For years I’ve wanted to set up a good home media server so I can access it throughout my house. I currently have a modded fire tv on my main tv with an externally mounted HD using Kodi. Of course my main issue is that I want everything to be wireless with a NAS and I want to be able to access my content on other devices in a nice media player like Plex.
Can anyone recommend anything for a setup?
So far the options I have considered is:
Getting a NAS that can handle a Plex server and use my FireTV OR an Apple TV OR a 4K Gaming Console (like new PS4 or Xbox One S)
Getting a NAS and getting a Nvidia Shield to run a the Plex server and use that as my main streaming device
I mainly want to make sure that the streaming device will be 4K capable for apps like Netflix in the future. I will require a maximum of 2 x 1080p streams at once, usually which will be locally (one on the main TV and one on either a laptop or tablet). Obviously I don’t want to spend to much and want to limit the amount of devices I have to use/set up.
Unless you know what you are doing I would advise you to stay away from any of the lower end NASes to run PMS on. You are going to need a high end NAS to do the job right. (Think $1000 or more for the device before drives.)
You can get by with a NAS for just storage, but only if it and your PMS machine are both wired to the switch/router. WiFi is NOT a way to connect anything like this together. It’s all right for some clients, but others it can be problematic. There are too many things like interference from a neighbor’s radios (WiFi radios) or your microwave oven, garage door openers, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, etc. to use it for main connections to something like a Media Server.
Don’t know what you paid for your refrigerator or stove, but this Is how I personally view a NAS for PMS. As an appliance. You don’t spend $200 for a fridge you want to last you 10+ years. So why buy a NAS that is just barely able to do the job right now, let alone 2 years from now… Spend the money up front and then worry about replacing it in 3-10 years…
Ok. So basically what I should invest in is a dedicated server. I think I saw some server builds for around the $450 mark without hard drives. It’s just I wanted more of a plug and play style, didn’t want to screw around with FreeNAS. I think it actually works out cheaper if I just get a normal NAS and use something like a dedicated Intel NUC for the server. Would you recommend this?
Also anyone recommend an Apple TV over other streaming devices?
Would like to be able to do 5.1 passthrough and play 4K for netflix, etc.
So out of all these options which would you most likely consider, for a guy who might be doing two streams at once and would like a client that supports 4K netflix and 5.1 DTS?
NAS + Nvidia Shield for PMS&Client
NAS + NUC for PMS + Client (Apple TV4/PS4/XboxOne)
NAS for PMS + Client (Apple TV4/PS4/XboxOne)
FreeNAS for PMS + Client (Apple TV4/PS4/XboxOne)
From what I gather option 1 would be the cheapest and easiest to set up and use, but because I would have the Shield in another room from the NAS and router, server issues would occur as mentioned above. NAS + NUC would be the next cheapest I think especially if going with a cheaper NAS. Option 3 is down to whether or not a NAS would be able to handle a PMS well and of course it would have to be a more expensive one (i’ve heard that the 2bay QNAP TS251+ can do the job and its around $400). Option 4 seems to be the most popular with hardcore Plex users, but again but requirements are not that great as I would rely on a good client for my main TV and probably only one extra transcode for mobile/tablet devices.
I think the cheapest, most reliable, and a device that can meet your 4K and transcoding requirements now and in the future would be:
I7 laptop with 256gig SSD
USB attached HDDs for your library
Roku 4 as Client.
What I have, and it works very well for me, is a desktop computer with an Intel Core i7-4790 Processor. I got that computer because I did not want to ever have to worry about transcoding or having sufficient power for Plex tasks. It is a bit of overkill since I do not share with anyone and it is only me and my dog (he is not allowed unsupervised access) most of the time and rarely my granddaughters when they visit. I do not use the “advanced” resolutions or “advanced” audio. My old eyes and ears just see/hear no improvement past 1080p or Dolby 2.1 stereo.
I have several (about 12) USB hard drives totaling about 50tb connected through two USB 3.0 hubs. I use Stablebit’s DrivePool to combine them all into one large drive.
The whole system, including a solid UPS, is mounted on a 2ft square 5ft tall rolling rack/shelf system that I acquired from a convenience store that was throwing it away.
I really do not see the need or advantage of things like NAS systems or fancy drive enclosures.
Since I use duplication if a drive fails I just remove it from the pool and Plex never skips a beat and I then replace it later.
For clients I have: Rokus, Fire TV, Shield TV, Raspberry PI running PMP and a couple of computers. With all those I use my Rokus 95% of the time as each of the others has either a poorer interface or poorer performance.
It is my opinion that the server should be as robust as one can reasonably afford. In a Plex system the server is the last place where cutbacks should be attempted. With a good solid server you are pretty much future proofed for a good long time.
As far as the Shield TV as a server goes: You can try but if you library is at all large or you actually want a good stable server I STRONGLY recommend against it. The Shield is just not good at that kind of thing and, although some have had success, it is often an exercise in frustration.
Lastly: While your clients can be wireless I strongly recommend against connecting your server wirelessly. Servers need stable connections and no wireless connection can be continuously stable enough for acting reliably for a server.
Ahhh ok. In other words I could just have a PC running off my router with heaps of external drives and it’ll basically do the same thing. Would I be able to wirelessly transfer files from laptop to the PCs drives?
This forum is so helpful. Thanks for all your inputs hopefully I can this set up with ease.
@cv123456 said:
Ahhh ok. In other words I could just have a PC running off my router with heaps of external drives and it’ll basically do the same thing. Would I be able to wirelessly transfer files from laptop to the PCs drives?
This forum is so helpful. Thanks for all your inputs hopefully I can this set up with ease.
Yes. In fact I believe it does it better than almost any reasonably priced NAS. Just be sure, when you are planing the setup, that you plan for the wall warts that the drives need for power.
As far as wireless transfer goes I see no reason why not. The drives (or drive if you pool them) on the server would need to be shared on the network but then you would place files on them just like on any other shared drive.
BTW: Plex also allows server management from other computers. My server lives in a back room and I only actually see it rarely. For other computer tasks I use a program called “TightVNC” to access my server from other computers. With that I can do everything in the way of maintenance on my server except for the few things that require actual physical contact.
Isn’t it wonderful spending other people’s money? I love it how all the ‘experts’ on here tell you about all the money you will need to spend on hardware to run Plex. There is no way that you need to spend $1000 to accomplish what you want & you can have a decent Plex system for a fraction of that price. Forget about transcoding as all you need is decent clients that can play the original format & make sure that the media you load up is in a form that your clients can handle.
My system is PMS running on a 4TB Seagate Personal Cloud & my client on my 60" HD TV is either a Roku 3 or an Amazon Fire TV 4K. I just tested running four simultaneous 1080p streams to the Roku 3 (wired) & wirelessly to my MacBook Pro & iPhone 6s Plus & iPhone 5s. Performance was perfect. Some of my media is my own Blu-ray or DVD rips but much has been downloaded & is a mixture of .mov ,mp4, mkv etc mostly h.264. I haven’t found anything that cannot be played apart from ISOs of DVDs.
The Seagate NAS cost me just £110 (about $140) & I see that Amazon in the US has the 5TB version on offer at $199.99. It really isn’t necessary that you spend a lot of money on your Plex server & it’s much simpler & easier to have PMS running on a NAS & not be concerned with the expense or hassle of running a full blown OS on a PC.
