Advice please on a NAS

nicknack35 · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:28

Hey all first time i have posted on this part of the forum and just after little advice please. I currently have a pc in the bedroom which me and the Mrs use to watch our Film collection BluRays which i download there over 20gig files now my storage on my pc and external drives are nearly full. Now we have PLEX on the pc. But use the PLEX Home Theater. Now the tv downstairs is a Samsung H6400 which is rigged up to a Canton DM55 not DTS. We also have a Android box which is connected to the TV We have KODI and also run the PLEX app now due to our External drives been full was looking for a NAS around 2 bays 6TB would be enough and be able to transcode for our system downstairs we could use the PC to transcode but thinking of a NAS to do it and plus store all our media on it so it would only need to transcode to 1 device so im not looking to spend a fortune and something with PLEX already on the NAS any advice be great thanks. Sorry for the long question lol

CaNsA · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:32

The HP N54L is a good bit of kit.
Mine sits upstairs rock 12TB of storage.

nicknack35 · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:43

Hey CaNsA Thanks for the quick reply is that NAS user friendly im not tech savvy on this kind of thing lol. And where would i purchase one from please

Steveocee · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:45

An N54 isn't a NAS, it's a micro server which comes bare. You need to install an OS and HDD's etc etc to get it working. Many do and use either FreeNas or Xpenology for a NAS duty and it works wonderfully.

If you want something "off the shelf" look at brands like Synology or Qnap as they will have units to suit something less involved.

CaNsA · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:45

You'd have to hunt around for one, but HP have released the Gen8 Microserver which usually retail between 100 - 150 smakkas.

There are many operating system options available to you, Xpenology tends to be good and favoured by many due to its ease of install and setup.

Buy one, chuck an o/s on there, bask in the NAS/Microserver glory.

I use OpenMediaVault on mine.
Awesome support, great selection of plugins, and the project lead was the project lead on Freenas.

nicknack35 · 17 Dec 2015 at 17:54

Thanks for your help Gents was looking at something like Qnap or synology could someone advise me on one not looking to spend a fortune just something to the job for media storage and to transcode to one device. i don't need to transcode to the pc just the TV downstairs really

nicknack35 · 17 Dec 2015 at 21:56

Any advice please?

nicknack35 · 18 Dec 2015 at 13:05

Take it only few use this part of the forum oh well best get looking elsewhere for help thanks to you 2 gents for replying

KIA · 18 Dec 2015 at 16:27

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS216play

No need to be impatient.

bledd · 19 Dec 2015 at 06:42

Go for a 4 bay Synology. Allows for future expansion.

Create a Disk Group from day 1.

cyber69 · 22 Dec 2015 at 23:12

Synology NAS has plex server app as standard

nicknack35 · 24 Dec 2015 at 09:29

cyber69 said:
Synology NAS has plex server app as standard

Not all synology i believe the DS216 is not compatible yet with PLEX

rtho782 · 24 Dec 2015 at 11:05

cyber69 said:
Synology NAS has plex server app as standard

Does it have the CPU power to transcode? I could run a plex server on an RPi, but I wouldn't

bledd · 24 Dec 2015 at 11:59

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit

Plex NAS Compatability list.

rtho782 · 24 Dec 2015 at 19:09

bledd. said:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit

Plex NAS Compatability list.

Interesting reading!

Mostly the answer seems to be "no", as personally I don't download any SD content.

Really think building a NAS is a better idea than these COTS models.

nicknack35 · 25 Dec 2015 at 10:46

Well im sticking to using my PC as the sever its an i5 4690 processor so its powerful enough and just upograde the hard drives to WD reds and Raid them it be a lot cheaper to do it that way. a lot of the NAS even on that list are not powerful enough to transcode 1080p and the ones that do are well overpriced

rtho782 · 25 Dec 2015 at 11:00

nicknack35 said:
Well im sticking to using my PC as the sever its an i5 4690 processor so its powerful enough and just upograde the hard drives to WD reds and Raid them it be a lot cheaper to do it that way. a lot of the NAS even on that list are not powerful enough to transcode 1080p and the ones that do are well overpriced

Good choice to be honest. You can build a NAS (a mini itx board, a very small 4 drive case) for less than you can buy one of the off the shelf ones. The HP Microserver mentioned earlier is an even cheaper choice, these little Synology/QNAP devices are good for storing files and maybe running a webserver, but for the price I'd much rather have a proper server most of the time.

Edit: feel free to add me as a friend on PLEX, and I'll share my library on my cloud server with you

Slade2 · 30 Dec 2015 at 20:49

How does the plex library share thing work? I have added you as a friend rtho782 hope thats ok? curious to see how that works

rtho782 · 30 Dec 2015 at 22:59

Accepted you and shared

You can stream from the stuff on my server now, it's hosted on a gigabit connection in a datacentre so you can stream 1080p from it easily.

Apparently I need to get downloading as you have way more stuff than me

Slade2 · 30 Dec 2015 at 23:27

Thanks for that!, not sure i am happy sharing all my stuff around and my server is normally only on when I am watching something in the house

I quite like the idea of using it for the rest of the family to share videos of the kids though that would be good as they live all over the world and miss out of stuff like that.