I’m finally ready to abort my Drobo - which has served my Plex media for almost two decades. I wanted to move to Synology but as I understand it all the latest synology NAS’s no longer have Intel Quick Sync. for hardware transcoding and, sadly, I chose AMD for my primary plex rig and can’t do hardware transcoding on it.
So if Synology is no longer an option, can you tell me what most closely replicates the Drobo experience yet has hardware acceleration. Here’s what I want:
5 bays at least
hardware transcoding
ideally SSD cache expansion (though not a deal killer without it)
swappable drives of any size like drobo and Synology permit. Throughout the years I’ve abandoned smaller drives for larger drives as my library grew and I want to continue this.
a reasonably easy interface to use. This will be my first NAS. Until now I’ve used my 40TB drobo attached to a PC to serve out my Plex content.
I’m adding more 4K all the time and my remote users have started having transcoding/buffering issues with my current setup.
Or maybe I should be asking, is Quick Sync really all that important? I typically have 2 to 3 users accessing my content at a time on a wide variety of devices/TVs. Sadly most are using older TVs and most everything they access needs to be transcoded down to their lame TVs.
We’ve started to support AMD HW transcoding (SDR only at this point but it works)
– 1080p transcoding is trivial
– Depending on the H265 video you’re playing, you will end up what looks like Hable tonemapping. (not as saturated as the default Mobius but not bad either)
You can always stick in an Nvidia GPU card and get full support.
– I have a P2200 GPU and it trucks right along like nobody’s business on an older Xeon E5-2690 v4 (no QSV)
Is QuickSync worth it? Everyone has a different opinion. It is worth it to me. With QS I can play anything on any client. Some people don’t want that; some people actually find that idea offensive and work hard to avoid it, like having separate 4k and 1080p libraries. But I want to have one file that will play anywhere without even thinking about it, and today QS is the best way to do that.
Either way… My recommendation is to split the file server and Plex server duties. A small, separate server will be much more capable than a NAS as the server. This may even let you keep your Drobo in service a lot longer, simply for storage.
Do you mean HW transcoding is supported on AMD processors on a PC (like mine), or NAS’s that use AMD vs. Intel?
When you say SDR, does that mean it transcodes HDR to SDR or it won’t transcode HDR at all, only SDR content? And if so, in what resolutions.
You said 1080p is trivial. Do you mean transcoding down to 1080p from, say 2160p SDR?
Most of the clients can play back 1080p h.264 fine. It’s my h.265 content (almost all of it) and 2160 4k stuff (about 10% of my library) that they are having issues with - presumably caused in part my my systems use of primarily or only software transcoding. I have a 12 Core Ryzen 9 3900X with 32 Gig of RAM. It’s a bat-out-of hell processor for all my other needs but plex.
I don’t have a high end graphics card as my rig is primarily a business PC.
Anyway, was hoping that offloading ALL of this to a Synology NAS would make things faster. But since the available Synology NASs don’t support Intel Quick Sync, I’m thinking maybe I’ll just use the Synology as a very expensive external drive for now as I’ll be retiring the Drobo. It’s full and I don’t want to spend any more money upgrading its drives since its a dead platform.
Yes, most of my ‘users’ - ie: family members, barely notice HD let alone 4K. Most have 720p and 1080p TVs in the 32 to 42" range. So they don’t care about high end content. They just want to see the content in whatever resolution their TV’s supporthave.
My library is about 90% h.265 1080p (mixed SDR and HDR) and 10% (and growing0 h.265 2160p HDR. The more I move my library to 2160 the more buffering and issues I’m having as my family members watch this content with almost all of it having to be transcoded down to h.264.
So, my PC is pretty much transcoding everything all the time. And, of late, they are getting a lot of buffering.
Hence my desire to get a NAS that does hardware transcoding along with all the other benefits that I used to get out of my Drobo.
Since you need several streams of simultaneous transcoding and tone mapping, I think that is definitely a good reason to get a separate Plex server.
If you insist on the NAS being the server your Intel options seem to be limited … Or, you will have to wait on Plex’s full support for AMD.
Alternatively, get any NAS you want plus a ~$200 Intel mini system for your Plex server. (If you have any spare PC hardware around you have even more options.)
I should point out though that a Windows server cannot do Quick Sync hardware accelerated tone mapping… A Linux server is required for that. Or, go Windows and Nvidia, but there are simultaneous stream limitations imposed by the Nvidia drivers.
Intel: HW transcoding - HDR → SDR tone mapping with Intel Quick Sync Video
AMD: HW transcoding - SDR only (HDR is not mapped)
Nvidia: HW transcoding - HDR → SDR tone mapping with CUDA
Most of us with 4K main sources use Linux as the server because of the HW transcode and HW tone mapping
If your library is , and will likely remain, 1080p, you have a lot of latitude. 1080p is SDR only.
Hey all, just to let you know what transpired since.
I purchases a Synology DS423+ with high hopes that the Quick Sync would work for me with Plex running on the Synology. I migrated my entire library over and had crappy performance across the board. It was no faster, could do no more threads than my Ryzen could do in software and since my Ryzen is much faster at EVERYTHING than the Synology OS, the Plex interface was much slower accross the board than when my Plex server was on my Ryzen PC.
I took it back and replaced it with a DS1522+ (for expandable flexible storage), moved my Plex server back to my super fast PC, and went back to the drawing board on the transcoding front.
I briefly considered getting a NUC (still a great option if I was starting from zero), but after help from others I settled on purchasing an nVidia GTX 1660 S graphics card for my PC which can do 5 simultaneous 4K transcodes at a time. The DS1522+ is hard-connected as a network drive and is about 25% faster than my USB 3 connected Drobo was.
I will likely apply the patch to allow more than 5 streams if/when that becomes a bottleneck (or before when I get the time).
So, in addition to having a super fast plex server that does super fast 4K transcodes, I also have a gaming calls graphics card on my main PC (which I never had before) that will finally allow me to watch 4K content on my PC without stuttering. Plus I have a full-fledged NAS for backing up my networked PCs to and sharing files with my family. And I have what right now seems like virtually infinite expansion. I have two empty slots on the Synology now and by adding side-cars to it I can add up to 12 more external drives if I ever have the need.
I am surprised QS didn’t perform well for you, but the other perf problems from the modest Syno CPU must have been aggravating. Congrats on figuring out the right system for you.
