Considering getting a NAS (Synology 218+ or 218play) to replace my old Optiplex 980 core i7 system.
The alternative would be to get a Usb DAS with Raid (mirror for reliability) and connect it up to an linux plex server (optiplex 9010, ivy bridge i5 cpu atm.)
And I start thinking its both cheaper and speedier to set up a linux plex server with an Usb DAS for these reasons:
CPU is faster and result in quicker transcode
Modularity; the linux server can be replaced with an faster pc in the future
Cheaper
I should inform the linux server will be run on older hardware that has been obsoleted at work, so thats why the possibility to replace it in the future and also I save that cost (free).
Only the raid disk setup will be the investment.
I mostly stream to an Apple TV4 where mostly files are x264 (some x265), so for that setup Direct Stream will not put much requirements on my setup, so for this the choice doesn’t matter.
But I also do have some iPads around that I do sync down content to, and there I do see a benefit that the transcoding are quick to sync down the content in minutes, not hours (ipad2 and ipad 2017). I know though I can cut down this issue by using Optimized Versions feature (by having the movies pre-transcoded so only a sync/download is needed to the ipads)
Am I right in my conclusion, or are there some advantages to invest in a Synology NAS (except its easier to setup)?
I would recommend a softraid solution like freenas or unraid so you don’t have to spend money on hardware raid and deal with a controller replacement in the future when it fails.
And yeah I would go that route over a Synology but that is just my personal opinion.
I use unraid on old ass hardware and it’s solid.
What recording value do you use when saving video… 240p 360p 480p 720p, 1080p, 4k - this affects bot amount of storage, transcoding, playback.
How many plays will be played at time. Affect processor size and network band width.
What is your network. Wired, Wireless, Mixed, 10Mb, 100Mb, 1000Mb/1G, …
What are your personal wants and needs, in a ordered list!
For me skip the NAS and DAS. $$$ wasted. I keep all at 480p. Yes, loss of some “crispness”, but there are benefits:
Storage is about 1GB per hour. So 1TB is about 1000 hours of video. My best TV is 1080p.
I do not use transcoding. Play units: ROKU, Tablets, Phones, TVs all do the up-scaling, so why waste the bandwidth to move it?
480p can move over about anything, even an old Linksys 54G.
So,
My PLEX server is this “desktop” (what I am writing this on). It is 2005 Quad Core Dell (I like the look). The BIOS is bad, so a reboot is pain.
It is never taxed or out of “breath”, thogh I do scaling with custom scripts and FFmeg to covert to preferred format. It has 9GB of internal drives (3), plus SSD for OS and workspace without Raid. It just works and works and works. For Christmas I swapped out 1TB with a new $100 4TB 256MB cache drive.
To support a backup… I use Raspberry PI (RPi 3B+) with 2x 4TB external hard drives. It is a full Plex server on it, and using the same scripts to maintain it. It is a 100% copy of my desktop drives and layout. It syncs once every 3 hours. Only down side is RPi make IO bandwidth is 20Mb total, so network and read/writing to the Drive is over the same 20Mb… so affectively… 10MB in usable bandwidth. So, if I make LARGE changes, like move a 200 episode to another drive, it takes awhile to catch up. Up it is all automatic, so I you not worry. But my RPi, since I am not transcoding and support 2 streams easily. I have tested to 3.
Actually one of my daughters as taken over the machine as her personal PLEX servers. since she on it “alone”…
I am currently 3D printing a TARDIS skin for my RPi boxes to house the RPi and needed hardware. It is set up to used 2x 4TB 2.5" HDD for storage, but for “short term” will have 8TB external. I wil post pictures later.
I’d reconsider needing RAID. RAID isn’t ideal for video files. If you aren’t on a 10Gb network then having a NAS and server separate from each other WILL be affected by your network. An old USB2 attached drive attached to the server will be faster then the NAS.
I’d never consider downgrading video just to be able to fit more on my limited storage. That to me would not be enjoyable at all. Most people are moving in the other direction of upgrade their 1080p to 4K for better quality.
I myself prefer a decent server with DAS. A low cost solution is the StarTech.com USB 3.0 eSATA 8-Bay Hot-Swap 2.5/3.5-Inch SATA III Hard Drive Enclosure with UASP
You can find it in the $300 price range online. It supports , USB3, USB 3.0 with UASP or eSATA.
eSATA would be the best choice if you have this available otherwise you can just use USB3. I’ve never had a bit of trouble with these boxes and they are relatively quiet with good internal cooling. This is a “dumb” box and each drive will show up in the OS. So if you want RAID or any other drive features you do it in software in your OS. This is a good thing as you aren’t tied to the hardware controller.
You can only use one connection at a time and that will be either eSATA or USB3. Nothing to set or change besides the cable of choice. This box will be a faster attached to your server then having the server pull data from a NAS over a Gigabyte network.
Any kind of SATA drive can be installed. No need to worry about same size or brand. I’ve got a mix of 4 TB up to 12 TB in them.
10 GbE is not necessary unless you’re throwing around whole files all the time.
A good switch, capable of sustaining the proper multiple gigabit sessions (aggregate throughput of 8Gb across the fabric) is more than enough for most.
No of course it isn’t needed. I was just saying that a NAS over 1 Gb will be slower than USB with direct attached drives.
Of course depending on needs multiple NICs can be used either bonded in some nature or for dedicated functionality (one for NAS connection and one for client delivery and general network connectivity).
Obviously no right or wrong way to set any of this up and there are many options available.
Thanks for all good feedback!
I see I should elaborate abit on my situation:
I mostly have 1080p mkv that streams to 1080p ATV4, but for iPad (kids) its advantageous to have lower resolution to fit more movies in small space. 4K is nice for the future, but not really needed as of now, since the TV is only 49" (it is 4K however)
Usually just 1 stream at a time, but with kids getting their own TV setup there might be a max of 2 streams, but in reality netflix/hbo are mostly used so very seldom need to support 2 streams from the plex server.
Network is 1Gbps wired except wireless (AC1900) for iPad. I don´t really see the need for investing to support 10Gbps.
Wants; stream directly (with subtitles) to ATV4 of 1080p and in seldom bursts a quick sync to Ipad, 480p could be good enough, before we go on trips with kids etc.
Im happy with 1080p. I currently have 1TB disk with my plex media in the old Optiplex 980. But if the disk fails, I loose it all, so thats why I want to have a RAID setup. Purely for reliability, not performance.
For a RAID setup I will probably consider at a minimum 2x2TB in RAID 1, but might consider to increase this to 4x2TB in RAID5 jut to get abit more space benefit.
And it´s good points you have; rather use a software raid to avoid having issues with a raid controller (I fear more a controller breaking than the disks failing).
I should also say that the raid setup will provide storing of not just plex media files, but also other things like:
raw video footage I do (I do edit locally on a NVMe disk, but after that I like to keep the raw footage)
old music library
But this stuff will mostly work as an archive (think AWS Glacier) and not something regularly read from.
I do however see an advantage with a NAS; its simpler to get up and running and it might have better ways to give warnings when disk issues arise (when you replace the disk before its too late).
But I also agree that it would be better to have a DAS instead of a NAS since the linux plex server would be better at dealing with the transcoding than the NAS.
Of DAS there are not as many products as NAS products. I have looked at Drobo before, but with alot of complaints I have read I have kinda ruled it out. StarTechs bay I have been looking at, and with JBOD (where the linux server do the software raid) it might be the better solution.
Anyhow, to sum it up, what I was wondering about was if a NAS (with right CPU) might be enough to cover my needs. Yes it will be abit more expensive and yes it probably will be slower at transcoding, but then I only have 1 device to deal with instead of 2 (DAS and linux server).
Something to think about. A Cheap used Nvidia 750 TI video card added to your present box will handle 2 hardware video streams. Attach a DAS unit to your present computer and a cheap video card and you have what you need.
If you were to consider Windows OS then I’d highly suggest StableBit’s DrivePool and Scanner tools. Scanner will give you early warning signs of drive failure and DrivePool allows you to pool your drives into one (or more) larger drives. It can also duplicate data on different disks as well in case of drive failure.
Also SnapRaid is an great freeware product that gives you PARITY as used in RAID without the issues of RAID. I’d highly suggest NOT EVEN THINKING OF RAID for video.
yeah I have been considering adding an older GPU to beef up the transcoding.
But from what I got QuickSync from the Intel CPU also does quite well on its own.
Do these hardware accelerations also benefit transcoding to the iPad, or just direct stream transcoding?
I see with the i5 Ivy Bridge on Ubuntu gives about 40x transcode time on high setting to the ipad2.
thx for all the great input!
Interesting to read about the StableBit solutions as well, where one can classify data so one can have one group of data not fault tolerant, while other data are fault tolerant.
Im not a collector, so when a movie has been seen, it mostly goes to trash (and therefore its not critical to be fault tolerant since it can be reproduced).
But my raw footage I would like to have on a fault tolerant storage.
Looking at the options I see now that FreeNAS probably are the more obvious path (instead of running Ubuntu with added NAS/RAID functionality that I though of first) and adding a DAS box with eSATA.
UPDATE: I see UnRaid has an advantage when adding drives where FreeNas (ZFS) wont allow this.
But the cost of UnRaid + DAS box starts to move close to the cheaoer (ARM) Synology NAS options.
