For a long time, I had PMS installed on my Windows desktop accessing content over a Windows File Share mapped drive pointed at my Drobo FS. It was an old unit; it originally was bought for the office I worked at at the time, but they migrated to corporate file shares and the Drobo collected dust until someone wanted to clear out the server closest. We ended up selling off a bunch of outdated desktops pretty cheap (I think I got 3 of them) and I scored the Drobo for free. Once at home, I added 2x4TB drives and used that for many years.
It has since died (seems to boot ok, but never connects to the network, and the FS doesn’t support connecting over USB / eSATA) and I’m in the market for a replacement. Drobos use their proprietary BeyondRAID protocol, which is already giving me a headache trying to restore the data. Thus, I would prefer a unit that I can move the disks into a computer and access the data with little issue, which excludes Drobos. Ie, stick with RAID0/1/0+1/5/6 levels and not a proprietary RAID solution. Originally I’ll want to populate it with 4TB drives, but being able to handle 8TB drives would be a major help for me.
I would also prefer to be able to run PMS directly on the NAS (I know this limits options and increases the price). 4+ bays is my bottom line. 5 or 6 would be better. What models would you folks suggest? I don’t watch streams in 4k display, but my media files tend to be 1080p or 4k, with another chunk being 720p or below (some 480p and some 360p). In any case, the files I download from the store are the highest resolution available for that video. (I.e., if it has 4k, 1080p, 720p, 480p, and 360p available, I always choose the 4k version.) So some amount of transcoding will be needed to stream the 4k files at a lower resolution for my tablet than the original file content. But it’s downscaling, not upscaling, so it should require less of a strain on the CPU.
Hi morgan,
if you want to transcode 4K, you need to ask the following question: Is a NAS enough? Because a NAS Server with Plex is more or less a Disk Array with Streaming capabilities, while a dedicated server would be a more powerful Plex Server with some disks attached to store all the media. A NAS gives you a working system (Plug&Play) and should work out of the box. You can use it for everything, from a Computer Backup and storing documents to a basic Plex Server. But if you’re good at server stuff and need the ability for full customization (RAID Levels, a ton of disks, upgrades etc.) and some steam under the hood, go with a Linux server.
As for NAS brands: Synology seems to be widespread and widely supported.
I run my Plex server inside a docker container in Unraid. It works really well and you could use an old PC to run as your Unraid box. All you data is protected by parity rather than raid (which means you can literally take a disk out of it and connect it to your other desktop PC if you really need to)
It also sounds like you might be able to get an old PC from your work based on what you said about the Drobo, so you might even be able to get an old computer that’s been destined for the scrap heap for free maybe? That’s what I started with as well and I’ve gradually been upgrading it over time to a point now where my plex server runs off of an i7 3770 with 20gb ram and a NVIDIA Quadro K2000 for transcoding. works great and I can have around 5-7 simultaneous transcodes going on at once (from 1080p MKV files to 1080p high quality, more if i transcode to lower res) I’m guessing you watch most of your stuff at 1080P, and obviously any content that you’ve already got at that res you can direct play no problem, although I don’t really have much experience with 4K transcodes (but definitely want to move that way in the future)
Also doing it this way means you can actually install other apps from the docker repository natively from within Unraid (I also run containers for home assistant, an OpenVPN server and the controller for my WiFi Access point from the same box)
