NAS for Plex (No Transcoding)

[SwiiftYz]

I best start off with mentioning the fact that I'm a complete novice when It comes to Network Attached Storage, this is my first time looking at any of it and trying to make sense of it. I currently run a Plex server from my PC which hosts MKV & MP4 files only and I have an Xbox One & Chromecast that I stream to daily, at the moment transcoding is done to the Chromecast as it doesn't support MKV but I'm looking for a new device to stream to in place of this. What I would like to do is have a simple two bay NAS that supports Plex and can host all my media for me and act as a server. 

Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

[Murdoch]

Synology would be a good place to start. I run Plex, Serviio (DLNA server) and a Subsonic Music server, all work perfectly on Synology.

 

Also, Chromecast supports MKV, it just doesn't have very good audio support so plex has to transcode DTS audio or AC3. My NAS always delivers direct video, but encodes the audio into an acceptable format it not supported, which is quite a low load on the NAS's CPU.

[SwiiftYz]

1 minute ago, Murdoch said:

Synology would be a good place to start. I run Plex, Serviio (DLNA server) and a Subsonic Music server, all work perfectly on Synology.

 

Also, Chromecast supports MKV, it just doesn't have very good audio support so plex has to transcode DTS audio or AC3. My NAS always delivers direct video, but encodes the audio into an acceptable format it not supported, which is quite a low load on the NAS's CPU.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

What I'd read a moment ago was that the Chromecast doesn't support MKV but if that's the case I'll just not invest in the replacement for the CC then. If I were to purchase this Synology NAS would this be fine to stream to both the Chromecast & Xbox One at the same time with no issues?

[paddy-stone]

Loads of choices for a pre-build NAS 2 bay, synology are suppoesd to be good, but quite pricey IMO.

 

The main reason I replied to the thread is about the media player,.. I definitely recommend the MX64, similar to the MXQ but this one supports 4k output and x265 HEVC files as well as the standard Mkv/Mp4 etc etc... I used to have the MXQ and now have the MX64 which is android based, and I use kodi as the video player on my 4k 55" TV and the picture including upscaling is excellent, even on SD content (of course this does depend on the panel the TV has etc also). It plays everything, and being android you can also use it for many other things other than media player too... if you're at all interested and want to know more about it anytime I would be glad to share my experiences and/or test out something specific you have in mind too I don't get on with the chromecast to be honest it is way sub-standard picture wise for me and has very poor file support, the MX64 that I bought cost me approx £42 delivered from China is all.

[Murdoch]

5 minutes ago, SwiiftYz said:

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

What I'd read a moment ago was that the Chromecast doesn't support MKV but if that's the case I'll just not invest in the replacement for the CC then. If I were to purchase this Synology NAS would this be fine to stream to both the Chromecast & Xbox One at the same time with no issues?

 

Actually, I think you could be right that it doesn't actually support MKV. But okay, lets put it this way, with a h.264 video stream and a DTS audio stream in an MKV container, Plex will only have to transcode the audio stream for compatibility. I just checked the load on my PC when streaming a Bluray MKV rip to my Chromecast, and it wasn't transcoding the video.

 

I have the https://www.scan.co.uk/products/2-bay-synology-ds216play-nas-dual-core-15ghz-cpu-1gb-ram-gbe-usb-30-usb-20-2x-25-35-sata-upto-16gb-m

 

Which can handle multiple streams, but like I mentioned I only ever transcode audio. The best bet would be to search the synology model and Plex forums, to get an idea of performance.

[SwiiftYz]

8 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Loads of choices for a pre-build NAS 2 bay, synology are suppoesd to be good, but quite pricey IMO.

 

The main reason I replied to the thread is about the media player,.. I definitely recommend the MX64, similar to the MXQ but this one supports 4k output and x265 HEVC files as well as the standard Mkv/Mp4 etc etc... I used to have the MXQ and now have the MX64 which is android based, and I use kodi as the video player on my 4k 55" TV and the picture including upscaling is excellent, even on SD content (of course this does depend on the panel the TV has etc also). It plays everything, and being android you can also use it for many other things other than media player too... if you're at all interested and want to know more about it anytime I would be glad to share my experiences and/or test out something specific you have in mind too I don't get on with the chromecast to be honest it is way sub-standard picture wise for me and has very poor file support, the MX64 that I bought cost me approx £42 delivered from China is all.

I dropped you a message. 

 

1 minute ago, Murdoch said:

 

Actually, I think you could be right that it doesn't actually support MKV. But okay, lets put it this way, with a h.264 video stream and a DTS audio stream in an MKV container, Plex will only have to transcode the audio stream for compatibility. I just checked the load on my PC when streaming a Bluray MKV rip to my Chromecast, and it wasn't transcoding the video.

 

I have the https://www.scan.co.uk/products/2-bay-synology-ds216play-nas-dual-core-15ghz-cpu-1gb-ram-gbe-usb-30-usb-20-2x-25-35-sata-upto-16gb-m

 

Which can handle multiple streams, but like I mentioned I only ever transcode audio. The best bet would be to search the synology model and Plex forums, to get an idea of performance.

Thank you for the help. Unfortunately, that NAS is a little out of my price range but what I may do is just purchase the one I linked you and then If it doesn't live up to expectations sell it on or return it if I'm able to. I mean if it's only transcoding audio I would imagine I'd be fine with the one I linked you?

[Murdoch]

7 minutes ago, SwiiftYz said:

Thank you for the help. Unfortunately, that NAS is a little out of my price range but what I may do is just purchase the one I linked you and then If it doesn't live up to expectations sell it on or return it if I'm able to. I mean if it's only transcoding audio I would imagine I'd be fine with the one I linked you?

 

Hard to say, it's a weak cpu, I honestly don't know how it would cope with transcoding just the audio.

[SwiiftYz]

3 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Hard to say, it's a weak cpu, I honestly don't know how it would cope with transcoding just the audio.

I've ordered it anyway, I'll give it a shot and just see what happens. If It comes to it I'll order the one you linked instead.

[Murdoch]

2 minutes ago, SwiiftYz said:

I've ordered it anyway, I'll give it a shot and just see what happens. If It comes to it I'll order the one you linked instead.

 

Cool, I've followed the thread. Be sure to report back on how it goes.

[SwiiftYz]

49 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Cool, I've followed the thread. Be sure to report back on how it goes.

I will do, I'll post tomorrow evening when I've hopefully got it all setup and running ^^.

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, SwiiftYz said:

I dropped you a message. 

 

Thank you for the help. Unfortunately, that NAS is a little out of my price range but what I may do is just purchase the one I linked you and then If it doesn't live up to expectations sell it on or return it if I'm able to. I mean if it's only transcoding audio I would imagine I'd be fine with the one I linked you?

 

Pm'd you back mate... hope you like it, I find it very good indeed. If you have any trouble with setting it up or anything drop me a PM and I'll get back to you soon as I can.

[Mikensan]

You can adjust how much effort plex puts in to transcoding so if you have a weaker CPU it can keep up. I'm not sure if it's a plex-pass only feature but plex also lets you "optimize" videos (you can specify only 10 most recently added or 5 latest releases). 

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/213095317-Creating-Optimized-Versions

[SwiiftYz]

35 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

You can adjust how much effort plex puts in to transcoding so if you have a weaker CPU it can keep up. I'm not sure if it's a plex-pass only feature but plex also lets you "optimize" videos (you can specify only 10 most recently added or 5 latest releases). 

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/213095317-Creating-Optimized-Versions

 

I may just try that and leave it to optimize them all over time if that helps anything. However I don't see there being an issue If I replace the Chromecast too.

[SwiiftYz]

Update

 

I received my Synology DS215J today and have spent the past 6 hours setting things up and before anyone asks why so long? Because It's my first time doing anything NAS related and I'm taking it slow, making sure I get everything right and learn what I'm doing as I go along.

 

My main concern about the DS215J was that it wouldn't be able to stream MKV files to the Google Chromecast because of it's lack of support for the audio that would therefore need to be transcoded. After some initial trouble in Plex stating that the server wasn't powerful enough, I turned up the Wi-Fi quality on the Plex app (running from a Galaxy Note 3) and then from there, I've been able to stream MKV absolutely fine, no freezing, sync issues or anything. As I'm typing this, a 1GB MKV file is playing, there are files transfering from my PC across to the DS215J and also Plex is fetching metadata for some files I moved over earlier and still I don't seem to be experiencing any issues.

 

I'm left pleasantly surprised at the moment as I was expecting to have to pay more towards the £200 mark for what I was looking to do but at present the DS215J seems to handle streaming 2x 1080p or 720p MKV files just fine, even with some transcoding involved. 

 

I'd say It's worth picking one up If you're new to the NAS scene but otherwise.. I'd avoid it. For now though, I'm happy with my purchase. 

[SwiiftYz]

Update 2

 

I decided to throw another test at the DS215j last night, after the PMS has finished searching for all meta data I thought it was time to try stress testing it a little further. I decided to stream the most intensive MKV@720p I currently own/could think of at the time. This time however, no meta data stressing the NAS out and to THREE different devices this time. Unbelievably, the DS215j held up again. The stream ran 100% fine for all 3 devices, not a single hitch. I think the next test will be to see how many devices I can get it to stream to simultaneously before there starts being issues.  

[paddy-stone]

Yeah I managed 4 I think with the WD mycloud, all serving the same file, which was a 4GB blu-ray rip I made in x264 and mkv... 2 were wired connections and 2 were wireless. When I added another wireless one it stuttered, but the others played fine still for a while, when I truned the 5th pne off they all still played fine... I don't know however whether the limitation came from the router I had at the time which was just the one you get from the ISP, I have since bought a netgear nighthawk but didn't test again as it filled my requirements anyway with the 4 streams at once... TBH most of the time I only stream 1 device at a time, but wanted to see how much overhead I have for when I have guests.

[SwiiftYz]

Update 3

 

This will be the last update as I've spent the past 2/3 days rigorously testing the DS215j and seeing just how much it can handle, the answer? 3x 720p streams in MKV, anything past that and the whole thing just refuses to stream. Plex Media Server also seems to have a hard time even finding metadata without causing some kind of CPU problem on the DS215j as the usage goes up to 99% and stays there until a few minutes after.

 

I wouldn't recommend this NAS for streaming media, It's fine as storage but that's about all. 

[paxzeno]

Hi SwiftYz,

 

Can you please post your plex server config? My DS215J is always freezeing and pausing for loading any series or movies I'm playing, tried several combinations with no success, also please tell me the version of the plex server you are currently using?

 

Thanks so much,

Paxzeno