Hardware Recommendations for PMS + NZBGet etc

General Discussions
1

Currently running PMS on a hefty W10 desktop which is “always on” and also runs NZBGet, Sonarr, Radarr etc. Has 6 HDDs in of various sizes using drive pooling software that host all my TV / Movies etc.

I need to move my PC to somewhere where it may not have a wired network connection, so am considering moving to a NAS or NUC that I can position with my router and switch etc.

Clients are mainly our 2 Android TVs (Sony), and a Firestick, with occasional use to sync media to tablets / phones to watch offline when travelling.

Any recommendations on good NAS solutions / setups, or setups for a NUC that won’t require yet another Windows license!

2

If you search the forums, you’ll find many such recommendations each with their own set of reasons and requirements detailed.

May I suggest starting there then asking a more targeted question? You’re essentially asking “Which type car should I buy?” without providing the needed details

3

When in doubt, go big.

4

That’s part of the problem, so many options and recommendations to try to make sense of.

I want something suitable to run fairly autonomously, that can:

  1. operate as a NAS (at least 4 HDDs, some form of replication but not straight RAID - I only want certain folders backed up on one of the other discs in the array)

  2. run PMS, supporting at least 2 clients (mainly direct play, but some audio transcoding usually) at a minimum, but ideally able to transcode 2 streams simultaneously. Official plex app with active development.

  3. run as a download station with NZBGet, Sonarr, Radarr etc.

5

That little bit you’ve shared just now is the type of information everyone needs to help.

If you don’t need to process subtitles (an important distinction),

Synology DS-918 (and similar J3455 models), or the QNAP TS-453Be (also J3455 CPU) will handle most anything video related.

Synology has, by far, the better Docker UI but Synology is also more expensive.

6

What difference do subtitles make? Some media do require forced subs, for foreign audio. Is it because plex muxes then in, so it becomes a transcode?

7

Subtitle processing is done by the CPU. There is no hardware acceleration for them at this time (no support in the upstream libraries).

The Intel J3455 CPU does not have the processing power to handle overlaying subtitle bitmaps (a video image) on top of the transcoded image in real-time. For such to occur, you would need an i5 or i7 class machine.

8

Running my server on an i7 at the moment, so never had any issues.

Was just looking at the RS synology servers (RS820+) , as I’ve got space in my cabinet for a 2u, but those have C3538 atoms in which are pretty old.

Have an old Dell with an i5 in it, might look at building a small form factor PC with Linux or similar.

9

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