Ok so I used to have Plex Server on a 2012 Mac Mini. I had a power outage and it died it along with the external hard drive. I want to replace it. For data redundancy I thought about getting a NAS. But the more I think about it out it I am thinking about getting another Mac Mini and a raid enclosure.
can anyone give me pros and cons to either option?
The main functionality provided by NAS boxes is RAID.
( All drives are in a Redundant Array of Independent Disks – RAID )
This way, when a disk fails, you replace the disk and let it rebuild the array without missing anything.
RAID 5 - allows 1 drive to fail without data loss
RAID 6 - allows 2 drives to fail without data loss
If you’re going to create a big array, consider RAID 6 (two drives worth of storage will contain the distributed parity blocks)
Another benefit of the NAS - It’s a network appliance and usable by all.
It doesn’t need any other computers to be running (unless PMS is on a different host )
The “con” – initial cost of purchasing drives to get it started.
If getting a NAS, get something with more bays than you think you need.
Adding a drive is far cheaper than replacing the entire chassis later.
So would I just get a NAS to run Plex or get another PC or Mac to run Plex and store the files on the NAS?
How much media do you think you’ll have (just “wild guess” it) ?
Is this something you’ll be growing at a fairing quick rate or more slowly ?
How many simultaneous playbacks / transcodes might you see happening ?
These are the type of questions to consider.
Depending on what your finances permit and the need, there are a few with very strong (stronger than Intel i7) if you think you’ll need it.
Well the external drive that died was a 6 TB that half or more filled. I anticipate growth but nothing crazy. It would mainly be used by me at home. The only thing is I would like to figure out how to rip 4k blu rays and run them in plex.
Here’s an important question which I had to answer for myself.
When you rip the BluRay discs, do you want to keep it in perfect “off-the-disc” quality or is “lower quality” more appropriate ?
I am one of those who rips my BluRay discs and keeps the entire video stream in pure, as-is, quality. For me, when I stream a movie, I would never know it’s not coming from the disc player except that Plex starts a lot faster 
Yes. Since disk space is relatively cheap then I would want it best quality. So what does that say to you ?
It says you’ll want to be able to store the whole image 
That being the case, here’s one possibility. A “starting point” so to speak.
https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tvs-h874
If you want a higher power CPU (so you can run more apps on the NAS)
They also have the TVS-h874X-i9-64G
Now you can add up to 8x 3.5 HDD.
If you add 8x 20TB HDDs ( I use EXOS drives because they are Enterprise rated drives. I want the toughest drive I can get to minimize failures )
8 x 20 = 160TB (raw) formats down to about 137TB usable with RAID 5 and about 110 TB usable with RAID 6 (recommended)
QNAP’s RAID does require the drives to be the same size (or larger) than what you start with. (increasing all drives will let you increase the array size after the last drive is upgrade to the bigger size)
My main NAS, which I built, is 12x12TB HGST drives (also enterprise).
My QNAP TVS-1282 has 8x EXOS-20TB. This is my mirror backup but can also be my Plex server when I’m performing maintenance on the main NAS.
I personally prefer QTS over QuTS. I don’t like QNAP’s ZFS implementation. They obfuscated the shared folder names. I think that was unnecessary.
QTS does not obfuscate shared folder names. It’s much easier.
From a UI perspective, QTS is a fair amount like the older Windows 7 interface
You can take a look here and see what you think.
https://www.qnap.com/en-us/live-demo
This is my TVS-1282 (the model which precedes the h series.
