NAS & Kodi - Is it doable and what are your suggestions?

[Vectraat]

Ok, I'm asking this question for a friend since I don't know that much about NAS.
-He uses Kodi for movies & TV shows (local library) 

-He has a fairly large library. (Not sure, maybe 10+ TB) So he'll need a lot of space and it's gotta be at least somewhat future-proof. 

-He recently bought a 10 TB WD Red HDD for the time being and plans on buying more HDDs a bit later. 
-He was eyeing a 4 bay NAS. Personally, I don't think that's enough drive bays. Fine as a short-term solution, but not longer-term. 

Seems a lot of people use Plex with NAS. I also use Kodi, and I tried out Plex 5+ years ago and it didn't play nice with my library. Lots of video stuttering. After a day I gave up on trying to troubleshoot the issue and went back to Kodi. Kodi works flawlessly for my library and his library so we saw no reason to switch. So he'll definitely want to use Kodi when he buys a NAS.
I read about QNAP removing the Kodi app from their store (not sure if It's back yet), but things like that are a bit concerning.
Is running a NAS with Kodi a viable option and if so, what kind of NAS would you guys recommend based on the things I've mentioned? If you need more information then I  can provide more information -- my intention was to keep this post relatively short.

Also, a bit off-topic, but since he already has a 10 TB Red, what would you guys recommend for an enclosure since he doesn't yet have the NAS.

Thanks

[NelizMastr]

A lot of people here beat their meat to FreeNAS but for non-tech savvy people a simple NAS is really the way to go. I also wouldn't worry too much about a Kodi app existing on the device as you're better off mapping shares with the content in the Kodi software on the devices you want to access it from. Any NAS will do in that regard.

 

The easiest NAS systems to deal with by far are Synology and QNAP's offerings. I'm mostly familiar with Synology myself and I'd recommend the DS418play. It's designed for media transcoding so it should suit your friend well. 

 

He should get a 2nd drive soon or at least an extra external drive to back-up the NAS to once it's up and running. Recovering 10TB worth of data costs many thousands of dollars  

[Dujith]

21 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

I read about QNAP removing the Kodi app from their store (not sure if It's back yet), but things like that are a bit concerning.

No need to worry, the community picked this up and you can install Kodi without any problems. Its the official app that got removed.

You could also keep the 2 separate by getting a cheap NUC to run Kodi and keep the NAS as just a NAS.

 

[Vectraat]

32 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

A lot of people here beat their meat to FreeNAS but for non-tech savvy people a simple NAS is really the way to go. I also wouldn't worry too much about a Kodi app existing on the device as you're better off mapping shares with the content in the Kodi software on the devices you want to access it from. Any NAS will do in that regard.

 

The easiest NAS systems to deal with by far are Synology and QNAP's offerings. I'm mostly familiar with Synology myself and I'd recommend the DS418play. It's designed for media transcoding so it should suit your friend well. 

 

He should get a 2nd drive soon or at least an extra external drive to back-up the NAS to once it's up and running. Recovering 10TB worth of data costs many thousands of dollars  

My friend actually linked me to the DiskStation DS418 (The non-play) version. What's the difference?
"Media transcoding" meaning what? Why's that a perk? 

It's still a 4 Bay NAS. So essentially you can only have 20 TB storage and 20 TB backup? 

All his stuff is already backed-up as is mine. We on it~

[Vectraat]

29 minutes ago, Dujith said:

No need to worry, the community picked this up and you can install Kodi without any problems. Its the official app that got removed.

You could also keep the 2 separate by getting a cheap NUC to run Kodi and keep the NAS as just a NAS.

 

"picked this up" ?
Wouldn't you want the official app? 
So you can install a non-official version of Kodi on both Synology and QNAP? 
Well, he really wants the NAS and I doubt he'll want to put out extra money on a NUC.
Is there a point to having both? 

[NelizMastr]

8 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

My friend actually linked me to the DiskStation DS418 (The non-play) version. What's the difference?
"Media transcoding" meaning what? Why's that a perk? 

It's still a 4 Bay NAS. So essentially you can only have 20 TB storage and 20 TB backup? 

All his stuff is already backed-up as is mine. We on it~

Transcoding is when the NAS is doing the work to make the videos playable on devices with limited processing power, like phones and tablets. You need this for 4K content for instance. The CPU in the NAS will do the heavy lifting so the playback is smooth. 

 

I don't quite follow your second statement. A 4 bay NAS with 4x 10TB will run in a RAID mode, either RAID5, 6 or 10 with varying levels of capacity, redundancy and performance. RAID is not a back-up method. Back-up is a completely separate thing. If you have two drive failures, all data is lost either way, even with RAID.

[Dujith]

3 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

"picked this up" ?
Wouldn't you want the official app? 
So you can install a non-official version of Kodi on both Synology and QNAP? 
Well, he really wants the NAS and I doubt he'll want to put out extra money on a NUC.
Is there a point to having both? 

Picked it up as in picking up the slack  Its the official Kodi just not supported and provided by Qnap, had something todo with licenses.

Dont know about Synology but Qnap yes.

 

The only point of having both would be to be a bit more flexible with Kodi and other stuff you might want to install. Perhaps in the future Qnap will decide to disable all other apps then their own. When i used a NUC it was because of the DVD upscale filters i used which needed some CPU power which the Qnaps at the time didnt have. No clue if thats still the case tho

[Vectraat]

15 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Transcoding is when the NAS is doing the work to make the videos playable on devices with limited processing power, like phones and tablets. You need this for 4K content for instance. The CPU in the NAS will do the heavy lifting so the playback is smooth. 

 

I don't quite follow your second statement. A 4 bay NAS with 4x 10TB will run in a RAID mode, either RAID5, 6 or 10 with varying levels of capacity, redundancy and performance. RAID is not a back-up method. Back-up is a completely separate thing. If you have two drive failures, all data is lost either way, even with RAID.

I thought that was one of the perks behind NAS (backup). When a drive fails the data is mirrored to another so you don't lose everything. 
Hence the 20 TB backup / 20 TB storage. Maybe I'm confused and thinking of something else. It's late here and my eyes are barely open >_>

I guess I'll go refresh my memory with RAID 5/6/10. 

[NelizMastr]

52 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

I thought that was one of the perks behind NAS (backup). When a drive fails the data is mirrored to another so you don't lose everything. 
Hence the 20 TB backup / 20 TB storage. Maybe I'm confused and thinking of something else. It's late here and my eyes are barely open >_>

I guess I'll go refresh my memory with RAID 5/6/10. 

A NAS can be used as a back-up medium, yes. But RAID isn't a back-up solution. It's in the name, Redundant Array of (Independant/Inexpensive) Disks. Redundancy is the word here, so it's a means to minimize data loss by placing multiple disks in an array. You can go a number of ways: 

 

RAID6: maximum data protection, minimum performance, 50% capacity

RAID5: medium data protection, medium performance, 66% capacity

RAID10: medium data protection, high performance, 50% capacity

[Ezzy-525]

I know both you and your friend didn't like Plex the first time you tried it. But it's come on leaps and bounds in the past few years. Definitely worth checking it out again.

[jde3]

7 hours ago, Ezzy-525 said:

I know both you and your friend didn't like Plex the first time you tried it. But it's come on leaps and bounds in the past few years. Definitely worth checking it out again.

Also there is Emby as an alternative, I like Emby more than Plex.

[dalekphalm]

9 hours ago, Vectraat said:

I thought that was one of the perks behind NAS (backup). When a drive fails the data is mirrored to another so you don't lose everything. 
Hence the 20 TB backup / 20 TB storage. Maybe I'm confused and thinking of something else. It's late here and my eyes are barely open >_>

I guess I'll go refresh my memory with RAID 5/6/10. 

You’re confusing uptime with backup. 

 

RAID is *not* a backup. 

 

For example, if your friend accidentally deletes his whole library (trust me, it happens), then it’s gone. The RAID array will replicate the deletion throughout the array and the data will be gone. 

 

If if he gets infected by a ransomware malware, his data is gone. 

 

All RAID does is make it more convenient to get back up and running after a drive failure = less down time. 

 

If the data is important, you need to have proper backup software and a second storage array or medium (eg: external HDD, a second NAS, cloud storage,

etc).

 

Most NAS appliances, including QNAP and Synology both include the backup software, you just need the secondary storage. 

[dalekphalm]

Also about KODI:

 

You’re overcomplicating it. 

 

As long as you already have the playback device for the TV (eg: an HTPC running KODI), then all you need to do is share a network folder from the NAS (call it “Media”, or whatever makes sense to you). Then, load all of his movies and TV shows onto it. 

 

Then map that shared drive onto the HTPC running KODI, and in the KODI settings, tell it where the mapped network drive is. 

 

That’s it. 

 

No KODI app needed on the NAS itself. 

 

Plex has a NAS/server component because it does library management and media transcoding (transcoding is converting the movie file from one format to another). KODI doesn’t do these things since the local computer running KODI manages its own library and doesn’t do transcoding. 

[Vectraat]

15 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

A NAS can be used as a back-up medium, yes. But RAID isn't a back-up solution. It's in the name, Redundant Array of (Independant/Inexpensive) Disks. Redundancy is the word here, so it's a means to minimize data loss by placing multiple disks in an array. You can go a number of ways: 

 

RAID6: maximum data protection, minimum performance, 50% capacity

RAID5: medium data protection, medium performance, 66% capacity

RAID10: medium data protection, high performance, 50% capacity

50 / 66 % capacity means what?

What does "minimum performance" in RAID6 translate to (apart from the obvious)

[Vectraat]

14 hours ago, Ezzy-525 said:

I know both you and your friend didn't like Plex the first time you tried it. But it's come on leaps and bounds in the past few years. Definitely worth checking it out again.

I was introduced to Plex via another friend at the time (he was using Plex for his HTPC needs).
Didn't care for the UI, but that was a minor gripe and I'm sure It's probably a lot better now. 
But the fact that it caused atrocious video stutter in 50% of the files I 'tested'..... turned me off instantly, and I couldn't get it sorted quick enough (was working 2 jobs at the time) There's no reason for this to have happened and I'm not interested in tweaking a piece of software to get things working properly when it should've worked properly from the get-go. Just no reason for me to use Plex when Kodi is still around.

[Vectraat]

6 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Also about KODI:

 

You’re overcomplicating it. 

 

As long as you already have the playback device for the TV (eg: an HTPC running KODI), then all you need to do is share a network folder from the NAS (call it “Media”, or whatever makes sense to you). Then, load all of his movies and TV shows onto it. 

 

Then map that shared drive onto the HTPC running KODI, and in the KODI settings, tell it where the mapped network drive is. 

 

That’s it. 

 

No KODI app needed on the NAS itself. 

 

Plex has a NAS/server component because it does library management and media transcoding (transcoding is converting the movie file from one format to another). KODI doesn’t do these things since the local computer running KODI manages its own library and doesn’t do transcoding. 

Well, that's the thing, he has a HTPC right now, but It's slow. So he may get rid of it at some point or upgrade, I don't know.
Without a HTPC you can't use a NAS/Kodi? 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

Well, that's the thing, he has a HTPC right now, but It's slow. So he may get rid of it at some point or upgrade, I don't know.
Without a HTPC you can't use a NAS/Kodi? 

Well a NAS is just a headless server that serves out shared network drives.

 

Kodi requires a playback device - something connected to the TV/Monitor to run the Kodi Media Player. This is typically an HTPC, but many people use Raspberry Pi's, old desktops, etc. You typically don't need much horsepower for an HTPC. If his current one is underpowered, I'd look at buying some used components to upgrade or replace it with a better HTPC.

 

I would highly advise against trying to use the NAS itself as an HTPC - and that's even assuming it has a video output that you can even connect to the TV (most NAS appliance devices don't).

 

What are the specs of his current HTPC?

 

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

50 / 66 % capacity means what?

What does "minimum performance" in RAID6 translate to (apart from the obvious)

What he means is:

 

With a 4 drive array:

RAID5: Uses one drive's worth of space for Parity calculations (Parity is how it rebuilds the array with a drive failure). This also means it can tolerate a single drive failure. It would actually be 75% capacity, not 66%, with a 4-drive array. This means you only have 3 drive's worth of actual usable HDD space.

 

RAID6: Uses two drive's worth of space for Parity calculations. Can tolerate two drive failures. You have two drive's worth of usable HDD space.

 

RAID10: Takes two drives and stripes (combines) them together. Then mirrors those drives onto the two other drives. Can also tolerate two* drive failures. This means you only have 2 drive's worth of capacity.

 

*With RAID10, the specific order of drive failures matters. This is why RAID6 technically has a higher fault tolerance, because with RAID6, any two drives can fail. But with RAID10, if both drives of a mirrored pair fail, you lose the array and all data - however the odds of that happening are pretty low.

 

In terms of "minimum performance" for RAID6, this is specifically talking about Write performance. Write performance with RAID6 is less than others, because every time you write a file, it has to calculate and then write parity twice. So for every write, there's actually three write's happening to disk. RAID5 only has single parity, so there's double writes. With RAID10, because there's no parity calculations, there is no write penalty (even though technically there are multiple writes also).

[Vectraat]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Well a NAS is just a headless server that serves out shared network drives.

 

Kodi requires a playback device - something connected to the TV/Monitor to run the Kodi Media Player. This is typically an HTPC, but many people use Raspberry Pi's, old desktops, etc. You typically don't need much horsepower for an HTPC. If his current one is underpowered, I'd look at buying some used components to upgrade or replace it with a better HTPC.

 

I would highly advise against trying to use the NAS itself as an HTPC - and that's even assuming it has a video output that you can even connect to the TV (most NAS appliance devices don't).

 

What are the specs of his current HTPC?

 

What he means is:

 

With a 4 drive array:

RAID5: Uses one drive's worth of space for Parity calculations (Parity is how it rebuilds the array with a drive failure). This also means it can tolerate a single drive failure. It would actually be 75% capacity, not 66%, with a 4-drive array. This means you only have 3 drive's worth of actual usable HDD space.

 

RAID6: Uses two drive's worth of space for Parity calculations. Can tolerate two drive failures. You have two drive's worth of usable HDD space.

 

RAID10: Takes two drives and stripes (combines) them together. Then mirrors those drives onto the two other drives. Can also tolerate two* drive failures. This means you only have 2 drive's worth of capacity.

 

*With RAID10, the specific order of drive failures matters. This is why RAID6 technically has a higher fault tolerance, because with RAID6, any two drives can fail. But with RAID10, if both drives of a mirrored pair fail, you lose the array and all data - however the odds of that happening are pretty low.

 

In terms of "minimum performance" for RAID6, this is specifically talking about Write performance. Write performance with RAID6 is less than others, because every time you write a file, it has to calculate and then write parity twice. So for every write, there's actually three write's happening to disk. RAID5 only has single parity, so there's double writes. With RAID10, because there's no parity calculations, there is no write penalty (even though technically there are multiple writes also).

O_O 

Uh ok... 
Well, I really don't know why he wants a NAS. Personally, for my needs I don't consider them to be powerful enough *shrugs* I'm just going off what I've seen in YouTube videos. Some of them struggle with 1080p/4K and the navigation chugs. 

RAID5 seems to be the best option I suppose. A usable 3/4 drives. Close to 30 TB if he buys 3x 10 TB. Hmm I just noticed that REDs are only 5400 RPM.. I really can't imagine buying a drive that isn't 7200, but Red is recommended for NAS so what else could you do... Gold and Black can be 7200 RPM, but I imagine Black isn't meant for NAS. Maybe Gold can be used for NAS.
Does the cache matter for NAS?

Ok, I think I get your example now. As long as he installs Kodi on whatever device - PC/HTPC/Laptop/Phone/Tablet etc., - Anything that has a screen and can install Kodi to - and as long as he's sharing the files on his NAS and enters the share paths into Kodi he can play whatever files are on the NAS?

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Vectraat said:

O_O 

Uh ok... 
Well, I really don't know why he wants a NAS. Personally, for my needs I don't consider them to be powerful enough *shrugs* I'm just going off what I've seen in YouTube videos. Some of them struggle with 1080p/4K and the navigation chugs.

RAID5 seems to be the best option I suppose. A usable 3/4 drives. Close to 30 TB if he buys 3x 10 TB. Hmm I just noticed that REDs are only 5400 RPM.. I really can't imagine buying a drive that isn't 7200, but Red is recommended for NAS so what else could you do... Gold and Black can be 7200 RPM, but I imagine Black isn't meant for NAS. Maybe Gold can be used for NAS.
Does the cache matter for NAS?

Ok, I think I get your example now. As long as he installs Kodi on whatever device - PC/HTPC/Laptop/Phone/Tablet etc., - Anything that has a screen and can install Kodi to - and as long as he's sharing the files on his NAS and enters the share paths into Kodi he can play whatever files are on the NAS?

When you say that some NAS's struggle and the "navigation chugs", can you elaborate? Most NAS's are simply low powered computers under the hood - a lot of the Synology/QNAP, etc, units are powered by Intel i3's, etc.

 

In terms of whether they can support 1080p or 4K playback using Direct Play (Direct Play means you literally launch the file and play it - this is what Kodi does, but also would be the same as navigating to the shared folder and playing the movie file in VLC, etc) comes down to three things:

1. Network speed - assuming all your networking equipment supports Gigabit Ethernet, this should not be a concern

2. HDD performance - even slower 5400 RPM HDD's support sequential read speeds well over 100 MB/s - this should not be a concern, even with WD Reds

3. Playback Device performance - this is where most problems are actually caused. If the device trying to actually play the media doesn't have built-in hardware decoding, or has a too-weak CPU, it may struggle with certain content - especially 4K.

 

RAID5 is a good solution for home usage. It nicely balances total drive capacity vs total drive cost. Honestly, I would not worry about the WD Red being 5400 RPM. The odds of this causing a performance issue is almost negligible.

 

And yes, you've got the right idea about how a NAS + Kodi setup works. Share the file path, plug that into the Kodi settings, and you're good.

[Vectraat]

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

 

"navigation chugs" when I looked at NAS many years ago and perhaps even more recently, when I'd see people navigate the NAS GUI it just looked slow. Slow performance triggers the heck out of me. My friend is a lot less picky though. To give you an example of something that would annoy me but probably wouldn't bother 99% of people out there...
If I'm in Kodi (whatever device I'm using it on) if I scroll through the library fast (hold the down arrow - I have a large library) and I see a bit of stutter/slowness or the cover art is real slow to populate - instant trigger. ;o

My friend looked into it and he's gonna go for this NAS: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/synology-diskstation-418play-review/

*It says the NAS has 4K transcoding support. But that's for Plex?
His network speed - not entirely sure, but I think It's around 15-20MB/s
Total drive capacity vs total cost? Don't get what you mean... At some point he's going to buy 3 more 4 TB Reds which (total 4) is $1600 before taxes.

I think these are his HTPC specs - It was just some cheap $3-400 dollar computer.

-Mini Tower
-Intel® Core™ i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-core processor.
-8GB DDR3 SDRAM
-Intel HD Graphics 4600
-1TB HDD
-Windows® 10
-Gigabit Ethernet, WLAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 7 Bluetooth; enables seamless network connectivity

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Vectraat said:

"navigation chugs" when I looked at NAS many years ago and perhaps even more recently, when I'd see people navigate the NAS GUI it just looked slow. Slow performance triggers the heck out of me. My friend is a lot less picky though. To give you an example of something that would annoy me but probably wouldn't bother 99% of people out there...
If I'm in Kodi (whatever device I'm using it on) if I scroll through the library fast (hold the down arrow - I have a large library) and I see a bit of stutter/slowness or the cover art is real slow to populate - instant trigger. ;o

My friend looked into it and he's gonna go for this NAS: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/synology-diskstation-418play-review/

*It says the NAS has 4K transcoding support. But that's for Plex?
His network speed - not entirely sure, but I think It's around 15-20MB/s
Total drive capacity vs total cost? Don't get what you mean... At some point he's going to buy 3 more 4 TB Reds which (total 4) is $1600 before taxes.

I think these are his HTPC specs - It was just some cheap $3-400 dollar computer.

-Mini Tower
-Intel® Core™ i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-core processor.
-8GB DDR3 SDRAM
-Intel HD Graphics 4600
-1TB HDD
-Windows® 10
-Gigabit Ethernet, WLAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 7 Bluetooth; enables seamless network connectivity

About the sluggishness: Fair enough - but to be fair, you will not need to go into the NAS GUI 99.99% of the time. You only need to go into the GUI to change settings, etc.

 

Your friend will be interacting with the NAS via Windows Explorer or via Kodi, and he should see no (or very little, very infrequently) sluggishness via these interfaces.

 

That NAS is totally fine. The 418play has a Dual Core Intel Celeron CPU, which is a bit beefier than the lower entry models (those typically have ARM CPU's). Certainly, your friend won't use that beefier CPU much since he's not using Plex, but still, it doesn't hurt, and can help with multiple file transfers, file encryption performance, etc.

 

For Network speed, I don't mean Internet, I mean internal LAN. To get the best performance, he should make sure that the NAS, plus his HTPC, are plugged into a Gigabit Switch (or alternatively, make sure that his router has Gigabit Ports). A good unmanaged Gigabit Switch doesn't cost much - $20-$30 tops.

 

That HTPC is more than enough to comfortably play 1080p high bitrate content with no problem at all, and should be able to play 4K content with no issues also (though it'll likely use a decent amount of CPU power when decoding 4K).

[Vectraat]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

For Network speed, I don't mean Internet, I mean internal LAN. To get the best performance, he should make sure that the NAS, plus his HTPC, are plugged into a Gigabit Switch (or alternatively, make sure that his router has Gigabit Ports). A good unmanaged Gigabit Switch doesn't cost much - $20-$30 tops.

Out of curiosity I decided to check my own network 'cause I dunno zip about networking. Gotta start learning at some point I suppose...

I use an ISP provided modem/router combo device and I have a fiber optic box. 
Network settings: 
Ethernet - 100/100 (Mbps)
LAN - 1000/1000 (Mbps)

1000/1000 is considered 1 Gbps (Gigabits) aka "A Gigabit Connection" if I'm not mistaken.
So technically, if I had enough open ports on my modem/router combo I could plug a NAS into my modem/router along with a Gigabit Ethernet enabled HTPC OR my current Desktop PC and I'd be getting Gigabit speeds over my network - I'd be good to go?

Also, what the heck is the difference (in layman's terms) between LAN and Ethernet?
I've read it over a few times now and It's not clicking. 

Edit: Also, is there a quick way to know just from looking at a modem/router whether the ports are Gigabit? 

Thanks for the help.

[dalekphalm]

25 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Out of curiosity I decided to check my own network 'cause I dunno zip about networking. Gotta start learning at some point I suppose...

I use an ISP provided modem/router combo device and I have a fiber optic box. 
Network settings: 
Ethernet - 100/100 (Mbps)
LAN - 1000/1000 (Mbps)

1000/1000 is considered 1 Gbps (Gigabits) aka "A Gigabit Connection" if I'm not mistaken.
So technically, if I had enough open ports on my modem/router combo I could plug a NAS into my modem/router along with a Gigabit Ethernet enabled HTPC OR my current Desktop PC and I'd be getting Gigabit speeds over my network - I'd be good to go?

Also, what the heck is the difference (in layman's terms) between LAN and Ethernet?
I've read it over a few times now and It's not clicking. 

Edit: Also, is there a quick way to know just from looking at a modem/router whether the ports are Gigabit? 

Thanks for the help.

Yes, Gigabit and "1000 Mbps/1Gbps" are all the same thing - just different terms, so plugging a NAS and a Desktop that also has Gigabit ports would allow Gigabit transfer speeds between them.

 

So Ethernet is a protocol and physical format. Ethernet refers to the ports (Often called "RJ45" ports) and the cables and the connection between them. LAN refers to "Local Area Network", which is your local internal network. A LAN can run on many different physical connection types, but Ethernet is by far the most common.

 

Gigabit Ethernet is just one type. Fast Ethernet, also known as 10/100, is the older variant of the same thing.

 

As for looking at the modem/router itself, unless the ports are labelled (Eg: say Gigabit, or 1000 Mbps), there's usually not an obvious way to tell what speed the ports are. Best thing to do is look up the Model Number of the device and consult the specs.

[LAwLz]

I think you're needlessly complicating things.

Let me explain how my setup works, because I believe this will clear some things up for you.

 

I have a NAS in my bookshelf. It has RAID on it. What this means is that if a drive dies, I will not lose any data. I just need to replace the drive and everything is restored. If my 2TB hard drive dies in my desktop computer, I lose everything that's saved on it. If a 2TB drive in my NAS dies, I just replace it and don't lose any files.

This is not a proper backup though. Why? Because if for example I accidentally delete my library, it's gone. If I get infected with a virus, it could infect all the files too. So in order to be sure I don't lose important files, I back them up on an online storage provider like Dropbox. Those files are safe even if I get infected with something, accidentally screw up or my house burns down. I obviously don't have my entire video library on dropbox though. That's way too many files. So I only have a backup for the most important things, like photos. The rest is stored on my NAS.

 

If you are going to get a 4 bay NAS, I strongly recommend you use RAID5 (or if you get a Synology NAS, SHR1 which works the same way but is a bit more flexible).

With RAID5, you lose one drive worth of storage, but one drive can die without you losing any files.

So if you have four 10TB drives, you get a total of 30TB of storage you can use, and any one of the four drives can die without you losing any data.

 

 

I have a NAS for two main reasons.

1) In the case of a drive failure, no files will be lost. I have had a drive die on me, and it was horrible. A NAS does not protect from viruses or other such things, but it does protect from drive failure (to some extent).

2) The main reason, because it lets me have a lot of files which are easily shared with all my devices.

You can think of my NAS as a massive external hard drive, which everything on the network can access, because that's how I use it. It appears as a regular folder on my desktop, laptop, phone, tablet and TV.

The files acts just like if they were stored locally on whichever device I am on.

 

I have Kodi installed on my Android TV. When I start Kodi, it automatically connects to my NAS and look at what files are on it, and presents them in a neat manner.

I don't have anything specific running on my NAS to make this work. It's just a shared folder (SMB share to be more technical). For all Kodi knows, it might as well be a TV with a really large internal hard drive.

 

 

 

Kodi and Plex work very differently, and I personally prefer the way Kodi works. (I have simplified things in this explanation a lot)

Kodi is just a video player, with a nice interface. It just takes the files you give it and plays them. It runs on the client, which is to say my Android TV, or for example a laptop. All Kodi does is ask the NAS for the file, and it works like a normal file transfer.

 

The way Plex works, is that the Plex server (your NAS) intelligently transcodes the video so that it is "optimized" for your network speed and the codec supported by the playback device.

What this means is that the Plex server takes the original video file (let's say an MP4) and streams a converted (let's say an AVI file) to your smartphone for example. The benefit of this is that if you have a slow upload speed at home, your NAS won't try and send a 5Mbps file over a 2Mbps Internet connection. It will convert the 5Mbps file to for example 1.5Mbps. Another benefit is that if you have a video file that is in an obscure format such as AV1, it might not play at all in Kodi (since Kodi doesn't know how to handle the file) but it will play in Plex (because Plex converts it from AV1 to MP4 for example).

 

The drawback of Plex is that the converted file never looks as good as the original file. So streaming with Plex will look worse than if you stream with Kodi, in terms of picture quality. It also requires a lot more processing power on the NAS side, since it has to convert files on the fly rather than just send the original.

[Blebekblebek]

These wall of texts so overkill the OP doesn't even understand what most of you said

 

Kodi is media player, it's only use local hardware to decode multimedia files

while plex use host resource to transcode that files to client

 

Just use your current setup, and stick with kodi if that's what really server the purpose, I don't really understand why people want transcoding on the fly on everything, and even if they want it, current smartphone are powerful enough to encode 1080p multimedia files.