Best NAS for media?

[zPanic]

Hey there!

 

Earlier this year I got in touch with NAS systems, albeit a bad one; the Seagate Personal Cloud.

I've been using it as my personal cloud of course, and as my Plex Media Server.

However, I'm not fully satisfied with its capabilities in terms of transcoding.

 

So now, I'm looking for a NAS that'll let me transcode any media in 1080p reliably, which at the same time, isn't too expensive.

I've been looking at the QNAP TS-253A, which is advertised to support transcoding up to 1080p, and is listed at 400 euros.

My budget is about 550 euros; including NAS, and a HDD up to 4TB, at least being 2TB.

 

Now I'm looking for advice on reliable NAS systems which have at least 1-2 bays, and fall within my budget.

 

Thank you in advance!

[Beliskner]

You can also look a Synology DS216PLAY (239 Euro) and Synology DS216 + II (333 Euro). The DS216PLAY transcode 1* 4k or 1* 1080p and the DS216 + II can transcode 1* 4k or 3* 1080p at a time. Comparison and Specs.

And get one or two 4 TB Seagate Iron Wolf HDD (134 Euro).

I have not tried any of them, but I have a DS414 and used to have a DS212j and both have worked excellent.

DS216Play with 2*4tb HDD (505 Euro) fit well with your budget, but I would probobly go for a DS216+II with one 4tb HDD (467 Euro) and add a second HDD for redundance when I had the money.

I have heard QNAP also work well, but I have never tried any them.

 

edit:

Synology have a demo site if you want to try dsm https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/live_demo

[Undergrid]

Just be aware that the stated transcoding capabilities are using the NAS's own built in apps.  This applies for both QNAP and Synology, and so won't help (in general) with plex.  There is a plex server beta release (to plex pass users) with hardware transcoding, but I'm not sure if it's supposed to work on these sort of devices.

 

Just don't expect to throw plex on a DS216Play and have it support transcoding multiple 1080p streams, it isn't going to happen.

[bobhays]

On 7/23/2017 at 7:17 AM, zPanic said:

Hey there!

 

Earlier this year I got in touch with NAS systems, albeit a bad one; the Seagate Personal Cloud.

I've been using it as my personal cloud of course, and as my Plex Media Server.

However, I'm not fully satisfied with its capabilities in terms of transcoding.

 

So now, I'm looking for a NAS that'll let me transcode any media in 1080p reliably, which at the same time, isn't too expensive.

I've been looking at the QNAP TS-253A, which is advertised to support transcoding up to 1080p, and is listed at 400 euros.

My budget is about 550 euros; including NAS, and a HDD up to 4TB, at least being 2TB.

 

Now I'm looking for advice on reliable NAS systems which have at least 1-2 bays, and fall within my budget.

 

Thank you in advance!

if you actually want to get the best performance/dollar just build your own PC with the biggest drives and best cpu you can find. You can skimp out on the other stuff, like cheap motherboard, 4gb ram, no GPU, no SSD, no CD drive, etc. Then you can just run Plex off of it