Hey all. I love my Synology DS418play NAS and I love PLEX, but cannot get them to work together correctly. When I get a video to connect the movie posters and meta data does not pull through.
I CAN run a PLEX server on my iMac pointing to folders on the Synology DS418play (including posters and metadata), but must continue to reconnect to the NAS server and it is a pain. I don’t think it is the most effective way to do it as well. Ideally I want to run the PLEX server directly from my Synology DS418play.
Yes I have installed PLEX onto my Synology DS418play. I have also installed the PLEX certificate in the package center on the Synology DS418play.
Anyone else run into this or have any ideas? I suspect it has to do with a setting in the Synology DS418play unit, but I am still new at this.
I solved my own issue. It had to do with user read/write permissions for PLEX within Synology. I thought I already had this set, but apparently I still needed to give it access. Once set correctly, it all works perfectly now. I hope this may help someone else.
@ChuckPA said:
Sorry for the delay (was sleeping).
Yes, you give PMS permission to read your media shares.
Since Synology is infamous for forgetting permissions, if at any point PMS loses your media, check the permissions.
Thanks @ChuckPA. The Plex server on the NAS can “see” the folders on the NAS, but it struggles to load. If I create a Plex computer on my iMac and use the same folders it loads quickly. Any ideas?
You’re correct. Your iMac does the heavy lifting / processing. The Syno will do what it does best… shovel as much data at it as it can handle (which it does VERY well. 400+ MB/sec well in fact)
@ChuckPA said:
You’re correct. Your iMac does the heavy lifting / processing. The Syno will do what it does best… shovel as much data at it as it can handle (which it does VERY well. 400+ MB/sec well in fact)
@chuckpa just curious, I have the same syno, is there a reason I cannot run plaex on my syno unit? was there a change is software or hardware? I apologize for my questions and ignorance, I am super new.
As I have stated many times, the DS418play uses the Realtek RTD1296 CPU. This CPU is an ARMv8 variant without ARMv7 backward compatibility mode. PMS has never been ported to this type CPU before. As such, completely new tooling must be completed from scratch and that takes a lot of time and effort. First the compilers must be validated. Next the software must be ported. Lastly, the platform as hole must be qualified and evaluated. If it doesn’t meet the performance requirement, it won’t be supported.
I do not know Engineering’s current status regarding possible support. It has been discussed but I have not been assigned any tasks regarding the DS418play.
Oh gosh please try and support the Realtek RTD1296 as that is the CPU Synology has decided to use for a lot of the new 2017 NAS models. I have a 218play and I don’t have plex either because of this. I’m sure it can pass performance requirements, the 218play can play 4k video on that CPU and it has 1GB ram. Are you saying there is a chance it won’t pass performance metrics? Because I’m trying to understand why that would happen with a new CPU that just came out.
@kianrafiee said:
Oh gosh please try and support the Realtek RTD1296 as that is the CPU Synology has decided to use for a lot of the new 2017 NAS models. I have a 218play and I don’t have plex either because of this. I’m sure it can pass performance requirements, the 218play can play 4k video on that CPU and it has 1GB ram. Are you saying there is a chance it won’t pass performance metrics? Because I’m trying to understand why that would happen with a new CPU that just came out.
Had synology opted for a processor vendor which included the ARMv7 (32 bit) spec, PMS would be operating in 32 bit mode now.
The AArch32 mode is an optional part of the ARMv8 architecture. All of the current Cortex ARMv8 cores implement it, but it is possible that an ARMv8 core won't necessarily implement it.
Where present the A32 instruction set is backwards compatible with ARMv7-A, so "should just work", although there are usually a few minor CPU-specific integration changes in the kernel side (things like the implementation-defined CP15 settings which are not entirely defined by the architecture). That said, even though the ISA (A32) is a superset of ARMv7-A ARM ISA, there are some architectural (AArch32) behaviours which are slightly different or new in ARMv8, so I suspect even if you only want a 32-bit kernel you will want to use some of the new ARMv8 features to get the most out of it.
Had synology opted for a processor vendor which included the ARMv7 (32 bit) spec, PMS would be operating in 32 bit mode now.
The AArch32 mode is an optional part of the ARMv8 architecture. All of the current Cortex ARMv8 cores implement it, but it is possible that an ARMv8 core won't necessarily implement it.
Where present the A32 instruction set is backwards compatible with ARMv7-A, so "should just work", although there are usually a few minor CPU-specific integration changes in the kernel side (things like the implementation-defined CP15 settings which are not entirely defined by the architecture). That said, even though the ISA (A32) is a superset of ARMv7-A ARM ISA, there are some architectural (AArch32) behaviours which are slightly different or new in ARMv8, so I suspect even if you only want a 32-bit kernel you will want to use some of the new ARMv8 features to get the most out of it.
That is all well and good but what I’m saying is that this processor should be more than capable of handling plex given that Synology states the DS218play can transcode 4K video.
@ChuckPa said:
Have you tried playing 4K with Video Station (Benchmark) ?
Regardless what they say, It’s a RealTek RTD1296 processor which is not supported at this time.
Additionally, in the history of ARM processors, they have not handled high bitrate video well. Please look at the Plex NAS Compatibility - Google Sheets (Direct Link to the compatibility page)
Unfortunately I don’t have a 4K TV yet, one is being delivered this month.
Even so, I’m sure the RealTek can handle Direct Play of 4K Videos right? Doesn’t need a beefy processor for that. And looking at the spreadsheet you linked, there are countless NAS’ that are way weaker than this RealTek yet they have PMS.
I just would like some reassurance that the DS218play and other DSx18play’s with the RealTek cpus will be supported by Plex. I’m not trying to demand it or anything but I am sure there are a lot of people choosing the “play” line of Synology NAS’ because they assume it will be a good box to run Plex on as I assumed myself. And since I would be ok with the bare minimum of at least Direct Play support, as I bet other people would be too, I think your engineering department could at least give a shout over here letting us know support will come(eventually). Just some reassurance is all…
