Intel NUC Celeron vs i3/i5?

[sansnom]

Gents

I'm overhauling my home media setup and I've decided to get:

**Synology DS214+ NAS for basic file sharing and maybe a single stream transcode using synology apps every now and then

**Intel NUC Celeron 847 for main living room playback. The nuc is intended to run Win 7 Pro with Kodi on startup, torrent downloader, netflix and other web streaming and possibly a single transcode request at any one point in time

I'm trying to keep the costs down to sub £550 for the whole setup so obviously this will be hugely affected if I go the i3/i5 route.

My question is, is it an appropriate choice for NAS and HTPC? Is the NAS overkill and is the Celeron underpowered? I'm concerned that even with only Kodi referencing a media library of 1000+ 1080p's, playing one of them and downloading in the background it will struggle and most likely can't even do a single transcode anyway regardless of whether I have kodi / downloading going on or not.

I'm leaning towards the celeron because a) price b) low power, no fan noise unlike the i3/i5 which I hear can be quite noisy in a living room. I know there's a fanless option but that's going to add even more cost so don't want to go down that route unless the Celeron absolutely won't suffice.

Thoughts/Opinions/Suggestions?

 

[sansnom]

Good to know playback won't be an issue but how about netflix/web streaming in HD and downloading in the background? Would it struggle doing those things at the same time?

Also I think you're quite right about the transcoding which leaves me with two options:

1. Get an i3 or i5 and put plex server but then clients need plex too

2. Get a NAS with hardware transcoding like the DS214play instead

I'm not sure if the DS214+ does software transcoding very well or at all?

 

[sansnom]

What are you transcoding too? Not the NUC I presume?

no, maybe guest devices like phones or tablets every now and then. It's really just a "maybe" case, but not necessary which is why I'm not focusing on the transcoding component much but would like to have it on the off chance it's needed.