Most of the websites I’ve searched picked the Synology DS218, and most of those picked a QNAP as runner up, and a few oddball sites picked other manufacturers. A lot of the video reviews I watched said go with QNAP, but not all of them.
I currently do not use any type of media server. I’d like to stay around $600.00 cost, but will spend a little more if it can future proof my server. I do not currently have a 4K tv but within 2 or 3 years I probably will, as I can finally download/stream 4K movies where I live on the ethernet. Last year my max speed was supposedly 5 download and 1.5 up, but If I got 1/2 of those numbers I was doing really well. I did not consider getting any type of media server because of those low speeds. Currently my speeds are pretty stable at 40 Mb download and 7 up.
Movies/shows and music would be the primary purposes of the server.
Currently using iTunes but iMatch keeps losing songs and albums. I plan to reload all my CD’s and albums and store my music locally and either stream or upload from my new server eventually. I prefer either FLAC or ALAC quality rather than MP3. I need to be able to upload/download to an iPhone X and iPhone X Max. I estimate that I have 600 CD’s, but I have inherited a lot of older records I haven’t fully listened to. Most of those are 78’s and jazz or swing.
Movies I currently have vary from BluRay to DVD to iTunes purchased, with a couple of Disney features.
At least initially, the iTunes movies would probably be my 4K movie source as they will upgrade for no cost.
I would like to be able to hardware transcribe 4K movies in the future.
I currently have a VUDU account with s small number of movies.
Some units I’ve seen mention OTA and OTA DVR, not high on my priority but if its there I would use it.
I have 1 computer, a 3 year old iMac, and a couple of 4 year old iPads. I and my wife do have newer iPhones.
I think I am looking for a 2 bay system, 4 TB drives in a simple raid format based upon the cost range I listed. There are other things I would like to get but at my price point I doubt I can get them-ATMOS, security cameras etc, expandability but those are not my primary focus initially.
At a minimum, you want a NAS with a 64-bit Intel CPU. This will let you take advantage of hardware accelerated transcoding in Plex (Plex Pass required).
For Synology, this means the DS218+, DS718+, or DS918+.
QNAP has similar products (I am not familiar with their product line). They also have NASs with Intel i3/5/7 CPUs, at correspondingly higher prices.
The general rule of thumb seems to be that Synology is easier to use, and QNAP has more powerful systems, but requires more Linux specific knowledge. Both companies have demo versions of their OS that you can access from their websites.
Plex does not play DRM protected media. This means it will not play any movies/TV shows purchased via iTunes, VUDU, or other such services.
A NAS with a Celeron CPU, such as the DS918 can easily direct play 4K HDR movies. It can also transcode two to three 1080p movies if hardware acceleration is enabled.
Transcoding 4K material will be problematic, even for a more powerful CPU. You will be much better off keeping 4K material in a separate library and playing it only on 4K capable devices.
I have a DS918+. It is great for streaming movies to my 4K TV (via Nvidia Shield) and occasionally to my Android phone & tablet. I transcode very little, so having a Celeron CPU is not an issue. It takes very little CPU power to direct play media.
I do not use Plex for OTA TV/DVR or for music. Others can weigh in on Plex’s capabilities in those areas.
One other approach is to use a NAS to store your data and use a separate system to run PMS.
For example, you could use a DS218 to store your media, then run PMS on a small desktop or Intel NUC sized computer (or your iMac).
It doesn’t matter that the NAS has a low power CPU, because it is just serving up files.
The system running PMS mounts the NAS directories over the network. If you ever need to upgrade to a more powerful system, you just upgrade/replace the PC running PMS. Nothing changes on the NAS.
I’m not interested in trying to hack my Vudu or iTunes movies. I’ve already paid for them and I have both a Roku and an Apple Tv and can access Vudu from either. It’s my old tv shows. If possible, I’m going to try to load some very very old LaserDisc video’s onto whatever server I use.
The DS918+ is a 4 bay unit. What size drives do you have in it? Is there anything you really like and anything you wish it had or did better?
Plenty of very good advice already. I was considering the same route, but in the end, even despite my limited Linux knowledge, I built my own server with a G4600 for hardware transcoding and unRAID.
It’s a very expandable, flexible system both in terms of storage and features. unRAID supports a huge amount of community made and supported dockers (think self contained and specific purpose VMs) and apps. It also cost considerably less than an equivalent off the shelf device without the limitations of what the OS / architecture will support, or what the manufacturer will do in the future.
I agree with @nomisco… However I based mine on FreeBSD… I would build some kind of NAS before I bought one… Follow PLEX’s recommendations for CPU and either PLEX’s or the NAS software’s recommendations for RAM, which ever is greater… You can do this as cheaply or expensive as you want…
I like it. It does everything I need, which is file sharing and running Plex Media Server. I also have Tautulli running via Docker to monitor PMS.
I have 3 x 10TB HGST Deskstar NAS drives and 1 x 12TB Seagate Ironwolf. I’ve used HGST drives for several years and never had a reliability problem. I have 4x4TB HGST in a DS414 that have been running w/o issue for 3+ years. The HGST 10TB drives are noisier than the 4TB drives. You can hear drives when they read/write. I never hear the 4TB drives. It isn’t horrible or untenable. Just be aware you can hear them. I’ve had the Ironwolf about six months. No issues so far, and as quiet as the HGST 4TBs.
PMS works fine for me with the Celeron CPU. I transcode very little and don’t stream remotely. If I ever need to do a lot of transcoding or have multiple streams to remote clients then I’ll get a NUC or similar with the necessary horsepower, move PMS to it, but keep the files on the NAS.
I use Synology’s Hyper Backup application to backup the 918+ to local USB drives, the DS414, and to Google Drive (The 918+ replaced the 414, which I repurposed for backups). Hyper Backup provides versioning, data de-duplication, and error checking. It has its limitations, but it works fine for me, as a home user.
I use their Cloud Sync application to mirror some data to Google Drive & DropBox. Basically the same as running the Google Drive or DropBox apps on your PC. Whatever is in the selected folder is sync’d to the cloud.
I’ve experimented running Windows 10 in a virtual machine. It is not very fast, but that is expected given the Celeron processor.
Synology also has a security camera application. That is next on the list to try.
All in all I’m very happy with the 918+. I wanted to upgrade from the 414, was comfortable with Synology, so went with the 918+. I’m sure I could have bought a QNAP and been as equally as happy.
Before you sink a load of money into hardware consider hosting your storage in the Cloud. G Suite for Business costs $10/€8/£6.60 per month & gives unlimited storage on Google Drive ( the alleged 1TB limit for less than 5 users does not exist). Mount up Google Drive on your local PMS & just use it as a local disk.
G@nomisco, @bjs59,@Fordguy61
Thanks for the replies. The reason I was looking at something like Synology or QNAP was time. I used to build my own equipment but the last computer I built myself was in 1999. I was looking at something that was plug and play hardware wise.
But the reason I posted the question was because I had no first hand knowledge but most of your answers followed a similar vein: that the packaged units aren’t as powerful and to get one that is would be a lot more expensive than building something myself.
I have not messed with Linux at all. Years ago I was acceptable in UNIX but that was a very long time ago. I’m not afraid of a new languages, I program industrial controllers for a living, I just didn’t want another time and money consuming hobby.
Since it wasn’t until last summer that I had acceptable internet speed access I haven’t used online sevices very much personally, and because I am semi-rural I think I prefer having the hardware physically at my house. I will search this site and online about building my own NAS system and see where that takes me.
Have a look at a recent version of FreeBSD… Get a CLI system up and running, you don’t even need a GUI to run the server… I think I had to load 2 ports along with PLEX to get it running… The other 4 ports I installed were for system and port management to make it easy on myself… I’d be willing to answer any question you may have…
I think in the very short term I’m going to install Plex on my iMac while I price out a cheap intel computer to use as my server. Not thrilled with Win 10 so I will probably try Linux or BSD as an OS.
Reading online a lot of people seem to use VM’s. What advantage does that give you? Running a virtual machine is bound to be slower so the only advantage I can think of is if something goes wrong your real OS is probably still ok and you just cycle power on the VM, but maybe there’s something else that I don’t know about.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who offered advice, I do appreciate it.
Consider using an Nvidia Shield as a server. For my daily driver—I use a Synology DS418 with 4 8TB WD Red Drives and a nvidia Shield Pro as a dedicated server. They play very well together! I have been using it well over a year now. I also record Live TV using an HDHomeRun Prime. I would also recommend a second shield just for the front end, having 3 Live TV Streams Recording at the same time will bog it down pretty well…
From someone who started with a Synology ds215play and another 4 NAS ( and several NUC as well) now running a big Qnap TVS-1282.
Do not think of getting a 2 bay - total waste of money.
4 bay minimum as you can start with 2 drives and add as u need.
My recommendation is the Synolgy 918+
I have owned 4 Synology and one Qnap.
The qnap is 6 months old and I have weekly sometimes daily problems.
Might be my model but I think it’s the software
All Synology have been much more stable and the only reason I upgraded was for more storage.
The Qnap has an I7 and synology currently can not match that…
Running PMS in a VM isn’t necessarily a whole lot slower & you are right about isolating PMS problems to the VM so you can instantly restart or even restore a snapshot of the VM.
I have my PMS running on an Ubuntu VM under VMware Fusion on MacOS & it takes about 30 seconds to reboot the VM. It also allows me to start PMS without any logon which is impossible with native MacOS so if there is ever a power outage when power is restored PMS gets restarted without any logged in user.
