NAS - PLEX

Matutu · 6 May 2014 at 11:48

Hey Guys,

Looking into NAS for my new house media setup. However I hear only some are compatible with Plex.

Anyone have a good recommendation for a NAS Drive setup which I am looking to have 3-6TB in?

Thanks!

Raymond Lin · 6 May 2014 at 12:11

Netgear ReadyNAS 104.

I have 3TB x 4 in mine. Plex compartible and one of the best bang for buck on the market.

welshdragon · 6 May 2014 at 12:16

Asustor my friend. It has built in HDMI out so can be used as a htpc in it's own right. They also have plex server. For transcoding on the fly though you'd need a powerful one.

Matutu · 6 May 2014 at 13:09

Both quite costly options! lol I was hoping for something abit less. Sorry need to ask Transcoding? If the files are already MKV 1080p would it still need this?

Thanks

Raymond Lin · 6 May 2014 at 13:26

If you want the NAS to transcode as opposed a PC/Mac then you'll need something like a Synology 713 or 412+.

Matutu · 6 May 2014 at 13:46

Well I'm only using plex through a Smart TV and a MAcmini? So would I need this?

Thanks again I'm really not getting this lol.

Raymond Lin · 6 May 2014 at 13:50

If the Mac Mini is doing the decoding then no. You just need a NAS, in theory any NAS would work but the Netgear isn't expensive on the grand scheme of things, it's the HDD that drives the price up, you can always start with just 2 drives at first and add more later on.

TheVoice · 6 May 2014 at 14:52

Synology stuff is great, I really like mine.

kidloco · 6 May 2014 at 15:00

As Raymond says, your Mac Mini will be doing all the encoding so all you basically need is a external caddy to hold a stack of drives. I use this

StarTech 3.5 inch 4 Drive eSATA USB Multi Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure

Have 3 x 3tb drives sat in it. All films are in MKV or ISO format by my media PC handles all that anyway. Its just a storage device.

Badfish · 6 May 2014 at 15:10

I'm in a similar situation, I was going to make a seperate post but might as well add to this!

I have Intel NUC i5 and tried to run Plex server and Plex home theatre on it, but the performance is awful when playing mkv files. So a NAS that can act as a Plex server instead would be ideal. I think thats what the OP wants too, a NAS which can do the Plex server side.

So I am also looking for a NAS to do this, but not crazy expensive if possible!

kidloco · 6 May 2014 at 15:16

Badfish said:
I'm in a similar situation, I was going to make a seperate post but might as well add to this!

I have Intel NUC i5 and tried to run Plex server and Plex home theatre on it, but the performance is awful when playing mkv files. So a NAS that can act as a Plex server instead would be ideal. I think thats what the OP wants too, a NAS which can do the Plex server side.

So I am also looking for a NAS to do this, but not crazy expensive if possible!

Just stick OpenELEC onto the NUC. Have the files on a shared PC, attached to the NUC usb or on a NAS and all will stream with no issues. Sorry, havent really used Plex much apart from sticking it on my dads PC to stream to Roku box.

Badfish · 6 May 2014 at 15:25

kidloco said:
Just stick OpenELEC onto the NUC. Have the files on a shared PC, attached to the NUC usb or on a NAS and all will stream with no issues. Sorry, havent really used Plex much apart from sticking it on my dads PC to stream to Roku box.

Thanks for the advice, but I really want to run Windows on the NUC as I use it for simple games, browsing the web, etc

kidloco · 6 May 2014 at 15:34

Badfish said:
Thanks for the advice, but I really want to run Windows on the NUC as I use it for simple games, browsing the web, etc

Then running XBMC on windows rather than OPENELEC will work exactly the same way and give you access to the other stuff you want. Looks a hell of a lot better as well.

Halestorm · 6 May 2014 at 16:01

I'd say the best idea might be to buy a HP microserver, I run plex on Microserver N54L with 8gb RAM, a 50gb SSD for the OS (server 2012) and then 4 x 2tb WD reds. You then have the added benefit of being able to run other things from it too.

Halestorm · 6 May 2014 at 16:01

also the poor performance mentioned when playing MKVs can be overcome by telling PLEX to just do "direct play" rather than directplay/transcode

Badfish · 6 May 2014 at 18:55

Halestorm said:
also the poor performance mentioned when playing MKVs can be overcome by telling PLEX to just do "direct play" rather than directplay/transcode

Thankyou, I did try that before but it was still bad. I installed XBMC earlier like kidloco said, it runs a lot better than Plex for playback for me!

But still, anyone got ideas for a NAS for the OP? I've taken it a bit off topic :eek:

Matutu · 6 May 2014 at 19:12

Well I am going to being my Mac Mini to actually run the Plex Server, I just need the Nas as remote storage

bloodiedathame · 6 May 2014 at 19:13

I run an HP Microserver with Nas4Free (which has Plex Media Server installed). Personally I use an old MBP as Media Server and Client (hooked up to my TV) so never got round to installing the Media Server on the Nas, but it's there.

james.miller · 6 May 2014 at 19:30

plex and an n54l is a really fantastic combo. transcoding performance is limited, but if you are streaming to direct play clients as mentioned above the you are only limited by the storage speed and the network interface on the nas. A 1gb NIC is good for at least 8 blurays simultaneously. Probably more but when testing i ran out of clients to play them on lol.

Halestorm · 7 May 2014 at 08:05

If the plex server is going to run from a Mac Mini and just use the NAS as pure storage, perhaps something like a Buffalo Linkstation? or a QNAP?

I think most of the transcoding etc is done by the client end so the Mac Mini will have no problem with MKVs.
I use a Roku LT and that has no problem with direct play or MKVs and thats on WiFi with a 54mbps connection speed because the cheap roku doesnt have N (sorry slightly off topic again)