some test, and works well off the Synology only, but just haven't bothered messing with the all local setups since "they work".
So with all that, any slowdowns you see will not be limited by the NAS but will be your home network speed to get to the NAS data. Flakey wireless? Then likely not going to be happy with anything CD based. Cart based should work well over most any setups assuming you locally install the media, emulators, and LB. Fast network/hard line at 2.5 Gb to 10 Gb range, then wouldn't be much different in performance to USB external drive.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer.
I've looked up this Synology device.: -us/products/DS1821+
Would that be a device I could use? I guess it is an update from the 1819+, correct?
The most common way to get files to other clients is you setup a shared folder that is then visible on your home network. Then you can map that folder to your clients (Apple, Linux, Microsoft). For client machines, you then see the NAS like another computer on the network and then under that you will see folders that are shared. To keep things consistent, I map all my shares on the NAS consistently across all clients. You can set permissions to the folders to however way you want (everyone, particular users or groups, read only, etc). For home setup, I keep simple and block all WAN access (i.e., outside home net).
You can also setup as an iSCSI drive to make the client think the folder/drive on the NAS is actually just like a connected physical drive, but I have never messed with all that so cannot share much info there. Shared folders like above work with any emulation I have dealt with as well as works okay with SYMLINKS on Windows. However, there are some modern PC game clients, namely BattleNet and EA/Origin, that will refuse to run on a shared NAS folder "because it causes issues" per those game publishers (which is baloney). That would be case where iSCSI might work, but again haven't tried (I just keep PC games local...plus modern games larger/need fast access).
Drive wise you should make sure to stick with actual NAS drives particularly if in the 8-bay realm or larger. These things will be running 24/7. Seagate IronWolf, Seagate EXOS (enterprise, cheaper but noisier), and WD Reds. I have used all at one point or another (can intermix) but mostly using Seagate since WD seems to be consistently pricier. The Reds seem to be the quietest with the Seagate's you will hear a lot of "drive heads moving around" if you have the NAS on your desk. Depends on your sensitivity to those things. Also, RAID can "feel" like a backup system, but it isn't. It is simply drive redundancy where if a drive dies the whole NAS doesn't lose data. The key is you have to swap out the faulty one with a new one and with a large multi-TB partition it can take DAYS to rebuild. While it is rebuilding if you lose another drive (or two depending on how setup if use SHR), then you lose all data. Having a spare HD of same size as your installed sets helps (they tend to die when everyone is out of stock...or high prices due to whatever supply chain issue). I am also religious about if the drive testing starts (does on schedule you set) showing any drive errors, I swap it out. Even if you have backups, just replacing everything can take a long time to replace TBs of data.
If go Synology, you will also need to decide on RAID type since you are fixed with that decision unless you nuke the whole storage pool (basically, wipe and reformat). You can use normal RAID, or Synology's "flavor" which has some advantages. I have mine all set to Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) which is basically RAID 5 but allows swapping out larger drives and partition will be resized (over multiple days).
Edit: I should also mention you can "roll your own" NAS with things like UnRaid and FreeNAS. I looked into them way back (sure they have matured) and can get a cheaper/more flexible NAS versus QNAP or Synology. Although comfortable building that sort of stuff, I just wanted something that would "work" with minimal hassle. The tradeoff is pricier versus home brew relative to feature set and you are locked into the Synology and QNAP way of things which are modified Linux kernels.
Thanks so much for your great insights. I guess I'll safe up for the 8-bay NAS. It's currently too expensive for me, but I'll get there eventually.
One more thing. I don't want to run anything in RAID mode and I also don't want to run the NAS 24/7. What I want is to be able to switch it on and off whenever I need it. If I go on vacation, I'll switch it on, so I can access it from wherever I am. I have plenty of spare drives that I can use for backup, so I don't need an automatic backup system and I don't want to deal with an automatic rebuild system. That sounds like it's gonna fail and introduces errors.
If something gets lost forever, I guess I'll just have to redownload it.
If you are using it for that limited use case, then you might look at the smaller bay units (2 bay or 4 bay). Particularly if using in "JBOD" (just a bunch of disks) mode and not using RAID you will not lose any capacity due to RAID redundancy. I wouldn't recommend doing non-RAID on anything +4 disks and larger unless you REALLY don't care about your time and data. Even if you have data or access to replacement, there is typically the time factor of getting it into use form/tagging, etc as well as physical time to copy back/download.
If you have an 8-disk bay unit in non-RAID volume across all drives, and any of the 8 drives has corrupt data or dies, you lose data across entire volume. I have had hard drives die, but never any issues with RAID itself, particularly if using off the shelf RAID setup like QNAP or Synology. Now if you are keeping off NAS off most times then drive wear and tear will be less, so maybe for your use case not a big deal. Just something to consider.
Not sure if it is of any help, but I run most everything from a NAS. I have a old Dell PC (started with a RPi3 I think), installed OMV5 (it's free) on it. I have a 14TB external HDD attached to it for roms and a 2TB external HDD attached for the media. (I have other drives attached for other things as well, like a MediaSonic Pro Raid that hosts all my video, music and such, another 12TB in raid 5) and I use the internal drives I have installed in the PC for backups.
I have LB/BB and all my emulators installed a primary desktop PC, then I use Syncthings to send it to all the other devices (I exclude some of the setting files in BB (especially the cache files) and emulator config files. That way no one writes over others game saves and settings. Works great for me. If I want to update LB/BB or an emulator, I just make a copy of the folder before I update it so I can go back if something goes wrong. What's cool about it, when I update LB or an emulator on the main PC, it updates it on all the PCs.
Yes, if you read my post above, I was using a Pi, I think it was a Pi4 though, not a Pi3 with Open Media Vault. I only moved it to a PC about 6 months back. When I moved it to a PC, I just installed OMV to a external SSD and moved all my external drives to it.
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