So my family is planning on moving to a new house next summer, and I wanted to take the opportunity to upgrade my current Plex server. I plan on increasing the overall storage, DVR capability, and maybe even getting a new server backend.
I currently have a total of 8TB of RAID 1 NAS storage that my personal library and Plex DVR share. However, I have less than a terabyte left and need to upgrade. I was looking into getting a WD PR4100, as it’s capable of running a full Plex server (I did my research), which would free up my current server (an Nvidia SHIELD) to function as just a standard media box while I throw the PR4100 in a closet. The configuration I’d most likely go for is buying a diskless PR4100 and filling it with 4 8TB WD Red drives (you can buy them in USB variants that are actually cheaper than the drives on their own, just shuck the drives out of their plastic enclosures), then configuring them in RAID 5 for 24TB of media goodness as well as backup protocols in case one of the drives goes kaput. It’ll cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 but it’ll be worth it.
To go with the new server, I’ll be getting a new tuner: an HDHomerun Connect Quatro. I currently use a Happauge Win-TV Dual-USB, which only lets me record 2 things at once. This is fine since I don’t record stuff from OTA as much as I used to (mainly CBS, I refuse to pay for their online service), but I’d like to have the extra recording capability as I have had to sacrifice recordings before with the Win-TV. (Not to mention i’ve been recording less mainly to conserve hard drive space. Deleted a bunch of recordings as well.) Plus, if I want to later on I can upgrade to HDHomerun’s Premium TV service, which gives you cable channels over the Internet, DRM free and $35/month.
And to make sure my DVR will have no signal issues whatsoever, I’m going overboard and buying a 150 mile range TV antenna. These are listed under various no-name Chinese brands, but they get good reviews (despite some build quality issues that people occasionally report) and increase the number of available channels for most. Plus, if I can connect the antenna to any pre-existing coaxial wiring, all the TVs in the house can utilize it. I’ll probably put it in the roof or attic (most likely the roof, i’ll get slightly better signal that way) at an optimal location based on the TV towers in my area (and I can also rotate the tuner with the included motor). My current flat antenna is about 50 miles and I don’t usually have signal issues with the major networks, but I want to make sure that absolutely nothing will cause me to get a bad signal and/or cause something Plex related to crash. (Plus, I’m pretty curious what other channels I can pick up.)
Anyway, that’s the plan. I’m pretty excited to build this, but I wanted to make sure that I have this perfect. So if any of you guys have any advice on any of these products or how to optimize them for full effect, let me know.
I am a user and though I would help in answering thins.Nice that you are upgrading, I currently use a NetGear ReadyNAS 516, very quite and fast. But here is a link to the plex compatibility. Maybe this could help you in picking a NAS drive that can accomplished all the things you want. I know that QNAP and synology are the top ones for Plex.
according to the linked nas chart, the pr4100 supports hardware transcoding including 4k SDR, which is good, however it does not support 4k hdr (which is what most 4k blurays are).
Also, the cpu itself is very low power, it looks like it will have difficulty transcoding much with the cpu (audio etc), and that will also reflect in the overall speed and responsiveness of the NAS and of plex itself.
So, this looks like a decent solution for likely most of your content (excluding any non-direct play 4k hdr), and should handle local media fine. but it might have difficulty with the dvr/commercial removal (high cpu load), and it will not be 4k/hdr future proof.
you might also search the forum for that nas model and see if anyone has good or bad things to report on it.
edit; also the homerun quattro is great, I have one and can readily recommend it.
TcknoJunky - You are correct. Eric you will have to give or take something things. You will not find something that does everything you want. You have to narrow down what is more important and just choose the best NAS drive.
Like I said I have a ReadyNAS 516, it steams 1080p fine, I have stream 4k from it too and it works fine too.
right. But if 4k/HDR transcoding is important (or expected to be in the future), then this particular device may not be the best choice. It’s not mentioned by the OP, so yea each user will need to decide what is important to them.
I simply mention it, because 4k/hdr is relatively new and expanding, and many people just starting out or wanting to upgrade may forget to consider future 4k support.
Of the listed nas’s, I would limit myself to the ones that have indicated support for 4k/HDR transcoding.
I have a readynas also, 528x, it also does 1080p (direct and transcoding), and it direct streams 4k/hdr great. But it has no hardware transcoding support, so eventually I plan to get either a supported nas, or build a small but powerful pc plex server with 4k/hdr transcoding support.
Hi TeknoJunky, you are correct, not many devices that support trans-coding this currently according to the Plex compatibly. But yah getting an understanding of what he wants exactly and what his budget is may help more.
I was looking for a NAS that had hardware transcoding onboard (and I checked the chart, the ReadyNAS 516 does not), and I don’t have any 4K content so I’m not worried about that just yet. I wanted to have my new server be a somewhat small setup I could hide in a closet. I love my server, but it’s really a disorganized jumble of wires that clutters the back of my entertainment center. I’m going to organize the cabling this time and have a sort of tech closet.
I don’t automatically remove commercials with Plex DVR (fast forwarding through them is just overall easier and I usually end up replacing recordings of older seasons with DVD or Blu-Ray sets later on), and I wanted to make sure that the NAS I went with has good reviews. I found a bunch of info on the PR4100’s capability as a Plex server, including on camera stress tests at 1080p and videos on how well it handles Plex DVR and Live TV (and even a more advanced test done by Byte My Bits, and he found that the PR4100 can handle 4 transcoded outputs and 2-3 Direct Play outputs all at once, which is more than enough for my uses), but not much on the ReadyNAS 516.
My family doesn’t really care about 4K, 1080p looks great already and we already have a standard Blu-Ray player. We might upgrade to a 4K TV in the theater room when we move, but buying a 4K Blu-Ray player and 4K movies on top of the money we’ll be spending on upgrading the server and the theater room in general is too much. (Heck, we usually try to save money when buying new movies anyway, we get more DVDs than Blu-Rays.) So 4K futureproofing isn’t an issue i’m worried about.
