new to NAS

[Daan101]

HI,

I'm considering converting my main desktop into a nas since I had to buy a laptop for school and its just as powerful as the desktop but I have a few questions.

I'll start by giving you some context,

I want to use my nas for multiple things which are:

-auto downloading movies and series (torrent only, not Usenet)

-music server

-plex server

-personal cloud (this one is not to necessary),

 

So here are my questions for you

1) What operating system do you use for the server Windows or FreeNAS, I have windows 10 installed already so I wouldn't need to buy it.

2) If you have torrenting automated, how do you handle it (it would need to handle everything up to plex).

3) What do you use as music server.

4) What do you have set up for your personal cloud

 

I would really appreciate any help or information you can give me.

 

As for the Piracy rule, I know about it and was hoping this would not break that, in the case that it does, if a moderator feels that he/she needs to remove it feel free to do so and tell me.

[The Sloth]

2 minutes ago, Daan101 said:

HI,

I'm considering converting my main desktop into a nas since I had to buy a laptop for school and its just as powerful as the desktop but I have a few questions.

I'll start by giving you some context,

I want to use my nas for multiple things which are:

-auto downloading movies and series (torrent only, not Usenet)

-music server

-plex server

-personal cloud (this one is not to necessary),

 

So here are my questions for you

1) What operating system do you use for the server Windows or FreeNAS, I have windows 10 installed already so I wouldn't need to buy it.

2) If you have torrenting automated, how do you handle it (it would need to handle everything up to plex).

3) What do you use as music server.

4) What do you have set up for your personal cloud

 

I would really appreciate any help or information you can give me.

 

As for the Piracy rule, I know about it and was hoping this would not break that, in the case that it does, if a moderator feels that he/she needs to remove it feel free to do so and tell me.

 

buy a raspberry pi and make a nas with that just search up raspberry pi nas its cheap and easy.

[Daan101]

Just now, nerdslayer1 said:

buy a raspberry pi and make a nas with that just search up raspberry pi nas its cheap and easy.

The hardware is not my problem since I already have the laptop which is as good as my current desktop but thanks anyway

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Daan101 said:

The hardware is not my problem since I already have the laptop which is as good as my current desktop but thanks anyway

Id just leave windows on it, makes shares in explorer.

 

Install plex server

Install your ravorite torrent client, and you can use rss feeds to start the torrents

 

ftp server if you want that.

[Mikensan]

Couch potato will download series automagically. I've told Diluge (and uTorrent will do this too) to auto-start when it detects .torrent files in a specific folder. So I literally cherry-pick .torrents then just drag them over the network to said folder, and off it goes.

 

The pinned topic on this very sub-forum has statistics of what people are using for their NAS. If you enjoy tinkering and learning, I'd say go FreeNAS. If you want it dead simple, keep Windows. The top 2 ranked on the sticky thread are running windows.

 

The only issue I can think of is going from torrent > plex, because you get the occasional torrent with rars or samples which both are no bueno for plex. TV shows are probably the easiest to go from torrent > plex, just point plex to your TV shows download folder.

 

 

I think teaching somebody how to pirate or referring to pirate sites, is what is a no-no. Simply using the torrent software itself is fine since lot of companies offer a torrent download option.

[TLN]

There's no reason to keep similar desktop and laptop I think.

You can buy a dedicated NAS device, that's easiest way, and may be most pricey.

You can install something like FreeNAS or OpenmediaVault or other on your desktop and use it as NAS  device

You can install ESXi, and run FreeNAS/Openmediavault/etc inside and pass-through videocard = this gives you two independent OS (NAS + Desktop).

 

Personally, I'd go with second way: You're able to use it as before, but there's secure OS sharing your files.

[Daan101]

8 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Couch potato will download series automagically. I've told Diluge (and uTorrent will do this too) to auto-start when it detects .torrent files in a specific folder. So I literally cherry-pick .torrents then just drag them over the network to said folder, and off it goes.

 

The pinned topic on this very sub-forum has statistics of what people are using for their NAS. If you enjoy tinkering and learning, I'd say go FreeNAS. If you want it dead simple, keep Windows. The top 2 ranked on the sticky thread are running windows.

 

The only issue I can think of is going from torrent > plex, because you get the occasional torrent with rars or samples which both are no bueno for plex. TV shows are probably the easiest to go from torrent > plex, just point plex to your TV shows download folder.

 

 

I think teaching somebody how to pirate or referring to pirate sites, is what is a no-no. Simply using the torrent software itself is fine since lot of companies offer a torrent download option.

-Doesn't Couch potato do movies not series, but I get the point,

-I saw read the subforum OS thing, it was cool but not helpful as i'm still debating between the 2 most used ones, but I mainly but it up there for things that don't run on FreeNAS, but I think i'll go with windows 10 either way.

-I've never run into the rar thing before and believe me when I tell you I have downloaded a lot of them,

 and the only problem I am having with the torrent>plex thing is that my OCD requires everything sorted and not just all in one folder but I can handle that if I can get it in a folder where no program uses the file, so I unfortunatly don't seed since I don't want to keep 2 versions of the same file

 

thanks you helped me get on track

[Daan101]

18 minutes ago, TLN said:

There's no reason to keep similar desktop and laptop I think.

You can buy a dedicated NAS device, that's easiest way, and may be most pricey.

You can install something like FreeNAS or OpenmediaVault or other on your desktop and use it as NAS  device

You can install ESXi, and run FreeNAS/Openmediavault/etc inside and pass-through videocard = this gives you two independent OS (NAS + Desktop).

 

Personally, I'd go with second way: You're able to use it as before, but there's secure OS sharing your files.

As I said i my previous post I most likely am gonna go with windows.

and I don't plan on using the NAS for anything else than NAS purposes, I plan on selling the GPU that is currently in there to help fund the hard drives.

 

Thank you for your time and help

[Doramius]

Nice to see another Plex user.  FYI - you can use Plex with your music, too, if you didn't already know the feature was available.  All you really need to know is:

-does your system have the ability to RAID the drives you're going to install

-what type of RAID setups it will use

Some mainboards may lack a number of SATA ports for a RAID, or the ports aren't supported for a RAID configuration.  I also recommend getting NAS grade drives.  You don't have to get Enterprise NAS grade unless you're doing really large RAIDs of disks.  Desktop drives DO NOT handle the constant I/O of streaming data.  I've learned this the hard way years ago, trying to save a dollar.  Didn't save any money over it, and added tons more work and some lost data.  

 

Do you have some specs of the machine you're using, as this might help.  Your OS probably isn't going to matter at this point, as it sounds like you're starting out and fairly small. 

 

My Plex Server is running MS Server 2012 and I am now running independent NAS pachines to the server, rather than a RAID on the Server itself.  I found it easier as my collection grew.  I started out with 2TB, and I'm running nearly 40TB now.
 

Here's a link to some of the home setups I've done:

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/153844/various-plex-network-setups

 

  Feel free to post your Plex network setup, as I'd love to see how others stream their media.

[Daan101]

1 hour ago, Doramius said:

Nice to see another Plex user.  FYI - you can use Plex with your music, too, if you didn't already know the feature was available.  All you really need to know is:

-does your system have the ability to RAID the drives you're going to install

-what type of RAID setups it will use

Some mainboards may lack a number of SATA ports for a RAID, or the ports aren't supported for a RAID configuration.  I also recommend getting NAS grade drives.  You don't have to get Enterprise NAS grade unless you're doing really large RAIDs of disks.  Desktop drives DO NOT handle the constant I/O of streaming data.  I've learned this the hard way years ago, trying to save a dollar.  Didn't save any money over it, and added tons more work and some lost data.  

 

Do you have some specs of the machine you're using, as this might help.  Your OS probably isn't going to matter at this point, as it sounds like you're starting out and fairly small. 

 

My Plex Server is running MS Server 2012 and I am now running independent NAS pachines to the server, rather than a RAID on the Server itself.  I found it easier as my collection grew.  I started out with 2TB, and I'm running nearly 40TB now.
 

Here's a link to some of the home setups I've done:

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/153844/various-plex-network-setups

 

  Feel free to post your Plex network setup, as I'd love to see how others stream their media.

-I know plex can do music but it take any kind of advantage of that you need premium and I can't justify that as of now

-as far as I know my motherboard supports Raid ( https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/H81M-P33.html this is it ), it has the sata ports but they are not the same revision , 2 are SATA III and the other 2 are SATA II

-I am planning on doing a raid 5 with 3 WD red's

-after playing around with some things I think am gonna stay with windows 10

I will have a i5 quad core running at 3,1GHz with 8 Gb DDR3, the exact specs can be found on my profile.

 

I have another question for you, do you have a way to access your files remotely? like the way that network shares work but I want that over the internet (with security of course) I need this because I will be away form the server's network half of the time for school, 

Also the setup would be fairly easy I just connect everything to the router (small network). and a lot of the media would be accessed remotely.

[Dark]

Pretty sure the H81M-P33 does not support RAID (at least RAID5).  I have the board sitting in the closet and it was quite the let down.

[Daan101]

I did a little googeling and pc partpicker says you are right.

That simplifies things as I was thinking about using a single WD RED drive instead of doing raid 5. 

[nofxz]

unraid free up until like 6 drives, upgrade at anytime.

[Doramius]

Yeah, that mainboard doesn't directly support RAID5.  You might be able to find a 3rd party software and do a software RAID1 on 2 drives, if you're looking for some protective redundancy of files.  If you want to access you files remotely, I'd recommend setting up an FTP server.  tons of free software and tutorials online.  I've used filezilla tons of times to access, mine.  

 

As for premium membership with Plex, if you don't have a large library, I can understand not getting the Plex Pass.  Even I didn't get it for a few months when I first setup Plex.  However, after 1 year I went for the lifetime pass.  Well worth it in my situation.  Your rig sounds pretty decent for a starter tower for Plex.  If you haven't doneso already, where ever you direct your media, make sure you have a specific letter set aside for where you'll place the files.  I did P:\Movies  so if you move to a NAS or migrate the data to another drive setup, you just map that drive on the network as P:\ and you don't screw up your library.  I've done that a few times.