I purchased an Asustor AS6104T several years ago, primarily for the purpose of building a media library using Plex. I’m now at a point where I need to upgrade to newer, more powerful hardware with capacity for additional media storage. I’m not totally unhappy with Asustor, but their Tech Support is somewhat less than top-tier. I’ve only had a handful of minor issues with the Asustor system in the past 3 years but I’m seriously looking at other hardware manufacturers for my next system. Not sure if there’s a better hardware option for this type of application and/or a company that offers better support for their products. I’d appreciate any input/experiences/recommendations as to the best NAS compatible with Plex to function exclusively as a media server for my music and video libraries. I’ve looked at the Plex NAS Compatibility spreadsheet but nothing jumps out as a hands-down winner. I’m hoping a recommendation from a real-world user may help make this decision easier.
Thanks,
Mark Erickson
It really comes down to what you are most comfortable with using. I have 2 boxes running TrueNAS as the main NAS OS and have PMS running in a jail inside that. I have also built servers with W10 and I’m about to attempt one with an RPi4. So, set a budget, pick your hardware and performance based on that and your comfort level w/ the OS it uses.
This support article may provide some very useful specifics and technical details about server options: Plex Media Server Requirements | Plex Support
There is also an article specifically for NAS support: NAS Compatibility List | Plex Support
I think the general consensus is that Synology and QNAP are good consumer NAS devices to go with depending on your needs and preferences and are well supported by Plex. I think Synology devices are easier to manage\support but the QNAP devices tend to have more capable hardware options.
If you want to go with more custom built options you can get more out of it if you’re okay with putting in more personal investment (like TrueNAS with custom hardware or Intel NUCs - which I’m not all that familiar with… I run Synology myself).
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer so mostly it’ll be finding where your preferences fit the available options (and costs).
My only personal recommendation is to consider the 4+ bays over 2 bay NAS devices… as storage grows the cost effectiveness of the NAS is way better with more bays - I really wish I had spent the extra money on a 4+ bay device now that I need to increase my storage needs as it would make expanding that storage a lot easier and cheaper (particularly with Synology’s SHR RAID option).
You can continue to use the nas for storage and put pms on a nuc or other separate pc.
This separates your media storage from pms so you can update either as needed, you can even add additional nas’s if you out grow your existing.
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