NAS/Plex setup

[ridgway90]

Hi Guys,

Trying to get myself 'properly' setup with a local NAS and Plex setup.

Currently I am going between Windows server setup and Ubuntu server and generally do transfers with FTP.

I have 2x 3TB drives and 1x 2TB all individual and formatted NTFS (I am aware I need RAID 100% and will be done when I can afford a bunch more storage)

 

Basically, I want some advice on how I should best setup, I am more comfortable with Windows and can get a license from work no problem but Ubuntu seems to have more stability for the Plex side.

 

Any help is very much appreciated :)

[jaslion]

Skip raid and go for zfs if possible.

 

As for what you need. Well any operating system is fine as long as it can file share. Don't use ftp protocol to transfer files over the internet it's beyond unsafe.

 

What hardware will you be using other than the drives?

[ridgway90]

OK cool, need to very much brush up on ZFS before I start messing

 

My ftp is setup with TLS, not just plain ftp

 

got 2 old Fujitsu desktops, a pretty much new desktop and an old Dell T420

 

any thoughts on the Plex plugin within TrueNAS?

[jde3]

FTP is quite an old protocol and it's always had problems. So much so FreeBSD built the entire concept of OS containers because running ftpd (and sendmail) was such a problem for security.

 

I'd suggest rsync and open-sshd's implementation of SFTP. (to avoid confusion for people TLS wrapped FTP is called FTPS however SFTP isn't FTP at all but a module in SSH) - rsync can run over ssh on any system with it installed and it is the superior transfer method being that it is a transactional delta copy, so you can be sure your file was transferred correctly.

 

If you are using windows, (eww) It has native SSH as well.. Microsoft added it.. and of course they suck powershell on there because they can't do anything good without tainting it.. but it'll work for this. I *think* windows people have discovered rsync as well but you never know.. they do seem to enjoy their corrupt files there.. It's been a thing for 25 years in the unix world.

 

Ubuntu can install native ZFS although it is under the experimental options in the installer. When it does so it only does it on one disk but you can convert a single volume into a disk array easily enough.

[ridgway90]

Cool, FTP on its way out once I get probably rsync setup nicely, ive had to use it at work years ago so at least ive opened it haha

 

Has anyone had experience with the Plex plugin for TrueNAS? ive got my login down ok installing plex onto ubuntu and pointing it to the disks but when i installed TrueNAS to play around and tried adding some test disks was a bit beyond myself at the time and was looking for some guidance of it being a good and smart option for myself before sinking a bunch of time into getting comfortable with a new product.

 

Also just found a decent deal on some new drives, what ZFS setup would you recommend and i was looking at getting maybe 3 or 4 drives?

Data security isnt a massive concern as all the data will be able to be redone or refound but also not wanting to smash out a RAID0 array haha

[voyager_]

52 minutes ago, ridgway90 said:

Has anyone had experience with the Plex plugin for TrueNAS?

Not much experience with TrueNas but you may want to check to see if it supports using ram as a transcode directory and GPU transcoding. While most local streams will direct play depending on the devices and original content file type if you want to be able to remote stream thranscoding can have a big impact on system performance. I have mine running in an unraid docker with a quadro k2200 ($100 on ebay), set to transcode to ram, and plex/other dockers locker to the cache drive for thumbnails and etc... This makes a big difference in cpu usage, and response time when loading a bunch of icons when browsing media. Ram transcoding also just helps save some wear and tear on drives over time.

 

Sorry not much help on the TrueNas side, just some stuff i've found that really helps plex perform better. I have heard great things about TrueNAS, I just went for Unraid because of the drive configuration and I don't need the read/write speed TrueNAS can offer.

[ridgway90]

hmm, now leaning towards truenas, getting 3 new drives and putting into RAIDZ

Lets me play around with docker containers and VMs which is always a bonus

 

Very interested in setting up a cache drive as im starting to hit slowdowns, any guides on how to do this? (and yes I have Googled, im just lost already  )