Plex Server

[CGameDev]

So i am building a Plex server the will be on 24/7 I will be running my drives in raid but I want to know if the drives have to be NAS drives for the server. I wont be doing lots of writing to it just mostly reading. They will be running 274/7 to i dont know if regular HDD can do it. I am just looking for feedback.

[WickedStarfish]

Regular HDD's can be used for a NAS server but normal HDD's are not specifically designed to be ran 24/7 and in close proximity to other drives. Personally i can get NAS optimised HDD's about $50-100 cheaper than base drives and my desktop is currently running with a NAS drive due to that price difference (4TB NAS Drive) will be upgrading in the next 2 months to add 2 more drives (6 or 8 TB drives to replace the 2TB Drive) as i do have a lot of stuff stored and my current setup has a little storage left. 500GB SSD, 2 x 1TB HDD's (found lying around) and 1 x 4TB NAS Drive

Here is a basic comparison of basic drives against NAS drives that i just found online.

the full website - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/tech-insights/why-nas-hdd-master-ti/

[Oshino Shinobu]

For best results and drive reliability/longevity, you'll want to use NAS drives. It's not a requirement though, regular HDDs will still work. 

[Razor Blade]

Plex won't care what drives you use. If you already have drives just run those. If you are buying drives, NAS drives for file/media servers are worth the extra cost IMO.

[Spotty]

Regular hard drives will still work. 

Nas drives are designed and rated for 24/7 operation so will typically have better reliability and longevity than a normal drive in those environments. 

 

Nas drives aren't that expensive, the Seagate ironwolf and wd reds are quite well priced and give good GB/$ with their large capacities. If you're looking to buy new drives for the system then I would definitely recommend getting the Nas variants.

[CGameDev]

Ok cause I wanted to get 6x8tb drives but getting 8tb nas drives for my raid setup is expensive 

[WickedStarfish]

Just now, xiiijamaican said:

Ok cause I wanted to get 6x8tb drives but getting 8tb nas drives for my raid setup is expensive 

are you able to find a bundle deal, that can sometimes help by removing some of the extra cost. what type of raid were you planning on running (may be able to buy some drives now and upgrade over time)

[CGameDev]

1 minute ago, WickedStarfish said:

are you able to find a bundle deal, that can sometimes help by removing some of the extra cost. what type of raid were you planning on running (may be able to buy some drives now and upgrade over time)

Raid 5 or 6

[Razor Blade]

2 minutes ago, xiiijamaican said:

Raid 5 or 6

Unless you're running a mission critical Plex server a Raid 6 would be awfully overkill...especially since cost is a factor you would be buying another drive strictly for the sake of fault tolerance.

[CGameDev]

4 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

Unless you're running a mission critical Plex server a Raid 6 would be awfully overkill...especially since cost is a factor you would be buying another drive strictly for the sake of fault tolerance.

Well inside the home are 6 users and outside are 5. There are currently 1745 movies on a 8 tB drive and I didn't take in account my anime and tv shows. I want the most logical raid possible 

[WickedStarfish]

7 minutes ago, xiiijamaican said:

Raid 5 or 6

So it would be preferable to get all the drives at once otherwise you would have to recreate the array (by what i understand is you cannot add drives to a raid 5 or 6, i may be possible but i have no experience with it)

[WickedStarfish]

2 minutes ago, WickedStarfish said:

So it would be preferable to get all the drives at once otherwise you would have to recreate the array (by what i understand is you cannot add drives to a raid 5 or 6, i may be possible but i have no experience with it)

just did a bit more research and in order to add drives you need to recreate the array so buying all of the drives at one would be most effective, would running 6TB drives in raid 5 be more better than 8 TB drives in raid 6 (cost wise) more drives are used as raid 6 uses two independent parity functions

[CGameDev]

4 minutes ago, WickedStarfish said:

just did a bit more research and in order to add drives you need to recreate the array so buying all of the drives at one would be most effective, would running 6TB drives in raid 5 be more better than 8 TB drives in raid 6 (cost wise) more drives are used as raid 6 uses two independent parity functions

Oh ok

[Razor Blade]

1 hour ago, xiiijamaican said:

Well inside the home are 6 users and outside are 5. There are currently 1745 movies on a 8 tB drive and I didn't take in account my anime and tv shows. I want the most logical raid possible 

Don't misunderstand... Fault tolerance isn't the same as preventing data loss. Fault tolerance is a sort of insurance policy against only one type of failure (hard drive). Raid isn't a substitute for regular backups of your data. Raid 6 is great, I run it on my server. I do so because if I were to ever lose an array during a rebuild I would lose a lot of time and have major headaches trying to restore services to everything... However I still backup data in the event of a cascade or some catastrophic failure.

 

If you're running a home media server you will have to weigh the risks of buying desktop drives. Running a Raid 6 to try to make up for using cheaper drives is not a good trade off IMO. If you take the difference in price to buy 5 NAS drives instead of 6 desktop drives then later you can buy a 6th drive as a hot spare if you wanted to.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, WickedStarfish said:

just did a bit more research and in order to add drives you need to recreate the array so buying all of the drives at one would be most effective, would running 6TB drives in raid 5 be more better than 8 TB drives in raid 6 (cost wise) more drives are used as raid 6 uses two independent parity functions

RAID 5 and 6 are fully expandable normally, you can add more disks to an existing array and extend it. You can't expand a RAID 0, 1 or 10 though, not sure where you go that info from but maybe it was talking about those rather than RAID 5 and 6. Being able to expand them is one of the biggest reasons to use those over RAID 10.

[WickedStarfish]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

RAID 5 and 6 are fully expandable normally, you can add more disks to an existing array and extend it. You can't expand a RAID 0, 1 or 10 though, not sure where you go that info from but maybe it was talking about those rather than RAID 5 and 6. Being able to expand them is one of the biggest reasons to use those over RAID 10.

Maybe, i haven't really spent a lot of time with raid systems so my knowledge isn't what i would like it to be, i think the information was within a different forum where a person said to add a drive to their own raid 5 system they need backup the data and then recreate the array rather than just plugging the drive in and adding it to the current system 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, WickedStarfish said:

Maybe, i haven't really spent a lot of time with raid systems so my knowledge isn't what i would like it to be, i think the information was within a different forum where a person said to add a drive to their own raid 5 system they need backup the data and then recreate the array rather than just plugging the drive in and adding it to the current system 

Sounds like they were using a basic form of RAID offered on the motherboard, those are the ones that tend to not support expansion. It's a thing just typically not for software RAIDs and higher end hardware RAID cards (basically anything from LSI).

[CGameDev]

5 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

Don't misunderstand... Fault tolerance isn't the same as preventing data loss. Fault tolerance is a sort of insurance policy against only one type of failure (hard drive). Raid isn't a substitute for regular backups of your data. Raid 6 is great, I run it on my server. I do so because if I were to ever lose an array during a rebuild I would lose a lot of time and have major headaches trying to restore services to everything... However I still backup data in the event of a cascade or some catastrophic failure.

 

If you're running a home media server you will have to weigh the risks of buying desktop drives. Running a Raid 6 to try to make up for using cheaper drives is not a good trade off IMO. If you take the difference in price to buy 5 NAS drives instead of 6 desktop drives then later you can buy a 6th drive as a hot spare if you wanted to.

ok i get that, I will invest in the NAS HDDs. Dosnt make sence i cheap out.

[Mikensan]

10 hours ago, xiiijamaican said:

ok i get that, I will invest in the NAS HDDs. Dosnt make sence i cheap out.

 

You can cheap out on the HDDs, but in either case just make sure you plan/budget for backups. Doesn't have to be 1:1, but large enough for data you consider valuable.

 

I'm using the deathgates (4TB seagates) on my NAS, had 1 die already.

[Razor Blade]

3 hours ago, Mikensan said:

I'm using the deathgates (4TB seagates) on my NAS, had 1 die already.

Are they Barracuda or Ironwolf? I'm running six 4TB Ironwolf...(ironwolves?) In my server and haven't had any problems.

[TheGeeker]

I have been using 4x WD Blue 1 TB for the better part of 2+ years now. No issues yet. I have them in a raid array so if one does kick the fan its theoretically salvageable. Plus I took them from a Surveillance system our office had for a while. May not be smart, but it works for now 

[Mikensan]

14 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

Are they Barracuda or Ironwolf? I'm running six 4TB Ironwolf...(ironwolves?) In my server and haven't had any problems.

El Cheapos, barracudas: ST4000. The ST3000 and ST4000 aren't the best drives in the bunch. Personally I just go for whats cheapest and keep good backups. I don't want them to fail but I'm not entirely hosed if they do.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Mikensan said:

El Cheapos, barracudas: ST4000. The ST3000 and ST4000 aren't the best drives in the bunch. Personally I just go for whats cheapest and keep good backups. I don't want them to fail but I'm not entirely hosed if they do.

My 2x ST3000's have been rock solid, personally.

 

Though when I expanded, I went with Toshiba drives for the other 4 (better price per GB).

[CGameDev]

so basically form what i am seeing, its better i just go with the NAS drive and do regular backup to an external?