It’s been a while since I’m in the market for a Synology NAS, and a lot has changed. So I’m here for some suggestions and recommendations. I now have a DS3615xs with Xeon E5, 12x6tb (wd reds)in raid 5, its serving me well. But I’m about to move and it’s really big and heavy to transport, plus maybe it’s the right time to upgrade.
So what i need is 1080p transcoding, which models supports Plex hardware transcoding? When i bought the 3615xs, HW transcoding wasn’t a thing for Plex, and transcoding is required for subtitles, so i had to buy an overkill 3615xs and upgrade with an Xeon E5 (btw, it’s for sale if anyone is interested) but i heard HW transcoding is really effective and efficient.
Also, i would like it to be somewhat future proof, so 4K HEVC transcoding would be great. I don’t expect more than 1 transcoding stream at a time.
I’ll probably need at least 50-60TB storage minimum, with 30-40TB of Plex media files, 10-20 personal files for the family and about 5-10TB for time machine backups. So maybe 4+5 bays?
I did some research and it seems that x18+ series has been out for around a year, but there is no hint for the x19+ series, is it a good time to buy them? Or should i wait?
From a HW transcoding standpoint, Synology doesn’t have anything with hardware transcoding above a 4 bay (DS918+)
They have stepped back to the Atom C2538 which is only an Atom CPU (no GPU / ASIC)
The 2019 models are announced and viewable. IMO, if you want HW transcoding, the specs I’ve seen do not look good. It’s much like a repeat of 2015 and the pre-ApolloLake CPU days.
As example. (he has a good relationship with Synology and had just attended the UK show)
As many of us have, If you need the storage and the CPU which can transcode, give QNAP consideration. It’s a bit more “techie” feel and less polished in some ways but it has the power where it counts and you can select different CPUs
Thanks for the info, looks like another Synology may not be the way to go, at least for now? I really don’t want to switch to QNAP, so i don’t have to familiarize with the system again, if i were to switch system, i would rather just use a Mac server, or maybe windows server.
Or another way is to get a PLEX share/VPS instead of a local NAS, after all the NAS will mostly be serving PLEX, other features like file/photo sync can be replaced by iCloud/google photos.
Speaking of 918+, how many 4k/1080p transcodes are we talking about? Is it capable for real-time 4K transcoding? I’m sure it will handle at least 1 1080p transcoding just fine.
Thanks again
Apologies for missing the second part of your question (hour was late here)
The ApolloLake CPU (Intel J3455) in the DS918+ can easily handle three 2160->1080 transcodes.
The issue you will encounter first is audio transcoding or subtitles.
It is a lower end CPU with a near “KabyLake” video capability. As such, 3 audio conversions (HD -> stereo) will be about the liimit.
DS918+ can handle 3 4K—>1080p streams at the same time? Wow. I wasn’t expecting it. As for subtitles, most of what I use is SRT so transcoding isn’t required, plus I can live without subtitles.
