Plex NAS

[NineEyeRon]

Budget (including currency): £500

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Plex Server

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I have an 2.5” SSD for the OS.

 

So my plan is to build a new PlexNAS. Other than budget the restriction is it must be a horizontal PC, probably ITX as it’s likely going to have my printer sitting on top of it, I literally have nowhere else to put it unless it’s got a super small footprint and is really quiet.

 

It is only for network backups of photos and videos from my PC and a plex server for old TV shows. TV is only 1080p and most of the shows are in 4:3 anyways.

I will be fine choosing a case but no harm in recommending one, I have been unable to identify suitable CPU, MoBo and RAM. I am open to PSU suggestions but I was just going to use the tier list.

I was thinking 5Ghz wireless would be best as it is close to the router but not close enough for Ethernet, its less than 5m in a straight line but it’s like 3 interior walls. I have checked the signal with my phone and it’s good. I could fall back to powerline if needed.

 

I expect the most expensive part will be the HDD as I am looking at 6TB to futureproof as I am currently just over 3TB. I dont need raid as I already have a backup and the data itself, this will become the primary backup but there will be cold storage in place too as well as cloud storage for certain backups. My current primary backup is only a temporary solution.

[Electronics Wizardy]

HOw about a pi/nuc with a 8tb external hdd? THat should be really small, so you can hide it next to the router so you don't need wifi.

 

Can you just plug it into the router directly, connecting over wifi isn't gonna be great.

 

 

[Master Disaster]

For that money you could buy a 2 bay Synology and a decent sized HDD. The great thing about Synologies is they only use 5w when idling and around 50w when being used. Anything you try to build will use more than 50w while at idle.

[Hairless Monkey]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-10100 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	£100.98 @ CCL Computers
Motherboard	ASRock H410M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1200 Motherboard	£97.55 @ Amazon UK
Memory	Kingston HyperX Fury 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL15 Memory	£34.41 @ Currys PC World Business
Storage	Western Digital Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	£201.99 @ CCL Computers
Power Supply	Silverstone SFX 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply	£60.46 @ Scan.co.uk
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£495.39
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-20 17:41 GMT+0000

 

The i3 is probably overkill, but it fits in your budget. 

 

This would be suitable depending on your transcoding needs:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/37gQzy/intel-celeron-g5900-34-ghz-dual-core-processor-bx80701g5900

[NineEyeRon]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

For that money you could buy a 2 bay Synology and a decent sized HDD. The great thing about Synologies is they only use 5w when idling and around 50w when being used. Anything you try to build will use more than 50w while at idle.

I think this is the winner as long as it’s plex performance is OK. I had a seagate personal cloud running one before, it was slow but tolerable.

[Master Disaster]

8 minutes ago, NineEyeRon said:

I think this is the winner as long as it’s plex performance is OK. I had a seagate personal cloud running one before, it was slow but tolerable.

Plex is fine up to and including Blu Ray rips though it does struggle with UHD BD rips. HEVC files are also fine.

[NineEyeRon]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Plex is fine up to and including Blu Ray rips though it does struggle with UHD BD rips. HEVC files are also fine.

Everything is DVD quality at best so no worry about other stuff, it’s very old and made for TV...

[NineEyeRon]

Synology arrives tomorrow, will give it a whirl and see if it performs. I figured I don’t need hardware transcoding so didn’t splash out for the + model for our light usage of the plex server. We shall see if that was a mistake or not.

[NineEyeRon]

@Master Disaster Synology DS218 arrived today, decently priced and paired with a 6TB NAS drive. 

 

Must say the performance has exceeded my expectations, despite not getting the intel powered + version. I could see the plus being great for people with more demands on their media but testing my average looking file initial impressions are good for Plex. I had two streams going and CPU was well loaded, as was RAM but not stressed. Noise was good too. I think it could probably handle 4 people playing media from it without issue and there are only 3 users of Plex in the house!

 

Overall really happy, only time will tell if things continue.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, NineEyeRon said:

@Master Disaster Synology DS218 arrived today, decently priced and paired with a 6TB NAS drive. 

 

Must say the performance has exceeded my expectations, despite not getting the intel powered + version. I could see the plus being great for people with more demands on their media but testing my average looking file initial impressions are good for Plex. I had two streams going and CPU was well loaded, as was RAM but not stressed. Noise was good too. I think it could probably handle 4 people playing media from it without issue and there are only 3 users of Plex in the house!

 

Overall really happy, only time will tell if things continue.

I've had a 218+ for just over a year, best thing I ever bought tbh. It's never missed a beat and just works.

 

Glad you're happy with it

[NineEyeRon]

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I've had a 218+ for just over a year, best thing I ever bought tbh. It's never missed a beat and just works.

 

Glad you're happy with it

I maybe could have stretched to the + but it seemed overkill and then of course there is less money for other things I want to buy. I found it really hard to tell which of the three models to buy and you never know until you get the hardware working your use case. Reviews seemed to contradict one another so I had to piece together my opinion from multiple places published across a couple of years!

 

If it works well it will be replaced with a + equivalent when the time comes. So far I think I got the model I needed... I will report back if that changes!