Crew, my TS-453A died after a fight with Mother Nature and lightning. We had a strike nearby, and despite everything being on surge protectors, the TV, the Xbox One and the -453A is toast according to QNAP tech support. They recommended I go with the TVS-473e with four bays and Toshiba red drives.
I see a lot of people are happy with their -473’s, and I wanted to make sure that has not changed, and is there anything within a few hundred bucks that would be a vast improvement? My search was limited to -473, and I don’t want to miss out on something that may be MUCH better and still within my price range.
Patrick,
The -453B gives you immediate Intel QSV hardware transcoding in 4K .
The AMD chips don’t have that yet.
If you want and need HW transcode now then that’s a factor.
I personally use WD Red Pro.
As for power protection, APC and Tripp Lite ISOBAR boxes are my choice.
The ISOBAR comes with guarantee (financial) so you can replace the equipment lost which was plugged into it. Read the details there. I have 6 of their boxes throughout the house if that says anything
The x73 family is a nice box and I like mine. The new 951x is also a nice box and has a slightly newer GPU inside it than the 453B (which is also a good box).
In terms of something better… for non-hw transcoding, the new Ryzen boxes (TS-x77) family are beasts and have enough CPU to handle SW transcoding for Plex just fine.
It just depends on what else you are going to use the box for (besides Plex) and whether or not you need the HDMI output or you will be using the xbox/set-top box for playback client).
For HDD’s I love my HGST, but now that WD owns them they are starting to get phased out. WD Red Pro’s are nice, and the Seagate IronWolfs have extra “health monitoring” coming for them in Qnap’s QTS 4.3.5 release. Just make sure whatever you go with in on the QNAP Compatibility list.
As for UPS’s, I am running CyberPower currently for mine, but have used APC & Tripplite in the past as well.
Most of the bigger brands have the equipment guarantees now, but read the fine print to see which ones will actually cover you.
Thanks ChuckPA. I will check out those surge protectors. A buddy with absurdly expensive A/V set up, recommend Leviton whole house systems with multiple protection points. But, I like to weigh my options.
Thanks for the options. My box is going to be dedicated solely to my Plex media…or what was, and soon will be again. For my needs, the -453A worked just fine, but I will certainly check out those other options. Plex gives the -473E it recommendations, but will the other recommendation - not on Plex’s list - cost me anything (as long as it has the HDMI)?
I will look at the hard drives and UPS option. Given how much time I will spend over the next few months copying my movies to rebuild my collection (assuming the HD’s did not survive), I want as many protections as is possible.
Patrick,
what sold me on Tripp Lite was an actual lightning strike a LONG time ago. I had a generic surge protector and one of the Tripp Lites. Everything in the generic was toast. Everything in the Tripp Lite survived although the Tripp itself was toast. It had absorbed the powerline surge and did its job.
It really depends on use case. The TS-951x is going to give you better storage expansion & transcoding capability vs. the TS-453b. Newer Intel CPU, newer chassis, etc. but you do give up the PCIe slot.
But what are you going to use the slot for… 10Gb (already in the x51x) or SSD cache (51x already supports 4x2.5" SSD slots). So losing the slot really isn’t costing you any functionality. You do lose the remote, but that can be purchased separately or you can use a universal remote.
The TS-x77 is just a pure monster box, but if all you are going to use it for is plex, is basically overkill.
I looked at your recommendations, but where my NAS is kept, I really only have size for a 4-bay model. What about the TVS-682? It looks like it should handle the transcoding with the i3, but in all honesty, 99% of the other technical details are beyond me. So, I don’t know if something makes it not advisable for a Plex server.
I am looking for a NAS that will be solely dedicated to Plex.
Sorry, I know I need an awful lot of hand holding, but what about the TVS-471? Amazon has one with the i3 3.5 and 4G of RAM.
Given the 4 bay limitation, I am looking at the TVS-471 (i3 from Amazon), the TVS-473 and the TV-473e (both with 4GB RAM) or stay with the TS-453A (8 GB RAM). I only need on 4K HDMI connection, and I will not be watching too many 1080p movies. Most will top out at 720p, since it is faster to rip.
Given those restrictions, what would my two best options be?
OK, I think I’m going with the TS-453Be. I was very happy with what I had before, so I suspect I will be just as satisfied with this new NAS.
Is RAM critical to this type of operation? The old -453A had 8GB, but the -453Be only comes with 4GB.
Finally, I cannot migrate, since the -453A is dead. Could I put the old drives in the -453Be to see if they still work, or would that be just plain stupid
I had over 1,500 movies and TV shows on the previous server, so it is hard to just say goodbye to all that effort.
You will be fine with 4GB if all you are doing is Plex and a few standard apps. That can always be upgraded too.
As for the old drives, assuming they weren’t damaged by the lightning strike, you should be able to plug them into the new NAS (make sure it is on the same QTS version). Follow the migration directions in QNAP’s online QTS manual.
As for hard work, that is why RAID is no replacement for external backups (USB drives, other NAS, etc.).
WOW, I never thought of another NAS as a backup for this one. Since the other one is just for back up, speed/performance would not be as much of a concern.
My DS1815+ is the offline backup for my QNAP.
I spin it up, backup / sync to the Syno, shut it down until next month.
It’s the one way a NAS can be a backup, only because it is not the daily use data. Before anyone brings up “bit rot”, if the drives are of such poor quality that the bits rot between monthly sync and scrub activities, then they need to be replaced
