Synology NAS - before I buy

[J0NS]

Hi all,

I’m considering purchasing a NAS to run my Plex media server, but before I purchase a NAS I have a couple of queries:

1. The sole purpose of the NAS will be for media. That is, hosting PMS as well as running a VPN and using the download manager. I was looking at purchasing either a Synology DS220+ or DS420+. I’ve read the ‘read me first’ guides and from what I gather one of these units would be fine as long as I’m not looking to do too much transcoding. The Plex client will be running on a nVidia shield TV Pro, which can decode H.265. With my current setup (PMS running on a PC), the Plex client on my Shield TV plays H265 directly (no transcoding). Will these H265 also playback directly on the Shield TV when PMS and the video files are hosted on the NAS? I expect they will but wanted to check first.

2. My Sony AV receiver requires that any AAC audio be transcoded to AC-3. Also, we also almost always use subtitles. Will the DS220+ and DS420+ be able to handle the transcoding of the audio and displaying of the subtitles?

3. My understanding is that once Plex is installed on the NAS, a ‘Plex’ folder is created on the installed disk where library metadata is stored. I have a spare SATA SSD. As such, I was wondering whether it’s possible to have Plex storing and reading metadata from the fast SSD while the actual video files (movies, TV Shows) are stored on a second drive within the NAS, a 3.5" HDD?

Thanks.

P.s. I’m aware that the Shield TV Pro can run PMS but I’d prefer having the media and PMS both on the NAS.

[J0NS]

Thanks for that info.

1. I figured the Shield TV would playback everything directly, but the ‘read me first’ threads I saw mentioned that using subtitles sometimes means the video needs to be transcoded in order to burn in the subtitles. Hopefully the Shield TV’s versatility means that won’t be the case.

2. Good to hear. Just not sure whether it will force video transcoding, as above.

3. Thanks for this info and the DSM 7 packaging link. So from what I gather, if when first setting up my NAS I ensure that I only have a 2.5" SATA SSD installed when I install PMS, that should mean the PMS data should end up on the SSD. And from there I should be able to install my 3.5" HDD drive, copy video media onto it, and then point PMS to the 3.5" HDD for the media. Hopefully that’s the case anyway.