I am shopping for a NAS to run Plex Server on (not decided on QNAP or Synology) and my question is how Powerful CPU / GPU I need to run any normal 4K material I would typically find on Internet (not super high data rate 4K “test material” I have seen used in some NAS tests one can find online) if I only want to view it using Plex app on my LG smart TV? If the movies have multiple subtitles to select from (stored in separate files) will “transcoding” be required on the NAS Plex Server or is this done by the Plex app in the TV?
I have been looking at the Synology DS920+ that would fit my other needs (number of drive bays etc) and budget but my question is if it will handle my 4K video material (H.264 & H.265)…?
If you are somewhat tech savvy, build an Unraid NAS server. Unraid also supports docker and VMs. You get a lot more bang for the buck and can build a more powerful and expandable server then the ready made NAS servers out there. That said, most TVs are not capable of the HD audio associated with most 4K movies, if you want that you will need to also want to get the Nvidia Shield as it supports almost anything you throw at it. I think the new Apple TV also does a good job. I had nothing but issues trying to play 4K movies on my Samsung and finally threw in the towel and got a shield, never regretted it. As long as you are direct streaming you don’t need anything powerful. It just depends what else you are wanting to run along side of Plex.
To better understand your needs are you talking about the NAS being the home for the media files as well as it being the Plex server?
If the NAS is only the home for the files, then there are no special performance requirements. Any NAS with gigabit networking could serve many Plex streams at once.
Plex server power is a different question entirely. Whether your server is the NAS or some other device, the requirements depend entirely on how much transcoding or tone mapping you need to do
If your Plex client can direct play the material then the server requirements are very low. So, if you are playing 4k files on 4k displays, you don’t need a fast server. (Though, there is the sound issue @Alucard1 mentioned.)
If your Plex client requires transcoding, then the server requirements go up quickly with the nature of the media. Trying to play 4k HDR on a 1080p SDR display requires tone mapping, and to do that effectively you need hardware support via a GPU and Plex Pass.
I am was thinking of running the Plex SERVER on the NAS i.e. have it do the transcoding (if needed). My questions is mainly IF transcoding is needed for subtitles, H.265 or anything else if I use Plex client on a 4K device (fairly new 65" LG OLED 4K TV in my case). My understanding is that transcoding is mostly needed for devices that cant play the media due to for instance resolution or encoding but reading some comments on Internet made me wonder if this is correct?!
I would quite easily be able to put together hardware for a NAS (possibly not trivial to make it low-power?) but I would like something with software that is as user friendly as QNAP or preferably Synology. I have in the past played with some other NAS distros and found the usability of the software to be quite lacking…
In my opinion Unraid is not very difficult to use at all. I have used it for many years. I have lost several drives over that time and had never lost any data. The biggest thing I like about using Unraid is I can just add another drive if I need more room and the drives do not need to be the same size, however the biggest drive always needs to be your parity drive. Spaceivaderone on YouTube has many tutorials available as well. You might check in to Unraid before you make your decision.
My server consists of the following.
MB: B450 TOMAHAWK
Pros: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core @ 3200 MHz
Mem: 24 Gig DDR4
Samsung M.2 1 TB SSD for my cache
1 WD 4 TB For my Parity
4 WD 2 TB Data Drives
3 WD 4 TB Data Drives
Currently running 17 Docker containers including Plex and other support software for Plex. 1 Windows 10 VM that is used for my Ceton cable card to get my TV in to Plex.
My average CPU load is about 18-23%. I can transcode 4K videos with no issue all on the CPU as I do not have a GPU installed however I got plenty of drive space so I optimize my 4K movies for 1080P for my non 4K TVs and Remote streaming.
I like using smaller drives because the bigger the drive is the more prone they are to failure as tolerances get smaller as the drive gets bigger. I also don’t like GPU transcoding as the video quality does not appear as good, I have not tried it in a long time so that may have been fixed now and unless I am remote streaming the server normally does not need to transcode.
Assuming I would go the Unraid route but would like to try the option of hardware encoding but build a system that is low-power is there any advantage of going Intel (for instance a laptop CPU with built in GPU) versus AMD - I am thinking about drivers & codecs etc?
The most impressive QNAP NAS models for Plex all seem to run Inte and I suppose there is some reason for this or?
Also is not the speed of Unraid streaming capped to that of a single drive (as no striping is used i,e, every file is stored on a single drive) - is this ok for any types of 4K media?
You could use an Intel processor with Quick Sync as that is supported or you could add a good graphics card as well for the GPU if you want to do GPU transcoding.
Depending on how you configure your file system a file can be stored on a single drove or scatter over multiple. I have mine setup to store the entire file on a single drive. The WD drives I have can read at 560 MB/s witch is plenty for a 4K movie.
I have been running Plex on this system for about 4 years now without any issues other then a drive failure here and there.
If you have an old computer laying around with a couple of drives, you can try Unraid for free if you want to play around with it. Unraid will support up to 28 data drives and two parity drives. If you have two parity drives then you can have up to two drives fail at the same time without loosing any data.
Be advised, if you are going to use the Plex app in your LG smart TV it may not support any type of DTS audio format. My LG OLED does not and a lot of UHD BluRays movies use DTS-HD MA for their audio. To watch those movies I built a Plex client w/ a Raspberry Pi4, LibreElec and the Plex Kodi plugin. UHD playback on that client direct plays, so little if any load on the server, and it handles all the audio formats.
Thanks for the tip - a lower cost I assume alternative to using a Nvidia Shield. I really wish it was possible to buy “dumb TV” without all the apps etc. that was as large and had as good spec at lower price (without all the CPU/GPU needed for the “smart” functions). This is anyhow the way I and most somewhat tech savy people are going with Shield, Apple TV or FireTV for streaming and apps…
I have a Shield on each TV that I was testing to replace my old WMC7 HTPCs but I found they can’t deinterlace very well and w/ some programing it is so bad it is unwatchable so I am still hanging onto the HTPCs on 2 TVs, one failed and I use the Shield full time on that TV. I use the HTPCs due to some cable & broadcast channels using copy protection flags that make them unavailable on Plex, Fire TV and Kodi. If the FCC would abolish CP flags I would switch to Kodi right now. It plays everything, handles every format, does auto frame-rate and resolution switching but the CP flags are holding me back.
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