A bunch of super-duper important NAS questions

[Tomek20225]

Hi, guys!

I've recently became interested in networking stuff and NASs.

I've been thinking about setting up one in my house when it would be needed, but first things first. I have to know everything about it before it turns out to be a total waste.

 

1. Are prebuilt NASs any good? They're not that badly priced here in Poland.

 a) Do they have features that would make me consider it than one that I can build myself? Like, for example, accesing it wherever I am, not only in my house on whatever device I want?

 b) Can they be expanded easily?

 c) Are they easy to set up?

 d) Does connection appear only thanks to the company servers? You know what I mean, privacy stuff.

 

2. Software:

 a) What is the best OS to install on a NAS that I would build with my own hands?

 b) Can I install an OS on a flash drive and use it?

 

3. If I build a NAS on my own, can I use it via my phone etc.?

 

4. I have a 100Mb router and I have 10Mbps connection bought in Netia (1MB down, 100kB up). What trasfer speeds would I see when using NAS via home Wi-Fi (only one PC would probably be wired)?

 

5. Let's say that I buy a Gigabit router and upgrade my network by 100Mbps plan. What speeds would I see? Around 10x faster than in the last state? Would that be enough?

 

6. Can I do what Linus did on his video from the day before (10x your network speed), just with Gigabit Internet card in a NAS to achieve 100MBps transfer speeds between the NAS and a main rig connected to it?

 

7. What is the most optimal configuration for a NAS? RAID 0, 1, 5 or none (I'm too scrooge-y for that, especially when I don't need much space for it - it would be mostly for my parents to acces photos and movies quickly - I have 3,12TB in my own rig anyway).

 

8. Can I use a NAS on TV via the Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi?

 

9. Concluding:

 a) Is building or buying a NAS cost effective?

 b) Is all of that trouble and tinkering worth it?

 c) Woud you build one yourself?

 

(additional)

*10. Do you know a case that is Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX in which I can put 2-3 HDDs with these super brackets for sliding them in from front? Or an accesory that let's me do it?

 

Please, answer everything I asked. It's really important to me and you are the only ones that I can trust!

 

Huge thanks in advance!

Thomas

[Samfisher]

1. Prebuilt NASs can be fine, depends on what kind of use cases you are looking for.  There's no such thing as expendability.  You get a set amount of bays and that's it.  Easy to setup.

 

2. FreeNAS is frequently recommended

 

3. Sure, why not.

 

4. Internet speeds do not determine your transfer speeds in the intranet.  Data never leaves your home so even with no internet you can still use it.

 

5. See above.

 

6. Yes

 

7. If you have 4 drives minimum, RAID 10.

 

8. If your TV can read from the ethernet source, then yes.

 

9. Building is more worth it, and frequently cheaper or the same price for vastly improved CPU resources, which you can use to run other stuff on as well.

 

10. No idea.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1.

a) They often come with the vendor's software that allows you to access it over a web interface. They tend to be clunky and slow, though, so a lot people don't use the vendor's software.

 

b) Depends on the model. Some cannot be expanded, while others have more drive bays that you can put more drives into. Compared to a built one, they're not as friendly to expansion. 

 

c) Yes. They're mostly plug and play. 

 

d) No. AFAIK, no pre-built NAS has connections that go through the company's servers, other than software updates, maybe. 

2.

a) FreeNAS is a popular choice. There's tons of apps and support for it, due to the large community. 

b) Depends on the OS. Most (Including FreeNAS) can be run off a USB. 

 

3. It can be set up to be accessed from your phone, yes. 

4. Theoretically, you would see a maximum of 100Mbps over your local network if you're using the router as a switch (plugged directly into it) and it only supports up to 100Mbps. However, when you consider in performance overhead and interference issues of WiFi, you'd likely see speeds closer to 80Mbps. 

5. You would theoretically get 1Gbps over the local network. Have to factor in the same issues with WiFi, though. 

A note on 4 and 5: Your internet speed does not affect your local transfer speeds. You could still use the NAS on a local network without any internet connection. The only time it would affect the speeds is when accessing the NAS from outside the network, over the internet. In which case, you would be limited to your data plan's upload speed. 

6. Yes. If you had a Gigabit NIC in both the NAS and a PC you want to connect, then you should be able to get a Gigabit connection between them. Connecting them both to a Gigabit switch would also work, but if it's just one PC that will be wired, then there's not much point in going for a switch. 

7. RAID 5 is a good option for a NAS. Ideally with 4+ drives. It's a good middle ground that offers speed, redundancy and capacity (doesn't half capacity like some RAID modes do). If you're not fussed about redundancy, and want the drives to combine capacity, then you could go for a JBOD (NOT RAID 0), which combines the capacity of the drives, but you only lose the data on the drive that fails, rather than all data like you would in RAID 0. RAID 10 could also be an option (minimum of 4 drives), but it's not exactly cost effective when compared to RAID 5. 

 

8. If your TV supports DNLA streaming, then yes. If not, you can get media players that support DNLA or UPnP that can stream from the NAS and output to the TV. 

9. 

a) It depends on your requirements. If you're literally just wanting a device to store files like photos, music, documents and such, then buying one can work out cheaper. If you want a streaming device that will be accessed by multiple users, and is going to be streaming 1080p + video, then building is worth it. The CPU in the pre-mades is a big limiting factor if you're planning on running a media server like Plex on the NAS. When building, you can add in ECC RAM (and a board and CPU that support it) to lower the chances of data corruption and crashing. It does cost more, though. 

b) Again, it depends on your usage. Building one gives you more freedom to do what you want with it. Easier upgrades, more features on OS like FreeNAS and so on. 

c) I would personally build one myself. Something like an i3 4170, 16GB ECC RAM, cheap server board that supports ECC and however many WD Red drives. 

10. None that I know of. You can get adapters that allow you to use 3.5" drives in 5.25" bays, but most boards aren't hot-swappable, so you'd have to turn to system off when switching a drive, which defeats the purpose of quick drive changes, anyway. Most mITX cases don't use 5.25" bays at all now, so you'd have to take off the side panels anyway. 

[LAwLz]

25 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

1. Are prebuilt NASs any good? They're not that badly priced here in Poland.

 a) Do they have features that would make me consider it than one that I can build myself? Like, for example, accesing it wherever I am, not only in my house on whatever device I want?

 b) Can they be expanded easily?

 c) Are they easy to set up?

 d) Does connection appear only thanks to the company servers? You know what I mean, privacy stuff.

1. It depends on what you want from it.

a/b/c) A prebuilt NAS has the benefits of being smaller and tidier than building it yourself. They are also easier to setup. The drawbacks are that they are far more limited. You can't run whichever software you want on it (like maybe you want to host a server on it as well) and you won't be able to upgrade it with more drives later.

d) I don't really know what you mean with question D. I can connect to my NAS without going through NetGear's servers.

 

30 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

2. Software:

 a) What is the best OS to install on a NAS that I would build with my own hands?

 b) Can I install an OS on a flash drive and use it?

a) If you build the NAS yourself then it depends on what you want from it. You could just run Windows if you wanted that. The benefit is that you will be able to run for example game servers on it as well with ease. If you want something more NAS oriented then FreeNAS is very popular and offers some very nice features.

2) Depends on the OS (FreeNAS can) but it is not recommended. You should just install the OS.

 

35 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

3. If I build a NAS on my own, can I use it via my phone etc.?

You mean access the files? Yes, and you can do that with a prebuilt as well. Although, it depends on what app you are using. For example on my Galaxy phone the stock file explorer did not support it, but ES File Explorer does.

 

37 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

4. I have a 100Mb router and I have 10Mbps connection bought in Netia (1MB down, 100kB up). What trasfer speeds would I see when using NAS via home Wi-Fi (only one PC would probably be wired)?

Your transfer rates would be terrible. You basically need gigabit for your NAS. Your Internet connection speed won't affect anything though (unless you are for example at school and access your NAS). While you are at home no traffic will leave your local network. For example I get about 120MBps when I access my NAS from my desktop. 120MBps is about 1000Mbps (notice the small B). I do not have a 1000Mbps Internet connection.

 

In your case you would get about 10MBps since you got a 100Mbps router that you will connect it to. Do not connect your NAS wirelessly. Your speeds will be even worse if you do that. You want a gigabit router, and connect the NAS with wire. What speed you will get to for example your phone entirely depends on what WiFi you got. It might be really fast, or it might be very bad.

 

42 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

5. Let's say that I buy a Gigabit router and upgrade my network by 100Mbps plan. What speeds would I see? Around 10x faster than in the last state? Would that be enough?

Upgrading the router alone would increase your local transfer speed by about 10x. Upgrading your router would not affect the transfer speed while you are for example at school though.

Upgrading your Internet connection to the 100Mbps plan would increase your transfer speed by 10x when you for example access your NAS while at school. Upgrading your plan would not affect the transfer speed while you are at home though. Please bear in mind that it is your UPLOAD speed that will matter in this case. Just upgrading your download speed will not make transferring files from your home to school any faster.

 

Whether or not it is "enough" depends on what you want to do and what hardware you got. I am satisfied with my 120MBps local transfer speed. My NAS can handle more, but going above 1Gbps is kind of a pain. My upload speed is 100Mbps which means that while I am for example at school I get a download speed of about 10MBps. That's fine with me as well.

 

 

48 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

6. Can I do what Linus did on his video from the day before (10x your network speed), just with Gigabit Internet card in a NAS to achieve 100MBps transfer speeds between the NAS and a main rig connected to it?

You can get 100MBps transfer speed with just a gigabit network card and a gigabit switch (or router). No need to do all the stuff Linus did. The NAS you end up getting (prebuilt or not) will most likely have gigabit Ethernet anyway so as long as your network gear supports it, you will get 100MBps transfer speeds (LOCALLY) without doing anything special.

 

51 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

7. What is the most optimal configuration for a NAS? RAID 0, 1, 5 or none (I'm too scrooge-y for that, especially when I don't need much space for it - it would be mostly for my parents to acces photos and movies quickly - I have 3,12TB in my own rig anyway).

Depends on the number of drives and what you want to achieve.

I got 4 drives and use RAID 5. That means that I get good read speeds (bottlenecked by my gigabit connection), alright write speeds (not that important for me) and one drive can die without any data being lost.

So out of my four 2TB drives I got 6TB of usable storage.

 

54 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

8. Can I use a NAS on TV via the Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi?

Depends entirely on your TV. It might, but don't count on it.

 

 

The problem with a lot of your questions is that you can't generalize like that. You need to state budget, what options you got, what you are going to use it for, how many drives you got, what your network looks like etc.

[Tomek20225]

21 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

1.

a) They often come with the vendor's software that allows you to access it over a web interface. They tend to be clunky and slow, though, so a lot people don't use the vendor's software.

 

b) Depends on the model. Some cannot be expanded, while others have more drive bays that you can put more drives into. Compared to a built one, they're not as friendly to expansion. 

 

c) Yes. They're mostly plug and play. 

 

d) No. AFAIK, no pre-built NAS has connections that go through the company's servers, other than software updates, maybe. 

2.

a) FreeNAS is a popular choice. There's tons of apps and support for it, due to the large community. 

b) Depends on the OS. Most (Including FreeNAS) can be run off a USB. 

 

3. It can be set up to be accessed from your phone, yes. 

4. Theoretically, you would see a maximum of 100Mbps over your local network if you're using the router as a switch (plugged directly into it) and it only supports up to 100Mbps. However, when you consider in performance overhead and interference issues of WiFi, you'd likely see speeds closer to 80Mbps. 

5. You would theoretically get 1Gbps over the local network. Have to factor in the same issues with WiFi, though. 

A note on 4 and 5: Your internet speed does not affect your local transfer speeds. You could still use the NAS on a local network without any internet connection. The only time it would affect the speeds is when accessing the NAS from outside the network, over the internet. In which case, you would be limited to your data plan's upload speed. 

6. Yes. If you had a Gigabit NIC in both the NAS and a PC you want to connect, then you should be able to get a Gigabit connection between them. Connecting them both to a Gigabit switch would also work, but if it's just one PC that will be wired, then there's not much point in going for a switch. 

7. RAID 5 is a good option for a NAS. Ideally with 4+ drives. It's a good middle ground that offers speed, redundancy and capacity (doesn't half capacity like some RAID modes do). If you're not fussed about redundancy, and want the drives to combine capacity, then you could go for a JBOD (NOT RAID 0), which combines the capacity of the drives, but you only lose the data on the drive that fails, rather than all data like you would in RAID 0. RAID 10 could also be an option (minimum of 4 drives), but it's not exactly cost effective when compared to RAID 5. 

 

8. If your TV supports DNLA streaming, then yes. If not, you can get media players that support DNLA or UPnP that can stream from the NAS and output to the TV. 

9. 

a) It depends on your requirements. If you're literally just wanting a device to store files like photos, music, documents and such, then buying one can work out cheaper. If you want a streaming device that will be accessed by multiple users, and is going to be streaming 1080p + video, then building is worth it. The CPU in the pre-mades is a big limiting factor if you're planning on running a media server like Plex on the NAS. When building, you can add in ECC RAM (and a board and CPU that support it) to lower the chances of data corruption and crashing. It does cost more, though. 

b) Again, it depends on your usage. Building one gives you more freedom to do what you want with it. Easier upgrades, more features on OS like FreeNAS and so on. 

c) I would personally build one myself. Something like an i3 4170, 16GB ECC RAM, cheap server board that supports ECC and however many WD Red drives. 

10. None that I know of. You can get adapters that allow you to use 3.5" drives in 5.25" bays, but most boards aren't hot-swappable, so you'd have to turn to system off when switching a drive, which defeats the purpose of quick drive changes, anyway. Most mITX cases don't use 5.25" bays at all now, so you'd have to take off the side panels anyway. 

 

47 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

1. Prebuilt NASs can be fine, depends on what kind of use cases you are looking for.  There's no such thing as expendability.  You get a set amount of bays and that's it.  Easy to setup.

 

2. FreeNAS is frequently recommended

 

3. Sure, why not.

 

4. Internet speeds do not determine your transfer speeds in the intranet.  Data never leaves your home so even with no internet you can still use it.

 

5. See above.

 

6. Yes

 

7. If you have 4 drives minimum, RAID 10.

 

8. If your TV can read from the ethernet source, then yes.

 

9. Building is more worth it, and frequently cheaper or the same price for vastly improved CPU resources, which you can use to run other stuff on as well.

 

10. No idea.

Thank you guys so much!  That was really helpful.

Only few more questions and you're free from me:

 

1. A NAS with a Pentium G2220 (or something like that - it is dual core, 3-ish Ghz and has a built-in GPU), 4GB of RAM, ITX form factor and 2x2TB Seagate drives in JBOD and somewhat Gigabit card (if needed) should be good for streaming SD-HD media over Wi-Fi and storing files like movies and photos? Maybe for around 1-2 (usually 1) at the time?

 

2. So, if my data plan doesn't matter, then a 100Mbps router would let me transfer files at 100Mbps over wired connection and how many over Wi-Fi? 10 or 100-ish? Please, keep in mind that I wouldn't use Ram Disk like Linus.

 

3. Going with the logic above, a gigabit router with gigabit wired connection would let me to transfer files at 1Gb/s?

 

4. How exactly would streaming to a phone look like? What would I have to set up?

 

5. How to set up a FreeNAS NAS?  Install FreeNAS on that rig and... what?

 

6. A NAS should be turned on 24/7 or should I turn it off when it's not being used, or for nights at least? Would having them turned on and not used cause an unnececessary wear on the drives?

 

7. A NAS, after being set up, requires a monitor, keyboard etc.? I just turn it on with a button and everything works?

[Tomek20225]

28 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

1. It depends on what you want from it.

a/b/c) A prebuilt NAS has the benefits of being smaller and tidier than building it yourself. They are also easier to setup. The drawbacks are that they are far more limited. You can't run whichever software you want on it (like maybe you want to host a server on it as well) and you won't be able to upgrade it with more drives later.

d) I don't really know what you mean with question D. I can connect to my NAS without going through NetGear's servers.

 

a) If you build the NAS yourself then it depends on what you want from it. You could just run Windows if you wanted that. The benefit is that you will be able to run for example game servers on it as well with ease. If you want something more NAS oriented then FreeNAS is very popular and offers some very nice features.

2) Depends on the OS (FreeNAS can) but it is not recommended. You should just install the OS.

 

You mean access the files? Yes, and you can do that with a prebuilt as well. Although, it depends on what app you are using. For example on my Galaxy phone the stock file explorer did not support it, but ES File Explorer does.

 

Your transfer rates would be terrible. You basically need gigabit for your NAS. Your Internet connection speed won't affect anything though (unless you are for example at school and access your NAS). While you are at home no traffic will leave your local network. For example I get about 120MBps when I access my NAS from my desktop. 120MBps is about 1000Mbps (notice the small B). I do not have a 1000Mbps Internet connection.

 

In your case you would get about 10MBps since you got a 100Mbps router that you will connect it to. Do not connect your NAS wirelessly. Your speeds will be even worse if you do that. You want a gigabit router, and connect the NAS with wire. What speed you will get to for example your phone entirely depends on what WiFi you got. It might be really fast, or it might be very bad.

 

Upgrading the router alone would increase your local transfer speed by about 10x. Upgrading your router would not affect the transfer speed while you are for example at school though.

Upgrading your Internet connection to the 100Mbps plan would increase your transfer speed by 10x when you for example access your NAS while at school. Upgrading your plan would not affect the transfer speed while you are at home though. Please bear in mind that it is your UPLOAD speed that will matter in this case. Just upgrading your download speed will not make transferring files from your home to school any faster.

 

Whether or not it is "enough" depends on what you want to do and what hardware you got. I am satisfied with my 120MBps local transfer speed. My NAS can handle more, but going above 1Gbps is kind of a pain. My upload speed is 100Mbps which means that while I am for example at school I get a download speed of about 10MBps. That's fine with me as well.

 

 

You can get 100MBps transfer speed with just a gigabit network card and a gigabit switch (or router). No need to do all the stuff Linus did. The NAS you end up getting (prebuilt or not) will most likely have gigabit Ethernet anyway so as long as your network gear supports it, you will get 100MBps transfer speeds (LOCALLY) without doing anything special.

 

Depends on the number of drives and what you want to achieve.

I got 4 drives and use RAID 5. That means that I get good read speeds (bottlenecked by my gigabit connection), alright write speeds (not that important for me) and one drive can die without any data being lost.

So out of my four 2TB drives I got 6TB of usable storage.

 

Depends entirely on your TV. It might, but don't count on it.

 

 

The problem with a lot of your questions is that you can't generalize like that. You need to state budget, what options you got, what you are going to use it for, how many drives you got, what your network looks like etc.

Thank you! That ansewered a lot of my concerns.

I'm going to upgrade my data plan in the next year or two, so I may build a NAS then. A router is actually a tougher thing for me to upgrade, so let's stick to the version that I have the Netia Spot 100Mbps router and a 10MBps data plan.

So lets say that I build a NAS with it. What transfer speeds would I see over wired connection and Wi-Fi?

If you could answer my new questions in a post above I would be more than happy, but you have already done a lot for me!

[LAwLz]

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

1. A NAS with a Pentium G2220 (or something like that - it is dual core, 3-ish Ghz and has a built-in GPU), 4GB of RAM, ITX form factor and 2x2TB Seagate drives in JBOD and somewhat Gigabit card (if needed) should be good for streaming SD-HD media over Wi-Fi and storing files like movies and photos? Maybe for around 1-2 (usually 1) at the time?

The gigabit NIC is probably not needed since the motherboard probably has gigabit network on it anyway.

And yes, it will be enough. It might struggle a bit if you want to run something like Plex, but I would recommend against that anyway (better to just stream the original file).

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

2. So, if my data plan doesn't matter, then a 100Mbps router would let me transfer files at 100Mbps over wired connection and how many over Wi-Fi? 10 or 100-ish? Please, keep in mind that I wouldn't use Ram Disk like Linus.

Yes, it would transfer files at about 100Mbps locally (which will be around 12MBps). That's pretty slow though. Like I said, in my NAS I get bottlenecked with gigabit, and that's 10x the speed you would get on your 100Mbps connection. I mean, it will be usable but it will also be noticeable that you are being bottlenecked heavily by your network. At least when you are transferring large files to and from your NAS (like when you put the videos onto it).

It should not impact the performance when you stream videos and watch photos though, unless you do it to several units at once.

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

3. Going with the logic above, a gigabit router with gigabit wired connection would let me to transfer files at 1Gb/s?

Locally, yes.

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

4. How exactly would streaming to a phone look like? What would I have to set up?

It depends on how you configure it. I can make a video how it looks for me (don't have time to do it right now though, but it basically just acts as a regular folder).

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

5. How to set up a FreeNAS NAS?  Install FreeNAS on that rig and... what?

Depends entirely on what you want to do. You could probably install it in a VM first and try it out if you are worried.

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

6. A NAS should be turned on 24/7 or should I turn it off when it's not being used, or for nights at least? Would having them turned on and not used cause an unnececessary wear on the drives?

I got mine turned on 24/7. The drives spin down once I haven't accessed it in 2 hours, but the NAS itself is always on.

 

34 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

7. A NAS, after being set up, requires a monitor, keyboard etc.? I just turn it on with a button and everything works?

Once it is configured, it won't need anything. You just turn it on and it works (again, once it is configured).

[Guest]

@Tomek20225

 

1. Prebuilt NAS's can be really top notch - I replaced my 20 bay custom Supermicro server with a 4 bay QNAP. For the following answers, I am talking about QNAP & Synology units. A) They're more flexible - easy remote file sharing via share links, multiple user accounts, easy remote access (simply enable remote access to port 8080. B) Expansion depends on the model - the OS on both of them certainly supports expansion - just depends on the drive bays. Most of the 4+ bay options will support an expansion unit however usually they're not cheap. You can also simply move the drives from one NAS to a bigger NAS as long as you keep the drive order the same: bay 1> bay 1, bay 2> bay 2 etc. C) Easier to set up than anything Windows or Linux as they're resigned as a retail product. They'll have wizards to guide you through most basic things. D) Not too sure what you mean.
2. I personally would look into Server 2012 Essentials. There are cheap/free alternatives including a variety of Linux distros however my preference would be 2012 R2 Essentials.
3. That depends on the phone and what you want to do. Plex can be run to share videos to mobile devices (transcoded on server, streamed as HTTPS (TBC). A personal cloud can be setup through something like OwnCloud (complex setup) Synology & QNAP both have their own mobile apps which are simple.
4. Can't really say. Would be the same speed as if you were to move a file from one PC to another internally at the moment. 
5. Again, it depends on the internal connections. If you've got two internal wired connections, one being the server and the other being a PC, you would see max throughput of ~112MB/s as this is the limitation of gigabit. Wireless speeds can't be quoted as it's subject to the environment (temperature, humidity, interference, radio types, building layout)
6. Yes but I would highly recommend against it - simply get a router that is gigabit capable.
7. Have a detailed look into RAID types. 0 is not redundant but has increased write speed. 1 has redundancy, no increase in write speed however from memory I think there is a read speed increase. RAID 5 gives 1 disk redundancy however has a very slow rebuild time - capacity is n-1, where n = number of drives. RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5 where capacity is N-2. RAID 10 is 2 x RAID 0 arrays running in RAID 1. Capacity is n/2.
8. Depends on the TV. Most smart TV's have Plex apps and can load a variety of media streams. 
9. As I said, I originally went custom built - started with a basic PC case, moved to the DS380 (8x3.5" ITX hot swap) then to a 3U Supermicro server. Concluded that the power cost was too high, the thing was noisey or had heat issues (DS380 & LSI controller). The QNAP was a simpler solution that is flexible with a mixed Mac OS/Windows 8 environment here. 
10. The DS380 is probably what you're looking for. Just keep in mind that if you use a dedicated RAID controller or HBA in it like I did, you'll need some good cooling. The other alternative is just buy 5.25" to 3.5" hot swap bays. ICY BOX/ICY DOCK do some really good ones. 

 

In summary, for ease of use a prebuilt is probably a better bet. You are locked with the CPU choice however the RAM can usually be upgraded. Benefit is that the OS is well supported, a huge range of applications, really nice UI and highly flexible. Synology and QNAP both have online demos if you want to take a look through their OS. 

[Tomek20225]

Thank you all so much! I wish I could give you all the "Best Answer" mark!

As I expected, you were really kind, fast, helpful and trustworthy as always!

Just one last thing. What exactly is Plex and do you recommend it? I got a little confused on that, but the rest is perfectly fine

[LAwLz]

Here is the video of how it looks on my tablet and phone. It's just like a regular folder. It works just like a regular folder on my desktop as well. I don't know how it will work on for example an iPhone, but there should be some app that works similarly.

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Tomek20225 said:

Just one last thing. What exactly is Plex and do you recommend it? I got a little confused on that, but the rest is perfectly fine

Plex is a media server program. It is different from what I (and did in the video) in a few ways.

1) You need Plex running on both your NAS and your device. Your NAS will act as a server and your device will act as a client.

2) It will give you a very pretty GUI which lists all your videos with thumbnails and other info on for example your phone. So instead of the boring icons you saw in my video, you could see for example the logo of the movie.

3) The server will transcode the original video file into a format that suits the device you are playing it on.

 

The last part is what I don't like. The Plex server will transcode the original video into a format the device you want to play the video on supports. For example if you got a 10bit file and want to play it on a device which only supports 8bit color depth, the Plex server will transcode it for you, on the fly. It will also automatically adjust the quality of the video so that it won't have to stop and buffer. The drawback is that the quality of the video is lower, and you will need a more powerful NAS.

Personally I like my video files to be untouched when I stream them. If a video has a bit rate of 10Mbps then I actually want to watch the 10Mbps video, not a 5Mbps version of it because Plex decided to lower the quality. But that's just me, some people will like that.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, Tomek20225 said:

Thank you all so much! I wish I could give you all the "Best Answer" mark!

As I expected, you were really kind, fast, helpful and trustworthy as always!

Just one last thing. What exactly is Plex and do you recommend it? I got a little confused on that, but the rest is perfectly fine

Plex is a media server - it runs on either Windows, Linux or I believe OSX. It will catalog movies and TV shows and pull trailers, cover art and reviews from sources that you can either leave as default (things like IMDB) or you can manually tailor depending on what best suits your content (hollywood, bollywood, anime).

 

You can then run the Plex app on any OS and log into your account, see your Plex server(s) and watch content from them. By default Plex is set to transcode the file on the server however if you're watching from a desktop PC or NUC/mini PC, you can have the client do the transcoding rather than the server.

 

Plex Pass gives you the ability to run multiple 'accounts' under one master (paid) account - really useful if you've got multiple people in the house that you want to have only access certain content and keep track of their own watched/unwatched/halfway through content. This is because Plex will track what has and hasn't been watched, which epsidode you're up to in your favourite TV show or where you are in a movie.

 

It's the simplest way I've found to have remote access from outside of the network without doing samba shares via VPN. My parents and a few friends can access their Plex accounts and stream remotely from my server - they're just limited by my internet upload speed however I'm on fibre so it's fine.

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

 

 

The last part is what I don't like. The Plex server will transcode the original video into a format the device you want to play the video on supports. For example if you got a 10bit file and want to play it on a device which only supports 8bit color depth, the Plex server will transcode it for you, on the fly. It will also automatically adjust the quality of the video so that it won't have to stop and buffer. The drawback is that the quality of the video is lower, and you will need a more powerful NAS.

Personally I like my video files to be untouched when I stream them. If a video has a bit rate of 10Mbps then I actually want to watch the 10Mbps video, not a 5Mbps version of it because Plex decided to lower the quality. But that's just me, some people will like that.

This can be changed in settings - simply stream at original quality.

[Tomek20225]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Here is the video of how it looks on my tablet and phone. It's just like a regular folder. It works just like a regular folder on my desktop as well. I don't know how it will work on for example an iPhone, but there should be some app that works similarly.

 

 

 

 

Plex is a media server program. It is different from what I (and did in the video) in a few ways.

1) You need Plex running on both your NAS and your device. Your NAS will act as a server and your device will act as a client.

2) It will give you a very pretty GUI which lists all your videos with thumbnails and other info on for example your phone. So instead of the boring icons you saw in my video, you could see for example the logo of the movie.

3) The server will transcode the original video file into a format that suits the device you are playing it on.

 

The last part is what I don't like. The Plex server will transcode the original video into a format the device you want to play the video on supports. For example if you got a 10bit file and want to play it on a device which only supports 8bit color depth, the Plex server will transcode it for you, on the fly. It will also automatically adjust the quality of the video so that it won't have to stop and buffer. The drawback is that the quality of the video is lower, and you will need a more powerful NAS.

Personally I like my video files to be untouched when I stream them. If a video has a bit rate of 10Mbps then I actually want to watch the 10Mbps video, not a 5Mbps version of it because Plex decided to lower the quality. But that's just me, some people will like that.

 

6 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

Plex is a media server - it runs on either Windows, Linux or I believe OSX. It will catalog movies and TV shows and pull trailers, cover art and reviews from sources that you can either leave as default (things like IMDB) or you can manually tailor depending on what best suits your content (hollywood, bollywood, anime).

 

You can then run the Plex app on any OS and log into your account, see your Plex server(s) and watch content from them. By default Plex is set to transcode the file on the server however if you're watching from a desktop PC or NUC/mini PC, you can have the client do the transcoding rather than the server.

 

Plex Pass gives you the ability to run multiple 'accounts' under one master (paid) account - really useful if you've got multiple people in the house that you want to have only access certain content and keep track of their own watched/unwatched/halfway through content. This is because Plex will track what has and hasn't been watched, which epsidode you're up to in your favourite TV show or where you are in a movie.

 

It's the simplest way I've found to have remote access from outside of the network without doing samba shares via VPN. My parents and a few friends can access their Plex accounts and stream remotely from my server - they're just limited by my internet upload speed however I'm on fibre so it's fine.

This can be changed in settings - simply stream at original quality.

 

Thanks, guys!  You're so awesome!

Now I know pretty much everything I need.

A NAS with FreeNAS seems cool, but I may think about it when my dad comes from England and it will be useful for my family, not just me. Another thing is that my router and data plan kinda constrains me.

A Plex server isn't bad at all, exept that one huge thing - transcoding. I don't want a NAS that I would pay as much as for my rig.

Thanks again for all the answers and a video!

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Tomek20225 said:

 

 

Thanks, guys!  You're so awesome!

Now I know pretty much everything I need.

A NAS with FreeNAS seems cool, but I may think about it when my dad comes from England and it will be useful for my family, not just me. Another thing is that my router and data plan kinda constrains me.

A Plex server isn't bad at all, exept that one huge thing - transcoding. I don't want a NAS that I would pay as much as for my rig.

Thanks again for all the answers and a video!

Transcoding doesn't really take thaaat much power. A $200~ pentium based system (for everything but the drives) can handle two transcoded 1080p streams and a $260~ i3 based system can handle about four streams*. Plus you can also do direct stream to supported devices and let the devices do the transcoding.

 

 

*My plex numbers are based off of experience with high bitrate bluray rips that are on my FreeNAS server, so if you're running plex on a different platform then your mileage may vary a bit in the number of transcoded clients (maybe one less due to windows overhead...or maybe no difference at all).