Hi all. I'm fairly new to Plex since purchasing my chromecast. Amazing solution and now developing my understanding of NAS and accessing files through the home network.
My situation is this. I currently have my laptop I use to run Plex. I control it via the mobile android app, and then cast it to my chromecast to my LG TV. Great solution but I no longer want to have to use my laptop for the storage of movies. I want a solution I can leave on all the time and tuck away behind the TV for example. I have access to HDD's but just need a solution to get the HDD onto the network and for Plex to pick it up!
I have looked as NAS solutions but they are quite expensive so I was wondering about USB NAS adapters or any other options that will be compatible with Plex?
I've found Synology NAS devices to be super easy to use. They also have plex media server easily available in their official app repository. Expect to pay at least $100 per drive bay though.
I started with a 4 bay Synology and when I got close to filling it up I built a PC (running Ubuntu) to run plex media server, do all my video encoding, and also house 5 hard drives. As it happened, it was quiet enough to keep in the living room, so it's my primary player as well. I think I spent about $800 on it if you don't count the hard drives, and it's wonderful.
The problem with getting something cheaper is it will be very difficult or impossible to run plex media server on the same device. You'll have to keep an additional computer on at all times. 4 drives is nice as well since you can run raid5 and have the capacity of 3 of the drives, while still able to lose a drive. If you buy a 2bay, to be safe you'll want to run raid1, in which case one of the drives can store things and the other is just copies.
Also, be careful about using the consumer grade hard drives you have lying around. They really do burn out quite often, whereas the WD Reds or Seagate NAS drives last quite a bit longer (also make less noise).
I'd steer away from Seagate after Backblaze's blog post on them, Backblaze is a cloud storage provider running thousands of drives and they've found Seagate drives to fail the most often. Some detail here;
I've had the same lack of success with Seagate Barracuda. However, there are no Seagate NAS in that study, so it could be a whole different story. All manufacturers have problem models from time to time.
My point was simply that they are designed to last in a NAS environment, run at lower power/temperature and have some other stabilization features, making them a much better choice than a desktop model that runs at 7200.
I am with the camp of build your own PC. I opted to go the UnRaid route. It is free software for the first couple of drives. The motherboard is about 6 years old and I think I spent $250 on it new. This old board can run four concurrent streams at once in my home without a hiccup using the UnRaid environment, whereas when it was on Windows, it could barely handle two.
Cheapest and best performing NAS solution is Asustor AS2 series, you get an x86 CPU so Plex runs really well but it is not capable of transcoding HD media, only SD material and native playback on Plex clients for HD video.
I picked up a cheap Dell pc unit of eBay installed plex and store all my media on external drives, works a treat. You could always swap the drive in the Dell for a larger storage drive and not use a external unit. Cost me £50 for the base unit
