Ts-877 - Plex server move another devices- Transcoding Hardware acceleration

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Hello,

Just acquire a TS-877 today and I have some questions.

Actually I run Plex Server on a Nuc PC (i5 around 4500 PassMark) with W10.
My goal is to move PLex server on my new TS-877 because my Nuc Pc is not able to transcode 4K.

I have two scenarios possible:

  • Install Plex directly via Appcenter
  • Install VM with W10 and Plex (on the TS-877)

My goal is to buy Nvidia graphics cards (1060 or similar graphics cards) into the Qnap to use the Transcoding Hardware acceleration. As I understand this will help me to transcode quickly my 4K movies when necessary.

So Iā€™m using my streams with Plex clients on Samsung TV, IOS, Android and Chromecast.

What is the more efficient following your experience? Plex server on Appcenter or a VM based on W10 with Plex server ?
Does the Transcoding Hardware acceleration will work directly with Plex installed via Appcenter or itā€™s doesnā€™t work?

Many thanks

2

Virtualization Station does not provide device passthrough. It only allows CPU passthrough.

The TS-877 is AMD based. Hardware transcoding requires either a Windows environment where Windows owns the hardware (which it doesnā€™t in a VM) or an Intel CPU with proper GPU onboard.

3

Thanks you

4

@ChuckPA said:
Virtualization Station does not provide device passthrough. It only allows CPU passthrough.

The TS-877 is AMD based. Hardware transcoding requires either a Windows environment where Windows owns the hardware (which it doesnā€™t in a VM) or an Intel CPU with proper GPU onboard.

Actually that is incorrect Chuckā€¦ for certain models, VS DOES support GPU passthrough (TS-x77 being one of them).

5

@Mrpopo99 said:
Hello,

Just acquire a TS-877 today and I have some questions.

Actually I run Plex Server on a Nuc PC (i5 around 4500 PassMark) with W10.
My goal is to move PLex server on my new TS-877 because my Nuc Pc is not able to transcode 4K.

I have two scenarios possible:

  • Install Plex directly via Appcenter
  • Install VM with W10 and Plex (on the TS-877)

My goal is to buy Nvidia graphics cards (1060 or similar graphics cards) into the Qnap to use the Transcoding Hardware acceleration. As I understand this will help me to transcode quickly my 4K movies when necessary.

So Iā€™m using my streams with Plex clients on Samsung TV, IOS, Android and Chromecast.

What is the more efficient following your experience? Plex server on Appcenter or a VM based on W10 with Plex server ?
Does the Transcoding Hardware acceleration will work directly with Plex installed via Appcenter or itā€™s doesnā€™t work?

Many thanks

Enjoy your TS-877, I love mine.

As for Plex, for simplicity sake I would first start with a native Plex QPKG installation and see how the SW transcoding works for you. The Ryzen 1600 have a passmark over 12,000 so there are plenty of CPU cycles to throw at transcoding.

If you install an Nvidia GPU (I have the EVGA 1060 6G Single Fan model), it CAN be used for HW transcoding in ā€˜native QTSā€™, but currently that DOESNā€™T work for Plex. Make sure you check QNAPā€™s compatibility list regarding dimensions/power supply needs/etc. for GPUā€™s.

Qnap only has exposed the HW transcoding function to their own apps (VideoStation, HD Station, LinuxStation, ContainerStation, etc.) at this point and only for Nvidia based cards.

So the other option is to have configure the GPU (Nvidia or AMD) to be used by Virtualization Station. Once you have done that, you can assign the GPU to 1 VM at a time (say your Win10 VM).

You will need to have a USB Keyboard/Mouse and Monitor hooked up to your QNAP and then you can log in ā€œlocallyā€ to the VM to install the Nvidia device drivers (you have to have already attached the GPU to the VM prior to doing this).

At that point, you have a Win10 VM with Nvidia drivers, etc. You should (and I havenā€™t personally verified this myself yet) be able to then leverage HW Transcoding capability for Plex there (subject to Nvidiaā€™s 2 transcode limit for consumer cards). You would have to though do an SMB mapping/etc. to your QNAP Shared Folders where you have stored your media for Plex to be able to ingest it/etc.

You will also want to make sure you have all the VirtIO drivers and such installed in your VM to maximize performance.

Again this would be a PLAN B option and something I personally havenā€™t tried yet as for my use case native Plex works just fine without GPU based transcoding.

Hope that helps.

6

@MwC_Trexx said:

@ChuckPA said:
Virtualization Station does not provide device passthrough. It only allows CPU passthrough.

The TS-877 is AMD based. Hardware transcoding requires either a Windows environment where Windows owns the hardware (which it doesnā€™t in a VM) or an Intel CPU with proper GPU onboard.

Actually that is incorrect Chuckā€¦ for certain models, VS DOES support GPU passthrough (TS-x77 being one of them).

Oh? I donā€™t have external GPU passthrough on my 1282 or do I?

7

@MwC_Trexx @Mrpopo99

I just got off the phone with QNAP.

I stand corrected

QTS will detect the presence of a supported external GPU and present that as an option in Settings in Virtualization Station.
This is true of the Rizen and Intel machines which allow a card slot. As always, be careful of the GPU and/or upgrade the power supply before using it to be safe.

1 Like
8

Thanks you for the information.

At the moment I just installed Plex QPKG. I will test to see how the transcoding is working probably by end of this week-end.
I moved all my Metadata/databaseā€¦ from my old W10 PMS directory to my PMS Qnap.

Of course I stopped all the PMS services on the both systems and I have no yet lunch my new PMS. Iā€™m moving my entire library on my new system but it takes a long time (around 20 To). So needs against a lot of extra hours.

Do you know if the Qtier is a nice feature and working fine with Plex? I have the idea to use 2 *SSD 500 Go?
Does I need to create a Raid1 for the Qtier or just one disk is enough? Whatā€™s happen if my SSD crash?
I saw some old posts and read some explanations dated from may 2017.

When my TV-Serie will be move Iā€™ll aggregate my 4 * Ports 1 Gb to have a robust bandwitch and then Iā€™ll move my movies (around 10 To).

I love the TS-877 too :slight_smile:

9

@Mrpopo99

I created CACHEDEV1 (the QTS volume) on SSD. This is VERY fast.

CACHEDEV2 is for media. These are my hard disks.

I do not use Qtier because I do not have a high demand environment like a public web page to move large amounts of data around.

PMS reading media from the HD is very fast . The PMS database on SSD is ideal.

Important caution: Do NOT use the MultiMedia share

  1. Create separate shares for Movies
  2. Create separate shares for Series
  3. Create separate shares for Music
10

So I have to create a new volume based on SSD if I understand correctly?
A Iā€™m newbie with QNAP, I can reinstall PMS on my SSD without any problem? How I can force this PMS installation on the SSD?

or If I have to reinstall the QTS on SSD and then reconfigure my entire QNAP? Does 240 Go SSD is enough good to have QTS installed?

Maybe stupid questions but I would like avoid a wrong setup :frowning:
Ty

11

Go to the QNAP compatibility guide: Compatibility List - QNAP

Yes, you must create a new QTS installation on the SSD. It will become the new ā€œCACHEDEV1_DATAā€. This is normal and easy to do.

You can try to save your existing configuration and import again after setting up QTS. When I attempted it, I was using 4.3.3. It did not permit me to migrate the configuration due to hardware change.

To create the new SSD QTS volume,

  1. Shutdown the NAS
  2. Install the SSD in the M.2 slot(s)
  3. Unlock the HDs and pull out just enough to disengage.
  4. Startup the NAS. It will beep just as if new
  5. Start Qfinder and install QTS
  6. Have it create the volume on SSD
  7. Reboot and configure QTS
  8. Shutdown NAS
  9. Insert HDs
  10. If you have existing shared folders on the HD, create the share but ā€œManually Specify Pathā€. they will be found as /share/CACHEDEV2_DATA/folder_name

It is OK to play with installing QTS on SSD a few times until it is how you like it before you insert the HDs. I did the same.

I created a static 1TB volume. When I add SSD #2, I will have a mirror RAID of 1TB to make it faster than now but do not think I will need it. 540 MB/sec is quick. :slight_smile:

If you have any questions, QNAP telephone support is GREAT! They will help you get through it and answer Every question you have

12

Ok ChuckPA.
I will do this setup . M.2 disks should arrive tomorrow (CEST Time).
Many thanks

13

You can also ask @MwC_Trexx for help. There are a few of us here with bigger setups. There are a few MUCH bigger than mine.

14

@Mrpopo99 said:
Thanks you for the information.

At the moment I just installed Plex QPKG. I will test to see how the transcoding is working probably by end of this week-end.
I moved all my Metadata/databaseā€¦ from my old W10 PMS directory to my PMS Qnap.

Of course I stopped all the PMS services on the both systems and I have no yet lunch my new PMS. Iā€™m moving my entire library on my new system but it takes a long time (around 20 To). So needs against a lot of extra hours.

Do you know if the Qtier is a nice feature and working fine with Plex? I have the idea to use 2 *SSD 500 Go?
Does I need to create a Raid1 for the Qtier or just one disk is enough? Whatā€™s happen if my SSD crash?
I saw some old posts and read some explanations dated from may 2017.

When my TV-Serie will be move Iā€™ll aggregate my 4 * Ports 1 Gb to have a robust bandwitch and then Iā€™ll move my movies (around 10 To).

I love the TS-877 too :slight_smile:

I have (2) Crucial MX 300ā€™s raid-1 in QTier. You need RAID-1 for QTier as it is moving blocks of frequent accessed data between SSD & HDD. So if an SSD were to fail, the data is gone if you donā€™t have any mirror.

In a Raid-1 QTier, if one of the SSDā€™s were to fail, you would be in a degraded RAID situation where you wouldnā€™t lose data, but would be at risk to if the other SSD fails before you replace the 1st failed one.

15

@Mrpopo99 said:
So I have to create a new volume based on SSD if I understand correctly?
A Iā€™m newbie with QNAP, I can reinstall PMS on my SSD without any problem? How I can force this PMS installation on the SSD?

or If I have to reinstall the QTS on SSD and then reconfigure my entire QNAP? Does 240 Go SSD is enough good to have QTS installed?

Maybe stupid questions but I would like avoid a wrong setup :frowning:
Ty

This is a different configuration than QTier. One word of caution for this configuration is that CACHEDEV1 is your ā€œmainā€ volume and not all QPackages/functions can be mapped over to CACHEDEV2 your HDDā€™s. So if your run out of space on CACHEDEV1, you can become dead in the water.

With QTier, your HDDā€™s are CACHEDEV1 and the SSDā€™s arenā€™t directly accessible since it is dealing at a data block level vs. file level.

QTier moves data up/down based on usage patterns as well as shared folders that you manually ā€œsteerā€ towards QTier SSD.

16

Is it fair to say that Qtier puts more read/Write demand on the SSD?

17

I wouldnā€™t say it puts MORE read/write demand on SSD vs. using it as a standard volume (say CACHEDEV1) that is actively used.

I would say it automates the placement of data blocks to MAXIMIZE the performance benefit that you get out of SSD. So things that donā€™t benefit much from SSD (large, long sequential reads/writes) stay on HDD vs. Small/Quick/Random I/O (where SSDā€™s give most benefit).

I would look at recommend looking at the video:

and the corresponding slides:

18

@Mrpopo99

Good material for you to ponder.

Mwc_Trexx each have valid ways of accomplishing the same goal. This is the benefit and also the pain of using something which is Linux basedā€¦ :smiley: There is always more than one way to do something :slight_smile:

19

Following your comments I have my initial setup in my mind.

I will test and come back in few days with some results.

Thanks you MwC_Trexx & ChuckPA for your advices.

20

Any update on this? Would be interested as I want a future-proof NAS will add in a GTX too - but curious whether it was ok as is for 4K direct play, or transcode one element ( sound or video) I never at the same time, my NUC seems fine for this currently, not had any issues with it direct playing, direct streaming or even transcoding as long as not audio and video at same time, if I can move everything onto one thing would be idealā€¦ inputs and recommendations welcome :slight_smile: