So currently i have QNAP TS-451+ with 8GB of RAM with 4 HDD bays that i use only for Plex. I would like to upgrade it to 6 or 8 bay NAS (QNAP preferably) and i wonder what’s best on the market for streaming Plex. I see there are faster ports ( i don’t care about them) but there is also NASs with dual M.2 PCIe Gen3x2 NVMe SSDs which could be helpful to use as cash acceleration. Can i install QNAP’s operational system on these SSDs and run if fast from there or they are just for cash acceleration…
My general question is is there any point to switch to a newer model of QNAP that will make a difference when i am streaming 4k movies on my Plex locally? thanks in advance
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I have the, now obsolete, TVS-1282 i7-64GB model. It has 2x M.2 SATA on the mobo for QTS + apps. It also has a PCIe 3.0 4x slot for a GPU card (where I put the QNAP 2P-384 NVMe SSD card w/ 2x 1TB Samsung NVMe SSDs)
Given that model is obsolete, if you want to make a seriously ‘future proof’ purchase,
you might want to consider this:
We have one in our Lab. The Xeon CPU is VERY good at hardware transcoding.
No Nvidia card is really needed unless you want to REALLY amp it up.
If you have the PCIe slot open, you can use it just like I have and put in the NVMe SSD card.
In my configuration, which you can also do in the TVS-1288x is:
Motherboard SSDs - (qty 2) - RAID 1 (mirror) for QTS.
You can put PMS here if they are large enough (1TB SSDs work well for this)
This becomes DataVol1
Main HDD storage array - However many 3.5" HDDs you wish.
This becomes DataVol2
This comprises the core of your setup.
With the 4x 2.5" slots, you can do whatever you want. (2.5" SSD / HDDs if you wish)
If you go all-out (plan ahead before initial setup & install) and install a PCIe NVMe card, and add 2x 1TB NVMe SSDs to it (DataVol3) , you could put PMS out on it and save wear and tear on the (now smaller) 512 GB NVMe SSDs in DataVol1
This machine is so highly configurable it’s difficult to make any one ‘best’ configuration other than:
SSDs on the motherboard for QTS (not QuTS) - DataVol1
Main HDD array in slots 1-8 - DataVol2
Everything else after that are things you can grow into.
My only concern about the TVS-h1288X was not knowing where the PCIe lanes from the CPU were assigned, given the w-1250’s limit of 16 lanes and how loaded it is. I couldn’t find that in the documents.
With dual 10g, ssds, nvme, thunderbolt, those lanes get used quickly.
Some guy already wanted the QNAP dual 25GbE card that runs PCIe Gen4x8.
It was difficult to answer his question whether it would run well.
It left me wondering what PCIe gen 4x64 NAS we might see this year.
The W-1250 has 48 PCIe lanes.
You’ll find almost all Xeon CPUs are 40-48 lanes.
Intel Core processors are the ones with fewer.
Details
CPU Socket Type LGA 1200
Core Name Comet Lake
# of Cores Six-Core
# of Threads 12
Operating Frequency 3.3 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 4.7 GHz
L3 Cache 12MB
64-Bit Support Yes
Hyper-Threading Support Yes
Manufacturing Tech 14 nm
Virtualization Technology Support Yes
Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics P630
Graphics Base Frequency 350 MHz
Max Dynamic Frequency 1.20 GHz
PCI Express Revision 3.0
Max # of PCI Express Lanes 48
Thermal Design Power 80W
I realize that NAS is faster than anything I could hope to buy and fill up, and it’s
probably user error, but from my shallow understanding of PCIe and QNAP cards
dual 10GbE ports take up gen 3x4 lanes
dual thunderbolt ports use gen 3x4 lanes
dual nvme uses 3x4 lanes
Using all those, you’d have used 12 lanes of your 16 fast connections to the CPU.
You would have 4 left, but for this analysis, I don’t know if QNAP routes any of those to maybe 4 SATA SSDs or somewhere.
In the case of adding a video card that wants 8 lanes
or a 25 GbE card that wants 8 lanes, I was just
trying to map out all limitations.
