Kind Assistance on Choosing a NAS Device

General Discussions
1

Hello,

I am looking towards buying a NAS device and use it both as a server and storage. In order to do that, I read all the different articles in the FAQ and checked out the Compatibility List. Since I am not very knowledgeable on the topic, I would kindly appreciate validation on my thought process from those who understand about this topic more than I do.

After reading the articles, I am able to determine the following:

  1. NAS device to be used both for server and storage (at least 12 TB).
  2. Transcoding will be required, for 1080p files, subtitles, as well as for several types of devices (Samsung TV, Android phone and tablet) and users (unlikely at the same time though).
  3. The format of my media is always “standard”, they are listed as examples in Is Plex Media Server on a NAS Right for Me?.
  4. Based on the above info, I filtered the NAS Compatibility List based on the following criteria:
    a) x86 CPU;
    b) HD 1080p = Yes;
    c) checked out the CPU PassMark of a few models (which very roughly should be around 2000 for a single full transcode of a video 1080p as per the FAQ).

Based on the above, PRICE is the driving factor in order to acquire a NAS device. The cheapest one I have been able to find fulfilling the above requirements is the model

Western Digital MyCloud Pro PR2100.

However, its CPU PassMark (1886) falls below the suggested 2000 bar, and its 1.6GHz processor is also lower than the basic minimum suggestion (2.4 GHz); which I assume it indicates low power (?).

My questions to those who are more knowledgeable on this topic than me are:

  1. Did I go about this more or less correctly, or am I overlooking anything?
  2. Is this choice still correct in spite of the CPU characteristics (I am confused about the supposed sub-optimum CPU details as per above, but yet showing as a result when filtering the Compatibility List; which one is it?).
  3. What would be a cheap alternative which would fit my needs?

Once again, I highly appreciate any kind assistance anyone may provide on this matter. Thanks, best regards,

2

Word of warning, while accelerated units that have intel processors can now trans-code a lot of content even 1080p it looks very bad, you get lots of macro blocking in scenes with fast action, panning and scan transitions when trans-coding.

It might be worth waiting a bit longer to make an investment.

3

Yup, owner of PR4100 here. Unless you have decent try-and-return no questions asked period, stay away from Nas requiring hw transcode to operate. Transcoded videos using hw are not acceptable qualitywise on linux powered machines. Not entirely a plex fault, suspect that it has something to do with libvaapi from intel used to access hw for transcode, but that still does not make my videos looks nicer.

5

Is building a machine off the table?

These are going on ebay pretty cheap for what it is.

Example -
ebay.com/itm/HP-Z620-Workstation-Xeon-2X-E5-2620-2-0Gh-Hex-6-Core-12GB-256Gb-SSD-V4900-W7-B3H-/391902129879?hash=item5b3f2feed7:g:c9IAAOSwm-pZutT8

I added in a 8 bay Hard Drive CD tray thingy, a SAS disk controller, 2 SSD drives to boot off of.
It is kinda cramped in the case.
Loaded Ubuntu 16.04 on it and set up ZFS on it.
This thing is a transcoding beast.
My buddy is frustrated with me because my machine loads video faster at his house than his that is located there.

The nice thing about it is, it is quiet. Reasonably low power.
The only other thing I am planning on doing to it is adding another 2 SSD drives for the ZFS array at some point. One for cache and one for logs.

Here is my current throughput on my disks on ZFS 16k,1M block sizes Reading and Writing a 1 gig file.

Write 16k
casey@PLEX01:/DATA$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=16k count=65536
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 1.45123 s, 740 MB/s
Read 16k
casey@PLEX01:/DATA$ sudo dd if=testfile of=/dev/null bs=16k
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 0.431421 s, 2.5 GB/s

Write 1M
casey@PLEX01:/DATA$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 0.582031 s, 1.8 GB/s
Read 1M
casey@PLEX01:/DATA$ sudo dd if=testfile of=/dev/null bs=1M
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 0.225905 s, 4.8 GB/s
casey@PLEX01:/DATA$

So you get good disk performance, redundancy, and 12 cores (24 Hyper threading)
Just a thought.

-Casey

6

I think your info about looking at an x86 processor is a little bit odd, and might just be out of date info you are using. I’d definitely suggest going for a 64bit processor instead. x86 vs 64bit seems to be a designation that is used quite a bit these days since 64bit is the newer hardware, even though I think technically 64bit is still x86 based? (not entirely sure about that)

If cost is going to be an issue, you might find that your price range simply doesn’t afford a NAS that can transcode. If you are already converting your media into a standard format for everything, then it makes sense to convert to a format that is as universal as you can find to avoid transcoding. I personally use a 4 year old Synology NAS and encode everything to MKV(H264). For 1080p I use a 6mbs bitrate that looks perfectly fine to me. I chose that bitrate because it’s the max for my internet upload speed. If that was higher, I’d probably just go with 8mbs no matter how high it went. I don’t notice a different between that and the direct rips. The only time the NAS trigggers transcoding is with subtitles for some clients.

If I were buying a new NAS today I’d go with Synology again pretty quickly. Either the 918+ or the just announced 418play (which is a more direct successor to my current 214play). The 918+ is the more expensive/powerful of the two.

7

A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who spent the time assisting by providing feedback: it is hugely appreciated!

@lazybones, @corwin_x: I appreciate the warning and the own user experience, nothing better than direct feedback!

@trumpy81: thanks for the at-length explanation of alternatives! I admit I do not have the knowledge to understand it all ( :blush: ), which leads me to believe that the proposals may be a bit over my head.

@casedog21: thanks for the detail thought! but building anything myself is off the table since I would’t even know how to start or what is required, I am not an IT person.

@bgrngod: it could be that I may not make much sense, my knowledge is limited! and price-wise you may be right as well.

Based on above feedback, it is clear to me that I don’t have the knowledge nor the economic power to implement a different solution than the one I have. So for the time being, I will continue with current setup until circumstances change.

Once again, thank you all!

8

If you are considering a NAS to store your media collection then why not store it all in the Cloud? G Suite for Business gives unlimited storage on Google Drive for just $10/month even for a single users (the alleged 1TB limit is not enforced). Then use Plex Cloud (free for Plex Pass) or PMS on your own VPS ($5-15/month). The cost is a lot more palatable than sinking money into NAS hardware. You will be paying a subscription forever but the storage is unlimited so will never need to be upgraded or replaced.