Case and CPU for new NAS w/ plex

[skitzor]

Hi all,

At the moment I have a Synology 916+ with 4x6TB, and I've just got my first unlimited high speed internet connection, so I foresee a day in my near-future where I will run out of space.

One option would be to buy the Synology extender bay, but this seems incredibly expensive for what it is.

At the moment I'm thinking of just building a proper PC out of some parts I have around and putting it in a normal case. Install linux, use freenas/unraid, get some containers going for apps, etc etc.

 

It might need to go up to 8-12 hard drives eventually; does anyone have any recommendations for cases that are available in Australia that would suit my needs?

 

Additionally, I would plan to use it as a Plex server and was wondering if an i3 8100 would be enough to transcode 4k content. From Plex's website it sounds like with a passmark of 8000 I could transcode 2x 4k streams to 10mbps 1080p, but that almost seems unbelievable. Does anyone have experience with Plex transcoding on an i3 8100?

 

Any other things I should consider?

[Pixel5]

in order to get more space you will need to buy extra hard drives anyways so the cheapest and most convenient way would be to just buy two bigger HDD´s and replace them in your current NAS.

if you want to you could then sell the old ones or keep them incase you actually want to get something bigger at some point.

 

another thing you will notice is that because you have a faster internet connection now keeping everything local is not important anymore, why spend money for extra TB´s of storage when you can just download anything you could want in a few minutes.

[skitzor]

16 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

in order to get more space you will need to buy extra hard drives anyways so the cheapest and most convenient way would be to just buy two bigger HDD´s and replace them in your current NAS.

if you want to you could then sell the old ones or keep them incase you actually want to get something bigger at some point.

 

another thing you will notice is that because you have a faster internet connection now keeping everything local is not important anymore, why spend money for extra TB´s of storage when you can just download anything you could want in a few minutes.

thanks for the reply.

yeah that's definitely an option, but would probably need to go 4x10TB to get a meaningful increase which is quite expensive. and I would probably tend towards selling them, which I wouldn't get much for I imagine (would also be a nice little project to get a linux NAS box going).

 

your second point is good, and I could probably be less of a hoarder. but part of the reasoning is I share the Plex content with a friend at the moment, and would be cool if I could let other people connect as well (hence the question about transcoding).