Building a NAS/Plex System

[xD3S1x]

Hi guys, completely new to this.
I am looking to build a system that I can use to Store photos and movies etc
I also want to be able to stream/transcode 1080p movies to local and remote location.

is it too complicated to get 1 machine to do this?
is it better to build NAS and Plex system separate from each other?
max needed storage is 8TB so I would want 2x8TB HDDs for RAID 1.

Is it better to go AMD or Intel for this platform?
is 16GB Enough and what speed is recommended?

not looking to spend more than £1000 but if its better to build the systems separately,. i might need to look into this further.

 

[robj20]

I use an Asustor Nimbustor AS5304T to do all that, got hundreds of movies and series programs on mine and it will stream to multiple devices at the same time. I looked at doing it myself but it would cost more for the same functionality and user more power as well, and be more complicated.

 

[Cooler running]

is it too complicated to get 1 machine to do this?
is it better to build NAS and Plex system separate from each other?

No, FreeNas, Unraid (or any hypervisor) based Nas systems often have means to run "containers" and "virtual machines" which can host plex, samba or whatever else from the same hardware.
Else wise SOME dedicated NAS devices such as Synology boxes can sometimes run Plex as well as their proprietary NAS software.

max needed storage is 8TB so I would want 2x8TB HDDs for RAID 1.

My NAS has 8TB of storage but run it as 3 4TB disks in ZRAID 5. Am personally upgrading to a 30TB array atm via 4 10TB disks in ZRAID 5. Go with whatever is cheapest for you.

Is it better to go AMD or Intel for this platform?

You don't need much CPU horsepower for it, my box is running on a 45W, 10+ year old Sandy Bridge (1260L) processor. It rarely hits 20% usage. Either will do fine, but Intel has a small advantage in that Quick-Sync can be used to accelerate Plex.

is 16GB Enough and what speed is recommended?

Probably.

£1000 but if its better to build the systems separately,. i might need to look into this further.

Most people just buy x-office hardware for £150-500 and run it on that.

 

[xD3S1x]

I use an Asustor Nimbustor AS5304T to do all that, got hundreds of movies and series programs on mine and it will stream to multiple devices at the same time. I looked at doing it myself but it would cost more for the same functionality and user more power as well, and be more complicated.

did not know about this brand.

No, FreeNas, Unraid (or any hypervisor) based Nas systems often have means to run "containers" and "virtual machines" which can host plex, samba or whatever else from the same hardware.
Else wise SOME dedicated NAS devices such as Synology boxes can sometimes run Plex as well as their proprietary NAS software.

Most people just buy x-office hardware for £150-500 and run it on that.

what kind of office hardware? any examples please so I can look into it?
and what about GPU for Plex?

 

[Cooler running]

what kind of office hardware?

Any used office PC, think Dell, Lenovo ect, I'm not going to link you to a popular auction site, but that's where you find such things.
For most users, FreeNas, Unraid and Plex are light weight. Maybe if you're planning on having 10+ people concurrently using the plex server it might need some higher end GPU's and hardware, but otherwise builds like the below are extremely cost-effective.

what about GPU for Plex?

Any GPU which has the Nvidia NVEC encoder will work, any GTX/RTX card 1050 and up should work fine. Most of the Quadro cards have it too.
The Intel processors which have quick sync video (most Core I series have it) are an excellent second choice if you can't find NVEC GPU's (historically 1050ti's grew on trees, unfortunately the times have changed)

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

 

[xD3S1x]

thank you.
i will look into these options.

 

[Double07]

My plex server runs on a i5-6400t (which is hardly a passmark monster), an old Z170 board, 16GB DDR3, 40TB of storage. If you have a plexpass you can use hardware transcoding so if transcoding is required even this little CPU is more than enough to run a decent plex server. Lets ignore 4k transcoding cause its a different conversation, but even at 1080p transcoding, so long as you are using hardware transcoding and you have a CPU that supports quicksync, it's a breeze. The TDP of the CPU is 35W, and it rarely gets close to that. If you are simply direct play(ing) files then any old config will do.

TLDR Any old piece of crap, cobbled together system will run just fine for a relatively simple home server type setup.

 

[xD3S1x]

thanks. i've been looking at new systems for some reason and after checking all this info, i can see that i can make the system a lot cheaper. only expensive stuff will be the storage.

 

[dessimpson]

I run plex, sonarr, radarr and sabnzbd all from my Synology NAS.
I Used to run them from an old spare PC but the Synology is pretty simple to set up.

 

[LordBeggar]

Hi guys, completely new to this.
I am looking to build a system that I can use to Store photos and movies etc
I also want to be able to stream/transcode 1080p movies to local and remote location.

is it too complicated to get 1 machine to do this?
is it better to build NAS and Plex system separate from each other?
max needed storage is 8TB so I would want 2x8TB HDDs for RAID 1.

Is it better to go AMD or Intel for this platform?
is 16GB Enough and what speed is recommended?

not looking to spend more than £1000 but if its better to build the systems separately,. i might need to look into this further.

Go with intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 3400G. 256gb ssd for the system and 8-16gb hard drive for Plex files. 16GB ram

 

[user2000]

I went with a NUC11 to handle Plex transcoding duties as I've upgraded my Synology 1519+ to the new 1821+ which does not do hardware transcoding . As with all new thing though it's not fully supported.

 

[Karl]

I use an Asustor Nimbustor AS5304T to do all that, got hundreds of movies and series programs on mine and it will stream to multiple devices at the same time. I looked at doing it myself but it would cost more for the same functionality and user more power as well, and be more complicated.

I know this is a fairly old thread and you might've made your mind up by now, but I also use this exact Asustor NAS and love it. Bought 1 10TB HDD for it, and it's sat in the corner minding its own business.

 

[robj20]

I know this is a fairly old thread and you might've made your mind up by now, but I also use this exact Asustor NAS and love it. Bought 1 10TB HDD for it, and it's sat in the corner minding its own business.

Yes i got one, 2x 8TB in RAID 1, and 1x 3TB as a CCTV and backup drive.

Only thing i dont like is the lack of some support there just isn't as much help out there for Asustor stuff. I was stuck for ages getting the CCTV stuff to work, official help were useless and i eventually figured it out myself. (Had to login as the actual Admin account, not just my personal admin account, so admin rights arent the same as the admin account who knew, well no one apparantly)

Its does Plex fine, another issue i have is i dont 100% like the automated pc backup EZ Sync, it doesnt have enough control, same with the Android photo backup. (Needs control over 2 way syncing)

 

[Karl]

Yes i got one, 2x 8TB in RAID 1, and 1x 3TB as a CCTV and backup drive.

Only thing i dont like is the lack of some support there just isn't as much help out there for Asustor stuff. I was stuck for ages getting the CCTV stuff to work, official help were useless and i eventually figured it out myself. (Had to login as the actual Admin account, not just my personal admin account, so admin rights arent the same as the admin account who knew, well no one apparantly)

Its does Plex fine, another issue i have is i dont 100% like the automated pc backup EZ Sync, it doesnt have enough control, same with the Android photo backup. (Needs control over 2 way syncing)

My only issue with it is that I use docker quite a bit for creating a few containers, and I noticed that I don't have ALL the permissions that I should have, even as SUDO, but have worked around it one way or another to create what I needed. One day when 10GB network switches aren't a hilarious price, it'll be extra useful.