hi guys Iove how my set up is working now and am looking at expanding.
1. NAS would not really work because It would be soo slow.. to transfer files from my mac there...is there a product out there that I can connect say via thunderbolt or firewire for the purpose of say when I download torrents or whatever I can point it to this external drive. AND
2. Keeping in mind 1. , I would need it to be able to run plex so and be able to connect via wifi to however many ATVs I am running.
3. So what kind of device can I run plexconnect on? I currently run PMS on my mac and plexconnect on my mac, what happens when I use an external drive? AND if the purpose is to say have the tv system running without needing my mac to be on...then what?
Your question seems a little confused. PMS will see drives whether they are internal, external or network drives. You can just use your mac to run it all and add more drives, it might be the simplest for you.
PMS can easily be set up to read media residing on external hard drives. And I think a NAS is your only solution if you want to have Plexconnect running without your computer being on.
If you want your Mac to be off, then you will have to run another device instead for PMS and PlexConnect. Depending on the type if media you may get say with a NAS but if you require transcoding then you’ll need to decently powered computer anyway.
I personally use a esata 2302 rocketraid in a raid 10 on my mac 8tb (4tb usable). If you have the money get a thunderbolt pegasus r6 @ $2000 that you can daisy chain and gets faster and faster per pegasus r6. Personally I will be waiting for these to drop in price and for some competition to get into the thunderbolt marketplace. Thunderbolt raid arrays are just comming out but like everything they come with a hefty price tag at first. There is other thunderbolt raid devices this is just the one I prefer. Have you looked at synology? Plexconnect can run it I hear. Really it all depends on your budget, needs, storage space, content, etc.
thanks for the response... is it correct to say then that I would need PMS running on a computer regardless of what situation it is?
And in what situations would it be transcoding or not? when it is not appletv native format?
Essentially you will need to transcode or direct stream (remux the container on the fly) for AVI, WMV and MKV.
You can read more about NAS devices and direct streaming and transcoding here.
You can see what NAS devices support direct streaming and transcoding here.
The other option is to remux your media to ATV native format by using something like iFlicks or Subler (it takes about 4-5 minutes a movie and will tag them with metadata as well).
You can do but i would then definitely suggest making sure your files are native. NAS devices are low powered PC's and even the ones that can transcode will probably fall over with multiple streams if you need to transcode.
You could always build your own NAS but then it might defeat the purpose of saving turning your PC on.
My mac is usually on all the time, BUT I would like the option to run the TV system independently.
I just need to look into how a NAS works or maybe look into using a Mac mini as a media server and that can be left on all the time gotta see how that would work.
But that would involve lots of automation for it to run independently.
