@AmazingRando24 said:
Also to add… I have several NAS devices, none of which run Plex. They are purely storage. As @HitsVille states, each device, no matter how many drives it has behaves as a single source.
Instead of selecting a drive, you just point the path to the network folder.
It’s also nice to have my drives in a back room, and out of sight… with the router and the spiderweb of cables I have.
LOL, I “try” to hide all my cables behind furniture. You and @HitsVille make a compelling argument for NAS. It is almost ridiculous how many external drives I have. I just lacked foresight and I had no idea I would ever need so much storage. Right now, it is just the matter of biting the bullet for the initial investment for the long-term gain.
(I see you have Philips Hue. I LOVE my lights. <3 )
Well the NAS doesn’t have to actually be a Synology or the like. Any low end pc can be cobbled together and called a NAS or FileServer.
Don’t forget you can break into those externals and make them internals if you so chose (I have). So it is all achievable in stages if you didn’t want a massive all in one go outlay. You could concentrate on a low end NAS/FS and carry on using the laptop as the PMS. Then still with the option to incorporate a Shield further down the line as the PMS (thus freeing up the laptop for other stuff)
You could go higher end NAS or dedicated Plex Media Server with enough power to make it an all in one system from the get go.
@AmazingRando24 said:
Also to add… I have several NAS devices, none of which run Plex. They are purely storage. As @Xhaka states, each device, no matter how many drives it has behaves as a single source.
Instead of selecting a drive, you just point the path to the network folder.
It’s also nice to have my drives in a back room, and out of sight… with the router and the spiderweb of cables I have.
LOL, I “try” to hide all my cables behind furniture. You and @Xhaka make a compelling argument for NAS. It is almost ridiculous how many external drives I have. I just lacked foresight and I had no idea I would ever need so much storage. Right now, it is just the matter of biting the bullet for the initial investment for the long-term gain.
(I see you have Philips Hue. I LOVE my lights. <3 )
Well the NAS doesn’t have to actually be a Synology or the like. Any low end pc can be cobbled together and called a NAS or FileServer.
Don’t forget you can break into those externals and make them internals if you so chose (I have). So it is all achievable in stages if you didn’t want a massive all in one go outlay. You could concentrate on a low end NAS/FS and carry on using the laptop as the PMS. Then still with the option to incorporate a Shield further down the line as the PMS (thus freeing up the laptop for other stuff)
You could go higher end NAS or dedicated Plex Media Server with enough power to make it an all in one system from the get go.
I actually went in reverse and got a Shield after figuring out what @KarlDag meant when he said I should just use Samba Share and leave my external hard drives in place.True, one cannot write to external hard drives connected directly or via USB to the Shield. (I tried) However, all I had to do was keep my external hard drives on my usb hub, connected to my notebook, and just open the permissions to the folders containing the media. My understanding is that Windows 10 has Samba Share 1.0. I assume so since I didn’t have to do anything special to enable it. I also had to mount the media via settings in the Shield. Voila! Plex and the Shield can see my media and i can write to it.
I’ve yet to dedicate a quality test, but i’ve have some incidental buffering on some movies. I havent yet tested with a remote user. I’ve also just fixd some some codec issues.. blah… blah. Anyway, when I do expand storage, it is likely I will invest towards a NAS. Right now, I’m crossing my fingers. So far, so good.
