Nas/Plex/media server build help

[wayland64]

Hi All

 

So im looking for to build or buy a plex server and nas. I have a ton of movies and tv that i want to be able to access on my smart devices, and from my phone. Max resolution i would working with is 1080p. Max 3 streams at once. I also want to be able to digitize my record and tape collections and be able to stream my music. Being able to put photos on this and having access to them would be great to. Finally i need a file server for confidential medical files. I have to keep  files for 6 years after treatment and having them all in paper makes accessing and deleting them extremely difficult. 

 

Im not sure what OS, i should be using for this but any help would be great. I have two 3 tb drives i can use for storage. My budget is $400 up to $600 if it will last a long time. Being able to set it and forget it would be great. Im fine with buying a prebuilt or building something myself. Major bonus if the server could trans-code the plex streams, so the devices dont have to.

 

Any help is appreciated thanks all!

[Pixel5]

for transcoding and having something that will last you a long time your best bet is probably building a system around an intel i3 10100.

Personally i would recommend unraid as the OS.

 

Everything else is basically depending on what kind of case you would like and how big the system can be.

[wayland64]

3 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

for transcoding and having something that will last you a long time your best bet is probably building a system around an intel i3 10100.

Personally i would recommend unraid as the OS.

 

Everything else is basically depending on what kind of case you would like and how big the system can be.

I was thinking something that could sit on a shelf. My only hesitation with building something would be size. Itx hardware tends to be more expensive, and being able to stay closer to $400 would be great. Are there any off the shelf nas's that can transcode ok?

[Pixel5]

17 minutes ago, wayland64 said:

I was thinking something that could sit on a shelf. My only hesitation with building something would be size. Itx hardware tends to be more expensive, and being able to stay closer to $400 would be great. Are there any off the shelf nas's that can transcode ok?

there are a few out there that claim to be able to transcode with hardware acceleration but i even used to have a Synology 918+ which still costs almost 500 bucks at the moment and even that one was barely able to transcode one stream and only if the codec was the right one.

 

if size is important for you you basically have no other choice then buying an off the shelf NAS and hoping for the best in terms of transcoding, the best you can do on the cheap for a small DIY case would be something like the Node 304

[tikker]

On 4/30/2021 at 3:05 AM, wayland64 said:

Major bonus if the server could trans-code the plex streams, so the devices dont have to.

Transcoding always happens server-side as the reason for it is the receiving device not being capable of understanding the original format. If it's just devices in your home you may be better off just storing your movies and series in a format that can direct play. You can keep the original should you want to enjoy the full quality source and keep an allround format that most things nowadays understand (something simple like 1080p, stereo, mp4) for streaming to other devices ready. Plex can even do this for you, though you might want to do this yourself on a PC depending on the NAS' processing power.

 

How much storage do you need? Might be able to squeeze something like a 2-bay Synology and some 4 TB drives in that budget (which would result in 4 TB usable storage if you set it up in their raid 1-esque format).

[wayland64]

On 4/30/2021 at 2:19 PM, wayland64 said:

I was thinking something that could sit on a shelf. My only hesitation with building something would be size. Itx hardware tends to be more expensive, and being able to stay closer to $400 would be great. Are there any off the shelf nas's that can transcode ok?

How would a deskmini a300 with a 2200g work. It has 2.5 inch drive bays. So I could squeeze 4tb in raid 1 in their + a boot drive. Also could I just use a 3000g or is that not powerful enough