I’ve been reading through some of the posts here and most of the stuff here is way over my head. I’ve got a pretty simple setup but would like suggestions on how to improve it. First here is what I got:
70" 4K display
running Plex app off a Xbox one
content is on a 8TB seagate external HD (1200+movies,1200+ TV episodes,4200+albums)
my “media server” is a Macbook Air
One of the main quirks I have is whenever playing media my Macbook has to be on and the lid open. I don’t mind spending a little cash for some significant improvements. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
word of caution: Upping the display image size to that dimension mandates you increase the bitrate of the video files. What looks great on a macbook at 15" will , candidly, look like real junk at 70". Every bit of motion blur and blocky reduction will be painful. For that reason alone, you’ll need higher bitrate files, further necessitating a NAS. If you’re looking at a 4 bay, take a moment and evaluate the cost of two 4 bay units versus one 8-bay with 4 drives in it for now. Expansion into existing slots is far lest costly than a whole new NAS later
@ChuckPa said:
word of caution: Upping the display image size to that dimension mandates you increase the bitrate of the video files. What looks great on a macbook at 15" will , candidly, look like real junk at 70". Every bit of motion blur and blocky reduction will be painful. For that reason alone, you’ll need higher bitrate files, further necessitating a NAS. If you’re looking at a 4 bay, take a moment and evaluate the cost of two 4 bay units versus one 8-bay with 4 drives in it for now. Expansion into existing slots is far lest costly than a whole new NAS later
Chuck! Did I miss a post?
He is running plex server on his mac to the 70" and no mention of quality issues!
Setting that WHOOPS aside if I may, my recommendation about the NAS and it’s expandability still stands.
There is nothing worse than just getting your NAS all setup, starting to load up / transfer in all your disks and realize you messed up counting how many slots / how much storage you need and wanted left over.
Personally, I started with 4x 4TB. Within a month, after loading in all my free-standing 2T drives and things to put into Plex, I discovered I had completely failed to account for 3 drives. Big oops. Words we’re probably all familiar with “Hello, Amazon?” or “Hello, Newegg?” haha. Two more 4T in 2 days and I was set again… for a while. It took about 6 months before I couldn’t avoid the final two. Yes, it takes time to resize a RAID-5 on Synology but it was far less painless than buying another unit entirely.
@catstide said:
I also have a couple of 3TB external HD’s and several 1TB drives. What could I get to utilize the drives I already have? Thanks for your response.
They are likely to all fit any NAS.
How long they last running 24/7 is another discussion
You didn’t give a budget but go for the best 4, 5 or 8 bay unit with an intel chip you can afford.
eg Synology 1515+ or 1815+ ( both Chuckpa and I both have this one).
Keep in mind you don’t have to have a drive in every bay!
You can start with 2 drives and update/upgrade when needed!
Good stuff guys. I really appreciate your help. Looks like on the big river site the 1815+ is only 150 bucks more than the 1515+ so I’d probably just go with it. Probably a stupid question but could I start with one of those with no drives installed and just my external HD connected until I funded some more drives?
You need at least 1 drive installed to load DSM on (the operating system). If you do intend to start out that way, be fully prepared to scrap the contents of the drive when you set it up for proper RAID. JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) can’t be migrated into RAID.
ok …I don’t want to start out hodgepodge so i’ll wait a bit and start out with 2 drives. My current content is just under 3tb so I’m assuming it would be best to start out with 2x2tb drives??? Then I could add larger drives later??? Also did you guys upgrade the ram or is the 2gb sufficient? Do ya’ll keep the server in your audio cabinet or stow it somewhere else? And is it fairly quiet?
I may be getting the cart before the horse but I like to do a bit of research before jumping into a thousand dollar upgrade and you guys seem to be very knowledgable.
depending on the NAS vendor you select, you may or may not have a lot of freedom to grow in a very dynamic mix of hard drive sizes.
For reference,
Synology’s SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid) method allows multiple drive sizes. QNAP has a similar method.
If you go with traditional “RAID-5” (which has parity), you need 3 drives to start the RAID set. The amount of space you get (before formatting) with RAID-5 is (Number_of_drives - 1) * Size_of_smallest_drive. There is the catch. Traditional RAID needs all physical volumes to be equal so the size of the smallest drive governs the total usable space.
Here is the synology page on the differences. I think this does a better job explaining than I can in prose here.
You can imagine I chuckled when I got to this in the article…“This article assumes that as the admin of your Synology NAS, you are also an experienced network administrator with a firm grasp of RAID management.”
So I’m looking at the Synology DS1815+ . Is it a SHR? I guess it really doesn’t matter to me though as I’ll probably start with 1x4tb drive.
Yes, Synology does not do the best job translating their documentation to other languages
If you wish, you may also look in their Tutorials section on examples
DSM (the operating system for ALL Synology NAS systems) supports SHR, RAID, and JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) organization techniques.
Starting with 1x 4TB drive, you will have basic DSM and 1disk SHR “volume”. I do not use SHR but if given the option to use SHR-2 layout, use it.
Also, when given the option whether ext4 of btrfs, select ext4. BTRFS is new to Synology whereas EXT4 is well established, stable, and reliable. Synology introduced BTRFS in DSM 6.0. This is an indication of just how new it is. There have been reports of complete volume loss and why I caution. If you wish, by all means, experiment with it. I personally did not have good luck with it and found it’s applicability in a RAID environment (where there already is parity and data reconstructive capability) unnecessary.
For Synology DS1815+ and other processors which support 8GB onboard using two slots, a forum user proved his point to me very nicely. He runs 16GB in a DS1815+ (overkill to me) but with the release of Docker,etc. 8GB of matched set (dual channel) memory is very performance friendly for the processor. No more two-access memory operations to retrieve what’s needed.
As reference, I am running this.
If you do this, take your time unlocking the memory behind drive 1 with your fingers (or Popsicle stick), you don’t want to bend the locking clamps. Once unlocked, lift slowly , twist 90 degrees and out it comes between index and middle finger.
I think talking about additional ram is a bit early. But on that note I could not get the 2X 4gb to work. Tried both slots with all variations and eventually settled for the original 2gb and one new 4gb.= 6gb.
Hey guys…trying to get started at a lower price point would the DS216play be a good option to go with? It with 1x10tb drive could get me started for just over $500. Like I said before my library is now at 2.8tb and I really don’t see it climbing over 20tb for a long time.
