I have been a plex user for years now. This whole time i have had all my media stored on a 3tb mybooklive. Today my mybooklive became a brick as far as i can tell. So the question is what should i get to replace it? My wireless router has usb ports in it however they are only 2.0 and I am pretty sure the computer i have running plex server only has usb 2.0 ports. Should i stick with ethernet drive or go to usb 3.0 even though i will max out at 2.0.
For use with Plex I find that internal drives are best, external USB connected directly to the server are next, Network shares of any kind are next. Personally I would never use a USB drive connected to a router for anything Plex, I have just never found them reliable enough.
The only problems with USB drives are the operating system mapping them to a new drive letter on a reboot and they sometimes can be slow to wake from sleep.
To solve the drive mapping problem you can make sure your operating system remaps all drives exactly the same on all restarts. This is usually quite easily done in settings in the operating system. I have about 12 drives connected via USB and the never get a wrong letter on reboot. (This should also be done for network shares if they are used.)
To solve the wake up problem you should turn off all sleep functions for any mission critical drive and I recommend that a server never sleep in any way. Sometimes you have to dig pretty deep in the various settings to get all sleeping turned off. For me the small amount of wear and tear you save and the also small amount of power saving is just not worth the headaches that a sleeping server or drive causes.
The speed gained by USB 3.0 over 2.0 is meaningless for Plex itself but it is quite noticeable when moving files around.
I use StableBit’s DrivePool to pool all my USB drives and Drivepool helps with avoiding mistakes in mapping and problems with sleeping.
As far how big a drive goes I say get the biggest you can afford. Data (media) grows to fill available space and you will be surprised how fast you can fill up drives. For now stay at the 5tb level or level because the larger drives cost more per TB.
The first computer I ever bought had a cassette player for storage and 4k of memory. When after about 4 months, I upgraded to a floppy drive (360k) and 64k memory I told myself that was all I would ever need. It is clear I was a bit in error. The last drive I purchased for my server was a 5tb. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TKFEEBW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and I have two other that are the same ones.
Many people will rave on or condemn particular drives or manufacturers but I have found that by the time a drive has been out for a while bad or good reviews do not reflect the current stock so generally just go with the best price for what I need and rely on the fact that the vast majority of drives that fail do so well within the manufacture’s warranty period or they last for several years.
Once more the drive speed is quite meaningless for video streaming with Plex unless the transcoding temporary directory is on the slow drive and even then I “think” any modern hard drive should be plenty fast and USB 2.0 or 3.0 should be fine.
I hope that did not confuse the issue to much.
After all the research I did last night I am debating between a small nas versus just some additional usb drives.
I don’t want to run Plex server on the nas so i just need them for storage and backup reasons.
The reason I am leaning more towards a NAS is i just lost all my movies / tv shows so it would have been nice to have Raid.
If your data is that important, you should really start thinking about using both - since a RAID setup is never a backup-solution. It is really there to give you a higher fault tolerance of a mechanical failure of a one or more disk(s) (if not using more advanced “RAID” solutions such as ZFS). It does not prevent the lost of said data from, for example, corruption, bugs, viruses, fires/floods, human error etc etc.
Also note that unlike internal drives, most USB drives don’t properly communicate the drive’s health via SMART to the host computer. So you don’t get early warning of mechanical failure until things reach catastrophic levels and poof your data is gone.
USB drives are for convenient temporary connections for data that is kept backed up elsewhere.
With network-connected drives (NAS, etc) you add another layer of abstraction and you’re dependent on the OS on the device to do the drive health monitoring. If you’re not then in-turn monitoring the monitor, you won’t have any better early warning of drive failure (a common issue with many NAS users is not setting up email notification properly).
And like Peter said: RAID is not a backup. RAID is for high-availability, backups are for backups.
You do not “need” Raid solutions to get high fault tolerance. Drivepool will give you that for drives connected to a “regular” computer. It also has the advantage of the fact that all files are stored in native format so should your computer die just plugging it the drives to another computer gives you access to you files even if that computer is not running Drivepool.
Drivepool can be set to 2X or 3X duplication and also set to assure that duplicates are not stored on the same drive. This means that if a drive dies you loose nothing and you just remove the dead drive and attach another all the time continuing operation as normal.
I just recently lost one of my older drives to a sudden and total failure and I just removed it and acquired a new one and Plex never knew that a drive was lost.
Of course various Raid systems provide similar protection but Drivepool has the advantage of running or a “regular” computer and combining drives regardless of size or how attached to the computer.
@Elijah_Baley ok Internal drives are out unless i get a NAS based on my current machine i am running.
Would you go NAS over just buying some MyBooks
After you bring up Drivepool it seems a lot cheaper to just go MyBook route and use Drivepool
The NAS would provide a cleaner solution in terms of cords and such. Instead of having a bunch of drives sitting on a table with multiple cords going to my machine. (I know not a huge deal at all.)
@pricejt I acquired a “rack” type of solution for my server and drives. As I was awaiting retirement age I worked for a while at a convenience store and they often threw out various shelves. The one I got is a small vertical set on casters that stands about 5 ft tall and has 6 shelves. My server resides on the top shelf and the drives on the other shelves with a few plug strips attached at the sides for the power supplies. and a UPS resides at the bottom for all the server power.
The wiring is a bit of a mess no matter how I try to clean it up but it is all contained in the rack. I have 10 external drives in my setup and two 8 port USB 3.0 hubs connected to my two USB 3.0 ports on my server.
If you do not have access to shelving like I did I still recommend getting some type of rack for your server as placing it all on a table is inefficient and space wasting. Once set up you should not have to directly interact with your server much. I also suggest you use some type of remote management software to do most maintenance on your server so you do not need to keep a monitor connected at all times. I use TightVNC but there are many other ways to accomplish the same thing. Remember that the web interface can be used from any computer on your network so the actual Plex server maintenance does not even require any type of remote access.
Oh, also a UPS is strongly recommended for your server and all attached drives as it protects everything from the majority of power problems.
I have found that StableBit’s scanner does not coexist well with their Drivepool software on my system but others have no problem with the two together. They are designed to work together so they should be fine for most people.
Finally, Originally I tied all my power cables for the wall warts for the drives and hubs together but I noticed that the bundle felt “warm” so I untied them and all the wires now stay cool. Since they are all pretty much contained within the rack the “mess” is pretty much meaningless.
@Elijah_Baley Good suggestions, I do monitor everything with TeamViewer (including my grandparents machines) I do need to invest in a UPS as well.
@Elijah_Baley said:
You do not “need” Raid solutions to get high fault tolerance. Drivepool will give you that for drives connected to a “regular” computer.
Thanks for the information. I’m not even close to an IT professional, as I think many people in these discussions are so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but here goes:
Given Elijah statement, why are so many running plex on NAS devices? I thought it was to get a faster read from the drive using RAID, that as I understand it allows a file to be split across multiple drives that may all read at the same time and the combined bitrate off multiple disks is several multiples of what even the fastest single drive can manage.
Would a NAS allow one to better use movies ripped directly off bluray disks with Makemkv? I’ve found that the files taken directly off bluray seem to overwhelm the network, the computer and maybe other components. For me converting bluray files to a lower bitrate is mandatory to make them useable.
Does a NAS better allow watching bluray files without any conversion, or allow direct play by numerous devices simultaneously? If not why use a device with so little power for transcoding?
As far as I know raid type systems do not give any real advantage for video streaming. The bottleneck in streaming is in the pipe between the server and the client in most cases. The other place for problems is in processor itself in the server. The speed of even the slowest current disk systems well exceeds the needs of any video stream.
If one needs improvement in the streaming then they need to work on the things that really impact throughput and that is not disk access. This is true even for multiple streams. I suppose that you “could” get to a point where disk speed becomes important to streaming but that point is well above what Plex is really designed for.
The important thing about storage for Plex and most video applications is reliability not speed.
Edit: As far as why so many people are using NAS type devices I think that is mainly because of the “neatness” factor and the fact that they usually come with some form of native raid so the reliability is increased without the need for extra effort.
The fact is that it is nearly impossible to have a “neat” arrangement of one computer with a bunch of external drives and it is extra trouble up front to get everything set up so that drives or the computer going to sleep do not cause problems.
I kind of thrive in a controlled chaos environment but others have their OCD manifested differently and cannot stand visible wiring or a lot of separate devices. I find the wires and such calming and so I like my “rat’s nest” as many people would call my setup.
Thanks for the response, but it leaves me still wondering: why run Plex on a NAS?
Is it just to show that you can? Lower power consumption maybe?
I do not really know why people run a Plex on a NAS. Maybe because they can? They might have already had one or they might just like the idea of a single enclosed device or they might feel more secure with the raid type solutions that a NAS system provides or it could be for any number of reasons that are very valid to them but some or most people would not comprehend or even acknowledge. It is probably the same as a lot of people’s choice of a favorite client, it is just what they want and are comfortable with.
For all the arguments against a NAS there are just as many for one and I believe that it is up to the individual to decide which way to jump. My intent is not to actually argue against a NAS solution but rather present alternatives that are often less costly and just as reliable.
That is one of the many things I like about Plex. It is pretty “universal” in that it runs and runs well in a rather huge variety of setups.
@brucethevideobug said:
Given Elijah statement, why are so many running plex on NAS devices? I thought it was to get a faster read from the drive using RAID, that as I understand it allows a file to be split across multiple drives that may all read at the same time and the combined bitrate off multiple disks is several multiples of what even the fastest single drive can manage.Would a NAS allow one to better use movies ripped directly off bluray disks with Makemkv? I’ve found that the files taken directly off bluray seem to overwhelm the network, the computer and maybe other components. For me converting bluray files to a lower bitrate is mandatory to make them useable.
Does a NAS better allow watching bluray files without any conversion, or allow direct play by numerous devices simultaneously? If not why use a device with so little power for transcoding?
Because they don’t have to have “so little power”? 
Mine has a Passmark of over 10K
My solution is a clean, silent, nondescript small black box with 2 lights.
It has a power cord, a network cord, and USB to a UPS. That’s it. That one box handles everything related to Plex: both the storage (NAS) and the server (PMS). I have 12TB of usable storage and I’ll probably be upgrading to 32TB in the next year or less. I can lose a drive (or 2) and have time to replace it without having to rebuild the whole software environment. And this singular, unified solution draws 35W or less idle despite all the drives and horsepower. It sits under an end table next to the couch and no one notices it’s there unless I point it out to them. It is literally a magic “black box”.
Was it easier to set up than other solutions? No. But it was cheaper (both initially and in operational costs), gives me a singular device, and I don’t waste money on redundant hardware for things that technically can be handled by the same hardware if sized properly. And I really value the clean end product. “Plex” for us is truly that little silent black box.
@sremick what is the model of the black box in your picture.
Simple clean box, I can see that.
@pricejt said:
@sremick what is the model of the black box in your picture.
It’s all in my signature
Here are my thoughts.
- Movies/TV shows aren’t vital data and so you don’t need RAID for protection. BUT you do need a backup in case of drive failure because 5TB or in my case 8TB would be very laborious to recover.
- NAS can make life simpler as all the data is in one place but see 1)
- If you don’t run Plex on the NAS then you end up with an extra network path and ideally for Bluray you should have wired 1GB switched ethernet links.
My solution
unRaid as the NAS because the parity drive supports multiple disks. Backup to either additional disks in the array or another system (USB drives?) Remember the data isn’t critical and to recreate is ‘just’ time consuming. Plex on the NAS plus other useful software (Filebot, Logitech Media Server). Unraid gives me support of multiple viewing devices (iPad, Smart TV, Chromecast, AppleTV, PC) AND can simultaneously stream to two or three of them.
Last I knew, unRAID didn’t protect against bitrot. And you still need more than 1 disk’s worth of redundancy, lest you suffer corruption during rebuild if there’s an URE. This real situation has been reported by unRAID users just like users depending on RAID5.
