NAS Bay (purchase advice )

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I run a very similar setup to @SpyderTracks.

I don't have a dedicated Plex drive though, I just use my secondary drive (M2 also).

I recently decided to enable WOL so that I could let my PC sleep (Rising Leccy costs are insane). Plex wakes it up just fine, even remotely.

My media is on a fairly standard 7200RPM Seagate drive and everything runs great. I do have Kodi as well, as it's great for browsing through folders that aren't in the database (ahem). Otherwise, Plex is a one stop shop :)
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
What do u think of this,

Synology DS220+ 6TB 2 Bay Desktop NAS Solution, installed with 2 x 3TB Seagate IronWolf Drives https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08QDL5WQJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_20QAPMCGQBYQTH6STM8F

I've set up a similar bit of kit for my Cousins business. As described by @SpyderTracks, those aren't suitable for media streaming. It's a very entry level NAS that's only really suitable for storage, direct play and mail exchange etc. It wouldn't be suitable for transcoding at all.

Have a look here for information on what it takes.


Scroll down to the comparison chart and have a check under transcoding. You will note that none of them are suitable for proper 4k transcoding. It's a massively intensive task.
 

AsifSaddique 836

Bronze Level Poster
Ah okay, so the best would be to buy a NAS HDD slot it in your PC, and if possible buy another disk (sdd) just for running PLEX.

This is actually better I think. I will definitely consider this. Knowing me I’ll have it by tomorrow lol
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I personally didn't bother with a NAS HDD. If you're going to be hammering it fairly regularly then it may be worthwhile, it just depends how often you feel you will use it. The endurance of a stationary drive from the likes of Seagate should see you through. The thing for me is that I'm not worried about losing the data on it as I can easily get it back.
 

AsifSaddique 836

Bronze Level Poster
Mine will be for storing my family edited movies.
So it can be a normal hdd too and as long as u run plex it will work as a NAS drive , accessible through plex? Have you tried playing /streaming 4k media?
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Mine will be for storing my family edited movies.
So it can be a normal hdd too and as long as u run plex it will work as a NAS drive , accessible through plex? Have you tried playing /streaming 4k media?

I would keep a backup of them then. I also have family stuff all on that same drive, but i have it all backed up to the cloud as well (just in case).

Everything is fine on my system. Network speed would be the only limitation but mine's fine. Desktop processors tend to be way more powerful on the single thread than any NAS CPU is.
 

AsifSaddique 836

Bronze Level Poster
I would only occasionally stream and just family videos so can I get away with installing the plex server/software on my C: drive(M2) and keep the media files where they currently are on the second M2 drive. Or I could install plex on the second M2 drive also. I also have two 3TB HDDs, all empty as my PC is 3 days old.

What would be the best setup using my existing setup without having to buy an extra NAS drive and additional Sata drive for the application. I will be probably watching/streaming like few times a month only.

Thanks
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I wouldn't keep media on the M2. That's just a waste of fast storage. Once video's are rendered/made it's better to just move them to the conventional storage.

But yes, that's what I would do. Although install Plex on the 2nd drive ;)
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Is this definitely compatible for my PC and the best? any other slightly cheaper ones up to £200?
It's just a normal SATA HDD, any one is compatible with any computer, it's a standard drive.

The only other one I would recommend as already stated many times is the Seagate Ironwolfs

Be aware the Ironwolfs are a lot noisier, hence cheaper.
 

AsifSaddique 836

Bronze Level Poster
So bought this NAS drive yesterday, I currently have a external mycloud Nas drive and do have local access to it. Will this drive have network access software or is this basically a better quality hard drive ?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
So bought this NAS drive yesterday, I currently have a external mycloud Nas drive and do have local access to it. Will this drive have network access software or is this basically a better quality hard drive ?
It's a normal Nas bay, but as already stated, it's not powerful enough to run a media server. It's only good for basic file storage

You want the NAS drive internal.
 

AsifSaddique 836

Bronze Level Poster
I figured the answer to my question out I think, my question was will the internal NAS drive be recognised as a network drive automatically like the external mycloud drive using mycloud software. But its just a better quality hdd like you said with no software attached to it.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I figured the answer to my question out I think, my question was will the internal NAS drive be recognised as a network drive automatically like the external mycloud drive using mycloud software. But its just a better quality hdd like you said with no software attached to it.
Yeah, it's just a drive, nothing more. The media server governs the network transfers. That's what Plex is for.
 
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