Which NAS for Plex?

StonedPenguin · 18 Jul 2017 at 00:24

I'm looking for a NAS, Primarily for Plex. A bit confused to what will transcode if necessary without struggling on 720/1080p steams, Should be no more than 2 streams at once.

I've looked at:
WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 2Bay,
QNAP TS-251 2 Bay,
Synology DiskStation DS216play 2-bay

Are these anygood?

fornowagain · 18 Jul 2017 at 01:40

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit#gid=314388488

StonedPenguin · 18 Jul 2017 at 09:04

Just what I needed, Thanks

PiKe · 18 Jul 2017 at 09:06

Build your own and use XPenology.

Badfish · 18 Jul 2017 at 10:54

I spent a lot of time looking into this and testing NAS's for Plex, and in the end in I realised if I want to transcode 1080P and have more than 1 stream at once, I need something better than a NAS can offer except maybe the really expensive ones. Its cheaper and better to build a small PC with a decent CPU, high efficiency PSU and some harddisks in it. For OS there are various options, personally I went for Windows and running Plex in a VM (various reasons for doing this), but there are better options like XPenology which will work very well.

PiKe · 18 Jul 2017 at 11:08

I personally use Unraid and use Plex in a docker, but I also run several VMs.

Rannoch · 18 Jul 2017 at 11:11

I use an Intel Nuc with a NAS drive and several external hard disks for Plex. It's all in a cupboard out the way.

Badfish · 26 Jul 2017 at 10:32

Vargas said:
I use an Intel Nuc with a NAS drive and several external hard disks for Plex. It's all in a cupboard out the way.

I had an i5 NUC for Plex too and whilst its a good little PC it wasn't enough for more than 1 1080P stream and was a bit slow with even just 1 stream as the CPU was maxed out when transcoding. For direct play its great though, no problems if thats all you want from it.

Chaos666 · 4 Aug 2017 at 22:23

really? I'm using old core 2 duo Dell Optiplex with freenas (with plex plugin). 1080p is not a problem. 4k is not possible though :>

PiKe · 5 Aug 2017 at 16:26

You need a passmark of 2200 to transcode 1080p in realtime (as a rule), so either your C2D was an E8400 (or higher) or there wasn't full transcoding going on?

GWANGY · 6 Aug 2017 at 10:30

An i5 NUC should be able to cope with two or more 1080 streams .. maybe it was your network/wi-fi speed? use a gigabit switch and wired connex for best results ime.