Hello All,
I recently found Plex and I am loving it so far, running right now as I type on my Win10
I just bought a 918+ with 4gb ram upgrade and 4 4tb WD red’s.
Any advise on how best practices for configuring the 918+ for plex media server usage ? ie ex4 vs brts, raid levels etc?
I was thinking RAID 5 or RAID 10 with BTRFS but after doing some browsing on the Syno forum’s there seem’s to be confusion over this and which is better ex4 or BRTFS?
Thanks in advance
EXT4 and RAID 5
BTRFS is not stable. Users have lost entire volumes due to BTRFS bugs. EXT4 is established and stable. I have 80 TB on ext4.
ChuckPA, Thank you very much for the fast reply and the info, I appreciate it. Oh wow at losing entire volumes!! I hope they had back ups!!!
Thanks again and best regards!!!
The thing to remember, is that once you pick a volume type, then you cannot convert to another in situ, it requires copying all the data off and recopying back.
Also Synology are pushing the BTRFS for most of their more advanced disk backup features.
Remember RAID isn’t a backup, it is a form of redundancy.
If you do go with BTRFS, then make sure key backups are made of documents, photos, personal videos, that couldn’t be easily restored.
As Skar said, Synology is pushing BTRFS. I disagree with forcing the OS comply with the Backup utility. It should be the reverse but we are talking about Synology here… 
Thank you both for all of the great information and advise, I appreciate it!!
Been reading many posts to ensure I get the foundation right before I copy content to my new DS918+ with 4x 4tb WD Reds. This post supports what I have built - a single SRH ext4 volume. Is the RAID correct and will single volume be sufficient? I know I can’t change it (easily) once I start copying data.
If this is OK then my next challenge is to move my current PMS from Win10 to the Synology and preserve the watched info. I’m looking for a conclusive method to achieve this?
Configuring as
will give you the most space on a time-proven file system (EXT4).
You cannot move your PMS from Windows to Synology (Linux) because
a. Linux does not use drive letters
b. Windows uses \, Linux uses /
Thanks Chuck. Is there no way to convert the references in the PMS db to accommodate Linux syntax? Thinking simply without knowing the Plex db structure, replace f:\media\movies with volume1//media/movies. I guess if it were that simple someone would have done it already.
If you know SQLite and are willing to do it by hand,
@trumpy81 said:
@dnotyalc said:
2. If this is OK then my next challenge is to move my current PMS from Win10 to the Synology and preserve the watched info. I’m looking for a conclusive method to achieve this?See Q25 on the Synology FAQ’s page, it will show you how to move Plex from a Windows machine to a Synology NAS.
Thanks trumpy81. I have now read Q25. It doesn’t mention preserving the watched info. I don’t mind rebuilding the metadata/thumbs/etc, but I would somehow like to keep the watched info in tact. Do you know (maybe from experience) that this keeps the watched info? Or, as per ChuckPA above, should I bust open the champagne and start practicing the left toe crossing fingers move?
If there isn’t a quick way to achieve this, I might run 2 servers for a while - the old server with old media, and move any new media to the new server on the Synology NAS. Over time, I will care less about old watched data and can then decommission the old PMS. If the NAS doesn’t live up to expectations (transcoding could be it’s only challenge), then I still have my old PMS running - which is not the best position I was hoping for.
@ChuckPA said:
EXT4 and RAID 5BTRFS is not stable. Users have lost entire volumes due to BTRFS bugs. EXT4 is established and stable. I have 80 TB on ext4.
I am extremely surprised to be reading this Chuck, Could you point me to some links about this? I have been running BTRFS ever since Synology baked it in including there beta and never once had a problem with it. Data loss?? If so something strange going on with there setup I feel. I would love to know the details.
@RayIT said:
@ChuckPA said:
EXT4 and RAID 5BTRFS is not stable. Users have lost entire volumes due to BTRFS bugs. EXT4 is established and stable. I have 80 TB on ext4.
I am extremely surprised to be reading this Chuck, Could you point me to some links about this? I have been running BTRFS ever since Synology baked it in including there beta and never once had a problem with it. Data loss?? If so something strange going on with there setup I feel. I would love to know the details.
Just because you haven’t had a problem doesn’t mean there aren’t any,.
