Hi
Would be interested in understanding the Pros and Cons of running PMS on each of these platforms.
Any and all opinions and experiences would be interesting in helping make implementation decisions.
Thanks
Pros and cons? Is that not the national debate about allowing congical visits by prostitutes with inmates in correctional facilities?
Actually I would go with a simple PC and attach storage as individual USB drives or a USB enclosure. To make adding drives easy and for safety I also recommend something like StableBit’s DrivePool with duplication turned on for all library folders. I like DrivePool because everything is stored as regular Windows files and, should something catastrophic happen, all my library files are on two (DrivePool’s duplication assures that duplicates are stored on different disks) of my drives and will be readable on any computer I plug them into.
From many of the posts on here it seems that both expense and complication is increased by using a NAS and the advantages of a NAS do not make up for the drawbacks.
The Plex server is best when the system adheres to the KISS principal and that is about as “KISS” as it gets. You do not even have to open anything up to add drives.
@Elijah_Baley
LOL. I vote for conjugal visits…
Actually I could not agree with you more.
However, I am very interested in the NAS folks descriptions of Pros and Cons…
Get UnRaid and have the best of both worlds 
Can you expend on that.
Best of both worlds???
Well, my system is a NAS, in that it has 20TB of dual parity protected storage. It’s also a PC because I run a Virtual gaming rig on it that can handle any new game out at the moment. As well as that it runs PMS, plus loads of other stuff too. I’ve got a NAS, Media Server, Router/Firewall, Windows Gaming Machine, Workstation and Downloader all in one box.
I’m not really keen on All-in-One devices like this.
If one part fails… the whole thing needs to be replaced.
Also… If my server crashes and I am using the NAS for my “Everyday” Data… will my data get corrupted??
Dunno
Pros of a build it yourself combined box are that it’s one box, and there’s no needlessly duplicated hardware. I have a single thing which is “Plex” for me.
Pros of separate NAS from PMS: easier for someone with less IT skills to setup and manage.
I run an off-the-shelf NAS. Granted it’s a high ended model, but I didn’t always run this high of a machine.
A NAS has the ability to get you into a good, stable MS setup if you take the time to figure out some of the pitfalls. One of the biggest with low end NASes (especially off-the-shelf models) is the lack of transcoding ability. Most of the low end NASes have little more than a glorified cell phone CPU in them. These lower ended models can’t deal with transcoding at all, and many of them can barely serve up a single Direct Play stream without pegging out the CPU meters.
If you research the models, though, you will find a few of them that have an actual CPU in them, you are going to find there are some out there with 5K, 7K and even 10K passmark CPUs in the case. These can not only handle transcoding most media, but can do a lot more than you expect from something the size of a bagel toaster (or larger, I suppose, with an 6 or 10 bays in them.)
Mine is an i3-4330 with 5K passmarks. I have over 30TB hanging in or off of this NAS. And it literally runs circles around some of the other machines I’ve seen (desktop or laptop) for it’s ability to serve media. Part of that is because I make sure my media is in the best formats for Direct Play as possible. The electric bill for running my NAS (minus the external enclosure) is about 2/3 the costs of running either of my two laptops.
@jjrjr1 you have already heard the skinny on setting up your media, talking with @cayars and myself a while back. You know about MP4 H264 with AAC stereo audio. You know that not all play devices can handle H265, and you know that the worst thing you can do for your system’s health, over time, is on demand transcoding the same media item over and over again.
I have taken my NAS as carry on luggage in board airplanes on more than one occasion. (When I worked in Alaska for 6-9 months out of the year, it went with me. Not happening with most desktop setups…) Which is why I opted for a high end NAS as my PMS machine.
If you are looking at a NAS, things to look for: a REAL CPU (i3, i5, i7), expandable memory (16GB minimum), as many drive bays internal as you think you could ever use x2 (so I should have gotten the 10 bay model) and lots of USB3.0 expansion ports. Anything else if you intend to run PMS on it, and you are likely to be disappointed.
@MikeG6.5 said:
If you are looking at a NAS, things to look for: a REAL CPU (i3, i5, i7), expandable memory (16GB minimum), as many drive bays internal as you think you could ever use x2 (so I should have gotten the 10 bay model) and lots of USB3.0 expansion ports. Anything else if you intend to run PMS on it, and you are likely to be disappointed.
Is that really the case though or do I just have low expectations. I use a Synology DS1812+ as my NAS/PMS and I am fine 99% of the time…
@asaweli said:
@MikeG6.5 said:
If you are looking at a NAS, things to look for: a REAL CPU (i3, i5, i7), expandable memory (16GB minimum), as many drive bays internal as you think you could ever use x2 (so I should have gotten the 10 bay model) and lots of USB3.0 expansion ports. Anything else if you intend to run PMS on it, and you are likely to be disappointed.Is that really the case though or do I just have low expectations. I use a Synology DS1812+ as my NAS/PMS and I am fine 99% of the time…
My only real regret is the number of bays in my NAS. It has only 4. So additional drives are externals connected via USB. I really should have gotten a larger bayed unit, for my use case.
And it’s more than satisfactory for everything I feed it in terms of CPU. Of course I make sure to feed it only Direct Playable media that only requires transcoding for bitrate limits. Nothing is transcoded due to codecs or containers because everything is standardized to the most Direct Playable container and codecs before Plex ever sees it. IMO transcoding everything is a waste of resources and a lot of work the CPU shouldn’t be required to do.
Also, keep in mind, I know some of @jjrjr1 requirements. I know he wants to play a lot of 4K content, because he and I have a bit of history already on these boards. Some of his content is going to require transcoding down for some clients he’s ran in the past. I also know if he goes with an ATOM or ARM processor for a NAS to run PMS on he’s going to be hating it in a serious manner.
Knowing what I have in my NAS, and knowing what I had in the first one I used, the differences are literally night and day on the capabilities of the two systems. The current box has had 7 streaming off of it at once. 5 of those Direct Play streams using under 20% resource for those streams. The other 2 were transcoded due to bitrate limitations, which ate up almost 60% system resources for those two streams. In some cases transcoding isn’t a bad thing. But doing it because the files are in the wrong container or have the wrong codecs for most of Plex’s clients means the admin is too lazy to set his system up the most efficient way he could. (IMO)
Conceivably I could easily do 10-15 streams at a time, if bandwidth limitations weren’t an issue, and all streams were Direct Played. Not many here work hard to ensure they have the best media container and formats for streaming they way I have. And most don’t worry about transcoding. I looked at buying my second NAS as more of a household appliance than as a computing device. (Wish I had done this with the first one, honestly…) Hence I paid more for the base device to fit my needs 3-5 years down the road.
In short, my reply was directly to the OP, regarding his specific requirements and expectations. It is also likely that your expectations aren’t what mine are. And in that case, your NAS may work fine for you in the short term. BUT, if you start collecting 4K content and then start watching this content on a mobile device limited to 720p or 480p, you aren’t going to be liking the results as things start buffering every 20-30 seconds because your NAS can’t keep up with RT transcoding…
For more pros: All self-contained, lower electric costs than other options (generally), if you optimize the container and codecs (which I know you do already) then you can expect a generally trouble-free session. Can also be used as a network drive for other things like your own websites, cloud services (ownCloud, FTP server, etc.) Doesn’t require a degree in Computer Sciences to set up. NASes at the level you would need likely already have 2 NICs so setting up Link Aggregation would be super easy. (Double the network bandwidth, less buffering because of network issues on your LAN.)
Cons: Off-the-shelf units to fit your requirements are going to be spendy. (Mine was about $1300 before drives.) Can be problematic to get things working 100% smoothly unless you either know how, or can find the information needed. Can take a bit to set up things like PlexPy, unless the model you get has the required libraries as part of their App Store already. (You know someone that can help with this already, though…) Will likely require you to learn a bit more Linux than you know now, but can become a help later on down the road, too…
@MikeG6.5 said:
@asaweli said:
@MikeG6.5 said:
In short, my reply was directly to the OP, regarding his specific requirements and expectations. It is also likely that your expectations aren’t what mine are. And in that case, your NAS may work fine for you in the short term. BUT, if you start collecting 4K content and then start watching this content on a mobile device limited to 720p or 480p, you aren’t going to be liking the results as things start buffering every 20-30 seconds because your NAS can’t keep up with RT transcoding…
thanks for the elaborate reply. makes sense. I am not into the 4k stuff yet. Bought my latest tv about 2 years ago and at that time decided to go for a vizio 1080p instead of the 4k. so in that sense most probably my stuff is all doing fine on the synology as it is also directplaying most of the time and I rarely have more than 3 simultaneous streams.
that said wow… your nas sounds like a beast… but you did indeed pay a hefty price… my current thoughts are more waiting for cloud plex to really work instead of ever getting a new NAS again.
