Hello, I am looking for some advice. Sorry for the long background post. But I feel it is worth telling my experience.
I have been running a PC for the last few years as my media server for a while now. I have a few programs that I use to get the media that I like, and had everything working quite well using an old PC I had with an intel 4770k an SSD for OS, and a few 6TB Red drives for storage. There was no fancy RAID or anything though.
A few years ago I decided I wanted to try a NAS. Well actually, I have tried a few. First many years ago, I had an HP Microserver, and hated it. Just couldn't get it figured out at all to do what I wanted it to. Then it stopped booting up. So I drop kicked it over the fence. It was only a couple years old at this point. So I just started using my desktop PC, but then had to leave it on 24/7 to do what I wanted.
So then a few years later I tried a QNAP TS 453 thing. And I hated it. Exactly the same as before. I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do. So that lasted a week. Then sent it back. This time I decided to build myself a new desktop, and repurpose my old i7 desktop with lower power components, to run 24/7 as my server. Problem was it was in a mid tower case. Not exactly small, and only had space for 3 x 3.5" drives. Ran it with windows, and everything I wanted to do, apart from disk redundancy, was easy to set up. But I was working with 3 seperate disks. So it was difficult to manage the storage space comfortably. I would prefer one large storage volume ideally. And if I need some redundancy, then so be it. It is mostly just media files, so can be reacquired. I mean, it is "mostly" ripped from my own BR or CD's anyway, so that's easy enough. But I don't want to lose the WHOLE volume if one of 4 disks fails.
So I thought I'll try again. I thought the problem the last time was simply that Qnap weren't as good as I had hoped. And this time I'll pay up and get a Synology. Had a read about to see what one to get, and thought I cam to the conclusion that while I would prefer the + model, the regular DS418 should do what I wanted. Saw a deal and bought one.
How wrong was I? Very as it happens. No upgradable RAM, can't run a docker and seems incredibly slow. Absolute worthless POS for what I want to achieve. Now, some of the setups I want to run aren't fully compatible with DSM, but I did find some, what looked like, excellent guides for getting everything running neat in a couple of dockers or similar. But now they are no use to me as I cant run a docker. And at least one of the programs I REALLY want to use, doesn;t work in DSM (Sonarr).
The problem I have now is that my 3x 6TB disks in the RAID (SHR) while not full, are getting there. Meanwhile I added a 14TB drive to pick up the capacity slack from the redundancy. I managed to lose a whole 6TB drive worth of data in the switchover from Windows to DSM (my own careless fault, I started the storage pool with the wrong WD Red. The one I didn't manage to get onto the 14TB to start with. I should have paid more attention). Anyway. Now there isn't room on the 3 disk array to backup the 14TB's data, nor the other way round. So that's a bit tragic to start.
Now, I suppose to the question. I think I have had enough of trying these off-the-shelf NAS's. I like windows, and can generally work windows ok. So maybe I should go back to Windows. But I don't want a large box again. I like the form factor of a 4 bay NAS for doing this. So can I build something similar myself? Or is there a solution, with a decent processor capable of HW transcoding, that I can just buy? I am willing to buy another 14TB drive to start me up again. But I don't want to expand further than this for a while.
I am using Plex as my media server (I have Plex Pass). I use other programs for organising my TV shows and Movies and stuff properly. Ones that don't seem to lay well at least with DSM. I just find it easier to run things that way rather than through my full on Sky sub, or getting up to play a BR disc, ha ha. Lazy mostly. But also, I travel from work, so Plex works well and grabbing my shows in the UK and letting me watch them abroad without having to mess about with VPN's and stuff. I am using Nvidia Shields and Ipads on the client side of things mostly. But also my phone (Galaxy S10) or just whatever (Roku stick, Chromecast, whatever)
I have been running a PC for the last few years as my media server for a while now. I have a few programs that I use to get the media that I like, and had everything working quite well using an old PC I had with an intel 4770k an SSD for OS, and a few 6TB Red drives for storage. There was no fancy RAID or anything though.
A few years ago I decided I wanted to try a NAS. Well actually, I have tried a few. First many years ago, I had an HP Microserver, and hated it. Just couldn't get it figured out at all to do what I wanted it to. Then it stopped booting up. So I drop kicked it over the fence. It was only a couple years old at this point. So I just started using my desktop PC, but then had to leave it on 24/7 to do what I wanted.
So then a few years later I tried a QNAP TS 453 thing. And I hated it. Exactly the same as before. I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do. So that lasted a week. Then sent it back. This time I decided to build myself a new desktop, and repurpose my old i7 desktop with lower power components, to run 24/7 as my server. Problem was it was in a mid tower case. Not exactly small, and only had space for 3 x 3.5" drives. Ran it with windows, and everything I wanted to do, apart from disk redundancy, was easy to set up. But I was working with 3 seperate disks. So it was difficult to manage the storage space comfortably. I would prefer one large storage volume ideally. And if I need some redundancy, then so be it. It is mostly just media files, so can be reacquired. I mean, it is "mostly" ripped from my own BR or CD's anyway, so that's easy enough. But I don't want to lose the WHOLE volume if one of 4 disks fails.
So I thought I'll try again. I thought the problem the last time was simply that Qnap weren't as good as I had hoped. And this time I'll pay up and get a Synology. Had a read about to see what one to get, and thought I cam to the conclusion that while I would prefer the + model, the regular DS418 should do what I wanted. Saw a deal and bought one.
How wrong was I? Very as it happens. No upgradable RAM, can't run a docker and seems incredibly slow. Absolute worthless POS for what I want to achieve. Now, some of the setups I want to run aren't fully compatible with DSM, but I did find some, what looked like, excellent guides for getting everything running neat in a couple of dockers or similar. But now they are no use to me as I cant run a docker. And at least one of the programs I REALLY want to use, doesn;t work in DSM (Sonarr).
The problem I have now is that my 3x 6TB disks in the RAID (SHR) while not full, are getting there. Meanwhile I added a 14TB drive to pick up the capacity slack from the redundancy. I managed to lose a whole 6TB drive worth of data in the switchover from Windows to DSM (my own careless fault, I started the storage pool with the wrong WD Red. The one I didn't manage to get onto the 14TB to start with. I should have paid more attention). Anyway. Now there isn't room on the 3 disk array to backup the 14TB's data, nor the other way round. So that's a bit tragic to start.
Now, I suppose to the question. I think I have had enough of trying these off-the-shelf NAS's. I like windows, and can generally work windows ok. So maybe I should go back to Windows. But I don't want a large box again. I like the form factor of a 4 bay NAS for doing this. So can I build something similar myself? Or is there a solution, with a decent processor capable of HW transcoding, that I can just buy? I am willing to buy another 14TB drive to start me up again. But I don't want to expand further than this for a while.
I am using Plex as my media server (I have Plex Pass). I use other programs for organising my TV shows and Movies and stuff properly. Ones that don't seem to lay well at least with DSM. I just find it easier to run things that way rather than through my full on Sky sub, or getting up to play a BR disc, ha ha. Lazy mostly. But also, I travel from work, so Plex works well and grabbing my shows in the UK and letting me watch them abroad without having to mess about with VPN's and stuff. I am using Nvidia Shields and Ipads on the client side of things mostly. But also my phone (Galaxy S10) or just whatever (Roku stick, Chromecast, whatever)