Why are so many folks here running media servers? Are you really streaming your own video / audio libraries, or is there something else it is useful for? I'd be rather shocked to learn people still store digitally media locally.
I also used to have all my DVDs ripped onto my media server, but I never really watched any of them, so now they are just gathering digital dust on some offline disks.
the other thing that is bothering me is that songs keep dissappearing from my playlists every once in a while
people keeping their own movie library makes perfect sense as there are still no services today, that I know of, that have access to all movies a certain person might want, or if they do the service is basterdised by some region lock
(You didn't by any chance sail around Cape horn in 2016? I met this really cool older couple in Central America who had been living at sea for 17 years.)
Reading all of the replies I realize that sometime between 2007 and 2012 I just gave up entirely on storing media locally. I don't watch movies (e.g. no cable or netflix), but I've been using spotify for a decade maybe? One response makes a good point: it is a waste of overall bandwidth to stream content.
Sure I could buy DRM-laden stuff from some online store but there's no guarantee I can access it forever. I could buy a bunch of Blu-Rays or DVDs and stick them on a shelf but that's not convenient. I could pay for a subscription service but not a single one has anything close to everything I want to watch.