I’ve been reading around and watching video’s as I am looking to build a media server, i’ve been looking at the synology NAS drive’s which appeal from a number of factors but I am a little confused when it comes to the performance side of things. I work in IT and have reasonable understanding of things, but the more i read about what gets transcoded and what does not the more I am getting confused by things.
My initial plan would be to have the NAS for basic file storage, backing up my google drive but mainly for setting up a plex server on to host this. The size of the NAS means it could sit out of sight with my switch, and it’s smaller than a normal PC and easier to switch out drives if one dies.
I would be using an Xbox One S as my client to my 4k TV via my Denon Amp which supports DTS:X and Dolby Atmos, i’d like enough power to stream the top 4k HDR 10bit etc without running into issues but the transcoding side has me confused.
It seems the Xbox is pretty good at the support of different codecs so I am hoping little transcoding would be required, I don’t plan on using subtitles however I wouldn’t mind using some extra features of the NAS like surviellance in the future and possible other things. What I am not sure on is if the NAS has the power to do what I would ultimatley like it to do, and looking for some advice before i look to spend any money.
Yeah I know the RAID penalty when it comes to having multiple HDD, although i have never played with RAID personally I have looked at the calculator you linked so I know you loose one drive with all you have. I was looking synology due to SHR expandability in future being easier than traditional RAID.
I’ve been reading about the pass to enable hardware encoding, so I assume on a single stream on an internal network connection then it should perform ok? I have my house hardwired with Cat7 in the walls for future proof, and cat6 cables for gigabit on would only be internal streaming on my network and not external and most likely just to the xbox to start with.
I’ve seen QNAP do offer some good options as well, but it was the synology SHR RAID that appealed as to start with I’d probaby only be able to put a couple of drives in cost wise. But over time I can throw a couple more in as I can easily and expand to the new disks.
I don’t have any spare PC hardware sitting around to hand hence NAS solution, linux stuff isn’t a concern as I can learn but only dabbled in basic stuff at work to this point.
