WD NAS damaged because of PLEX ? Again!

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Hey there,

I posted a message some time ago saying my WD WX2 Ultra got a damaged disc and I thought it was related to the work asked by Plex at night that would start everyday at the same time of night and finished at the same time.
So I did buy a new one (another 200 euro thank you) replaced the old one and all was working fine except the load of work with full fan would start again at night every night, and its related to PLEX because when I change the schedule tasks time the fan would start accordingly, even if I did not change anything in the database for days and even ALL check box are unchecked in the tasks settings.

This is the old thread :

So 6 month later of full fan overnight every night, my disk is broken again.

This time I don’t think I am settings my PLEX back in my EX2 Ultra. I have a PR4100, maybe that is more powerful but I doubt it. So I don’t know if there is a solution with Plex or if I should find another solution. Am I really the only one with this problem ? is there smtp wrong in my database ?

I’m lost here and tired of losing money as well :slight_smile:

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The PR4100 has 1.6GHz quad core with 4GB of RAM
The WX2 Ultra as a 1.3GHz dual core with 1GB of RAM

So the PR4100 is better in your case.

Ideally I would run Plex on a computer with SSD’s then use the NAS’s as network storage.

3

Thank you Nathan for your quick usefull answer,

I run it on WD because I use a Fire TV to watch it on my TV in the living room. But I was thinking of upgrading, would Nvidia be better ?

Still I am surprised I can find Plex in the list of available choice on a EX2 if they are not suited to run it.

I will then transfer 3TB from the EX2 to the PR4100. Do you know the best way to do that ?

4

I haven’t used a Nvidia Shield. Personally I my primary streaming device is a Chromecast with Google TV, and I love it.

I wouldn’t run plex on either of these devices, the PR4100 would of been alright 5 years ago, today not so much.

You really need a computer or a much more powerful NAS if you want to stick with that form factor.

As far as transfer 3TB from the EX2 to the PR4100 a network file copy should work.

5

Thank you Nathan for your answer,

Could you provide me some advice on which NAS I should be to be sure I have smth strong enough for the next 5 years ?

Synology DS920+ ?
QNAP TS453D ?
TerraMaster F5 422 ?

6

The NAS compatibility list is a good starting point.

If your WD NAS is still good you could also go with a micro PC to split the job (storage remains on your WD NAS, micro PC covers the job of PMS). I think nathanstorms has mentioned this above in his post too.
There’s e.g. Intel’s NUC or similar products for this job.

1 Like
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Hello. I have been running a WD PR2100 with two 4TB WD Red NAS hard drives, and a WD 12TB external USB drive (holds all my media) for a little over 2 years with no problems. Perhaps your problem could be related to the type of hard drives you use? I run Plex on it and stream using Firestick, Nvidia Shield Pro. For my 4K UHD content, I have mapped my 12TB external hard drive as a network share on the Nvidia Shield so that the Nvidia PMS does the work for 4K. All of it is connected wirelessly via EERO Pro 6 Mesh router. This particular setup works extremely well. What kind of internal hard drives do you use in your NAS?

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Thank you tom and thundercloud for your suggestions.

I am using a WD Red that I changed 6 months ago.

Do you think I could keep using my current EX2 with the Shield ? Probably the Pr4100 would be better right ?

I don’t want to use a mini computer just for that, also how to I do every time I need to manage smth on the computer ? do I need to plug a screen to see what I am doing ? I am just a video amateur and no tech Savy so I need easy plug and play systems…

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I started my 1st Plex Media Server on a Synology NAS (DS 216play because they heavily advertised its media playback capabilities and I wasn’t particularly aware of their limitations). Since my use cases outgrew that setup, I kept the NAS as a mere file server and added a mini PC (in my case that’s a Lenovo Thinkcentre M910q… from today’s perspective a NUC will probably do as well). I’ve installed the server version of Ubuntu on the machine; for the initial setup I had to wire the unit to my TV (lacking a simple PC monitor). All subsequent management can be done remotely, e.g.

  • using Cyberduck for file transfer to the machine
  • using Cockpit for basic monitoring and patching
  • using a SSH terminal for further console level administration (e.g. to mount the NAS drives; in theory I could do the same through Cockpit)

I suppose in theory I could also run some kind of X-Server on the machine and create a remote desktop session this way… never felt the need for that.

Personally, I consider this an “easy plug and play” setup. I’m willing to accept that’s not everybody’s turf. If you’re e.g. not familiar with Linux you should go with Windows instead. You can install Microsoft’s Remote Desktop and configure the server to allow access remotely. Though IIRC some microsoft machines might have trouble to give you full access to the GPU if there’s no monitor connected – you can fix this with a “dongle” that simulates a monitor (without any of the actual features).

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Thank you everyone for your useful answers.

I think I will go with the Nvidia solution, migrating all my movies to the PR4100. So all family, kids included, can enjoy PLEX and all other streaming app we usually use with our Fire TV. I will install the Plex server on the Shield and link it to the PR4100. In case it’s not going well, I will go with a Streaming server or mini PC.

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