I am sure this question has been asked to death but I wanted everyone’s opinions before I go out and make some purchases. I currently run Plex media server from my PC which the spec is as per below
Windows 10 64bit
Processor - AMD FX 8320 Eight Core,
Memory - 16gb DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT 610
1 x 2tb HDD (which houses my movies)
1 x 4tb HDD (which houses TV shows)
The problem I have is now my HDD’s are now full again with no redundancy so I have been looking into the idea of running Plex from a NAS or Microserver. I currently have about approx 3-5 streams going at once which my PC at the moment seems to manage.
What are your thoughts?
Should i just upgrade my HDD’s in my PC again or go down the route of NAS or Micro Server???
I was looking at the Qnap TS-251A for a NAS which would have 2 x 8tb red western digital HDD’s. I haven’t really looked into the Micro servers yet but it would proably be a HP Gen 8 above.
Any feedback is welcomed.
Yep its been ask every week.
My suggestion - buy (at least) 4bay NAS with a Intel CPU and spend double what you planned ( 
)
Once you have the NAS and it starts failing at it’s serving job (if you are into Plex - it will happen) - keep it as your storage and buy a Shield pro or an Intel NUC as the new server
You have heard it before - "what you pay for is what you get!! "
just a caveat for HP microservers like the proliant: they ~~usually ~~ sometimes mount “server” CPUs with no support for Intel Quick Sync Video, since now hardware transcoding is available in PMS you should stay with a CPU that is supported (Intel CPU with QSV). As for NAS, the WD MyCloud PRO PR4100 seems nice and supports hardware transcoding (and the CPU is decent too, so you’ll be able to transcode streams that are not supoprted by the GPU)
a NAS which would have 2 x 8tb red western digital HDD’s
So, a mirror then for the redundancy aspect? It would only yield you ~1,5TB more (compared to what you have now) in actual disk space, just as an FYI if you didn’t already know it.
Thanks for the answers so far.
Zpaolo11x I will look into the WD MyCloud Pro PR4100 as a option thank you.
Peter Yeah I am aware of that thanks my main purpose in doing this was to finally get some redundancy as at the moment I don’t have any and I have a lot of data.
Wouldnt a new pc case be a better option, giving you further room to expand the number of disks.
Hi Richard
I have plenty of room for disks however I don’t have a raid function on my PC so have no redundancy. I could possibly go down the route of buying new disks and then purchasing some external disks to backup data but this could end up costing more than a NAS.
I use a microserver (N36L) running FreeNAS as my storage server, and a Intel NUC for PMS. Works really well as I wanted a Windows based desktop client for PMP etc.
The microserver used to run PMS too but the CPU is old and crap and couldn’t transcode for toffee.
I now have a second microserver and use it as my cold backup. Spin it up once a week, run a backup and turn it off again. Works a treat.
