Right now my home desktop is dedicated to PMS, but it's the only PC that I have, but I'm running out of disk space. Most of my bays are filled up with various brands of HDD of different sizes.
I've been investigating and toying with the idea of building a brand new NAS and installing Plex on the NAS. Originally, I thought about one of the pre-made ones, by names such as QNAP/Synology/etc but found that for those that install PMS on the NAS, playback is an issue because the CPUs are underpowered for 1080p/multiple user streams. So then I tinkered with a DIY NAS, so it would be fast enough....
But somewhere on Google during my research, I read on a forum (maybe this one) that the best solution is to separate PMS on a it's own machine (AKA my PC) and having a NAS just dedicated to storage. This way, you separate the CPU-intensive transcoding on the PC w/ PMS and let the NAS do what it does best.
Since this is the cheapest solution for me (I already have the PC), I guess... my next question is assuming you can do this, what is the best way to attach the media from the NAS to the PC? Just a Windows Mapped Share?
This would be a perferctly fine solution. You could have the drive mapped to a drive letter or you could also map it to a folder. I'm not really sure how well pms deals with unc paths (\\servername\sharename), but that would also be a possiblity.
Depending on the pc you have and how you use it, you could always just make it a dedicated file server as well (this assumes you have other computers to use for daily use) and drop a few more hard drives (or larger ones) in it.
Both the above will work fine as the NAS in the first option won't have to do the transcoding, your pc will, which is where it runs into issues. If you just using it for file storage (what it's meant to do) you'll be just fine.
This would be a perferctly fine solution. You could have the drive mapped to a drive letter or you could also map it to a folder. I'm not really sure how well pms deals with unc paths (\\servername\sharename), but that would also be a possiblity.
Depending on the pc you have and how you use it, you could always just make it a dedicated file server as well (this assumes you have other computers to use for daily use) and drop a few more hard drives (or larger ones) in it.
Both the above will work fine as the NAS in the first option won't have to do the transcoding, your pc will, which is where it runs into issues. If you just using it for file storage (what it's meant to do) you'll be just fine.
Do you have a NAS solution like I described? Was wondering how you do it.
I don't have a separate nas at home, I have a pc running (always on) ubuntu server that has the drives internal. Having a nas just shows up as a network share, it's not difficult and for the most part they have made them quite simple.
Like I said above though, depending on the nas you buy you might only get 2 extra drive bays. If you just need more media space, it might be more cost effective to replace some of your internal storage with larger drives (that you'll have to buy anyway because many of the NAS options out there are driveless).
I use a QNAP box with 4 Raid-5 3TB drives so I end up with about 9TB of storage. I call this HS03 or Home Server #3 (as I have two other Home Servers ... duh!)
I then have PLEX Server running on a Windows 7 box which is an AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor which simply has several Libraries of which the main two are simply "Movies" and "TV". Then for example, the Movie library would simply point to the HS03 folder as "//hs03/videos/movies"
I use a QNAP box with 4 Raid-5 3TB drives so I end up with about 9TB of storage. I call this HS03 or Home Server #3 (as I have two other Home Servers ... duh!)
I then have PLEX Server running on a Windows 7 box which is an AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor which simply has several Libraries of which the main two are simply "Movies" and "TV". Then for example, the Movie library would simply point to the HS03 folder as "//hs03/videos/movies"
Works like a charm!
TT
Hi, I was thinking about getting a similar setup. Any particular reason you went with Raid 5 instead of Raid 1? Isn't write speed slower on Raid 5?
Hi, I was thinking about getting a similar setup. Any particular reason you went with Raid 5 instead of Raid 1? Isn't write speed slower on Raid 5?
It is true that RAID 5 has a write penalty due to the simultaneous data write plus parity recalculation every time you write to the drive. However in this application as a media storage, it is negligible since Plex is reading from the NAS (not writing to it).
The problem with RAID 1 is that it's not scalable. It requires 2 disks and you can never expand it once it's established. While you do get a fault tolerant solution in the event of a drive failure, it can be costly... especially if you're wanting to expand. Say you buy two 2TB disks. Your total available space is only 2 TB and you can never grow it. You can't add to it and if you wanted more space, you'd have to buy 2 brand new drives, both at the same larger capacity.
With RAID5, you gain fault tolerance by utilizing parity for securing your data but you add the ability to expand on total space. It is more costly though, because you need a minimum number of 3 drives in this configuration but lose 1 drive when calculating your total storage.
However, many experts will say RAID 5 is not worth it at this point and to look at RAID 6, which is essentially the same but utilizes double parity (meaning you have to have 2 extra drives for parity). There are many who run RAID5, but it's just personal (and budgetary preference) on whether to step up from RAID 5 to RAID6. Personally, I run this configuration (RAID6) on my NAS, but over the ZFS file system, which labels it as RAIDZ2.
It is true that RAID 5 has a write penalty due to the simultaneous data write plus parity recalculation every time you write to the drive. However in this application as a media storage, it is negligible since Plex is reading from the NAS (not writing to it).
The problem with RAID 1 is that it's not scalable. It requires 2 disks and you can never expand it once it's established. While you do get a fault tolerant solution in the event of a drive failure, it can be costly... especially if you're wanting to expand. Say you buy two 2TB disks. Your total available space is only 2 TB and you can never grow it. You can't add to it and if you wanted more space, you'd have to buy 2 brand new drives, both at the same larger capacity.
With RAID5, you gain fault tolerance by utilizing parity for securing your data but you add the ability to expand on total space. It is more costly though, because you need a minimum number of 3 drives in this configuration but lose 1 drive when calculating your total storage.
However, many experts will say RAID 5 is not worth it at this point and to look at RAID 6, which is essentially the same but utilizes double parity (meaning you have to have 2 extra drives for parity). There are many who run RAID5, but it's just personal (and budgetary preference) on whether to step up from RAID 5 to RAID6. Personally, I run this configuration (RAID6) on my NAS, but over the ZFS file system, which labels it as RAIDZ2.
Thanks for the response. So you have your Plex server on a seperate machine and have your NAS on a Raid 6 setup for media storage? And also, which NAS do you have and how many drives?
Thanks for the response. So you have your Plex server on a seperate machine and have your NAS on a Raid 6 setup for media storage?
Correct. When I created this post, i was trying to find the best possible solution for Plex + storage. I originally had Plex running on my gaming PC but decided to separate it out due to performance issues when I was playing a game and my wife was streaming. My gaming performance would suffer and her videos would stutter. Despite having a decent gaming PC, transcoding really does eat your CPU and when combined with playing a game running your CPU also at near 100%, you can just imagine the results.
I was going to buy an Intel NUC but didn't want to spend the money since I was already building the NAS. I got a Dell from work (Core 2 Duo running Windows Server 2008.) Eventually I will upgrade this but for now, it works because it streams two 1080p streams (transcoding) with little to no stuttering issues. I have a couple years until that 3rd stream enters the picture, since my daughter is just 1 year old, so she probably won't be actively streaming anything soon.
I built my own NAS using several recommended components from FreeNAS forums. In the end, I have a NAS that outperforms anything commercially available with the ability to expand in the future. While this solution isn't good for everyone, I think it worked out for me but there were plenty of build headaches, as with all DIY servers. I'm running 8TB of space in RAIDZ2 (ZFS' version of RAID6) and have been really happy with it since last October.
So what I'm thinking of doing now is just getting a QNAP TS-431 NAS just for media storage for Plex and using my current server just for PMS. 1 question I have about the QNAP TS-431 is that even thougth its not in the list of supported NAS for Plex, it shouldn't matter as I won't be installing the PMS on the NAS but I'll just be using the NAS for media storage.Can anyone confirm if this is correct or do I need to get a NAS which is officially supported by Plex?
Any NAS will work for storing your media separate from the Plex server. The "supported" refers to an application that some NAS devices have installed that will perform PMS functions without a separate computer, but most NAS devices perform poorly as a Plex server due to hardware limitations.
I use Plex (both PMS and PHT) on an i7 machine with all my media stored on a Drobo NAS appliance. I use UNC paths to connect them with no issues at all.
Any NAS will work for storing your media separate from the Plex server. The "supported" refers to an application that some NAS devices have installed that will perform PMS functions without a separate computer, but most NAS devices perform poorly as a Plex server due to hardware limitations.
I use Plex (both PMS and PHT) on an i7 machine with all my media stored on a Drobo NAS appliance. I use UNC paths to connect them with no issues at all.
@AsphyxNYC said:
I currently run this type of setup…Works perfectly!
I simply map the Media drives to the HTPC running Plex (which also runs XBMC) and set up my categories accordingly.
I’m thinking on doing a similar arrangement.
Just wondering what kind of cable connection would perform better under this configuration.
I have read about USB2.0 being slow for the task. Nevertheless, I don’t know if a standard NAS machine would attach to my PC via network cable, USB, HDMI, or other.
Would you please illustrate me on this?
Your NAS storage device with gigabit ethernet connection would be connected to your network router via an ethernet cable and you should also have wired gigabit ethernet connection for your Plex Media Server computer. There is no USB connection involved here.
Playback of what your Plex Media Server serves would be on devices running Plex client apps eg Smart TV or TV with Roku or Apple TV etc.
SA is correct…
The connections are made via Ethernet…
On a PC it is best to put the media into shares on the NAS and map them to drives on the Server.
I have all my media in a single share and have separate folders for the different types (movies, Music, TV Shows, etc…)
I map that one share to Drive M: and point Plex to the folders for each library.
I know this is an old thread but, it started to answer my questions.
Here is what I think I understand:
If an NAS drive is used as storage only, it doesn’t matter if it is on the Plex compatibility list and doesn’t need to do any transcoding.
NAS is connected to the router and does not need a direct connection to the computer running PMS. PMS can access the media through the wireless network connection.
Here is what I have questions about (please be patient, I do not know a lot about networking):
There was mention of mapping. What is that, how do I do it and why does it work?
Someone stated that they pointed Plex to a specific folder for Movies/TV/Shows etc.
“On a PC it is best to put the media into shares on the NAS and map them to drives on the Server.
I have all my media in a single share and have separate folders for the different types (movies, Music, TV Shows, etc…)
I map that one share to Drive M: and point Plex to the folders for each library.”
Is putting media into shares the same as marking a file folder as shared through network sharing?
Again, mapping?
And the last sentence totally lost me. How do you point Plex to a folder, why/how does this work (theoretically?) ?
Please point me to an article that can explain this to someone who doesn’t understand coding but knows enough to build a computer. Or if you are in the mood to be a teacher I would greatly appreciate it.
