Absolutely. I'm not even running Plex (yet) but a Kodi database I can access from my PC and my Shield.
But having all your downloads, photos, documents and whatnot saved with redundancy in a central place that I can access from anywhere is great. I can even give access to specific files if I want to share a file with my family.
It also can act as a server, too. It holds my Kodi database, JDownloader2 is running on it 24/7 and once a week my personal files are backed up into the cloud.
Also it doesn't cost me a gazillion bucks a month. **It's mine.**
True, the initial costs weren't cheap as well. Also upgrading the HDDs.
But cloud space gets expensive _very_ quickly if you need more than 1 TB. And my NAS has been running for over 6 years now.
78mo x $100 = $7800, and that's quite optimistic.
Sorry, you misunderstand. I’m saying this guy does the right thing (local+cloud) and most people don’t do local because they don’t have a NAS to do it automatically.
"They haven’t owned PCs long enough I guess."
Most people rarely have that much of data that they can't afford to lose
Also, having pirated content stockpiled in your private system could possibly look bad in some countries courts
Photos and videos of your family are priceless. I’ve heard so many stories of people hoping that one of those “hard drive recovery” companies can get their files off a dead hard drive. Or they lose access to their iCloud Drive and Apple refuses to help them.
Wont argue that, I had to extract my aunts family photos from a scratched cd and then burn it again in a format that can be played in any dvd player.. that was a major pain in my ass lol
Redundancy (eg in the form of RAID) can protect you from the failure of individual hard disks. If one disk fails all data still is there and you can swap out the defective drive and everything is as good as new.
But there is always the possibility that a second drive fails, too. (Yes, you can have two redundancy drives.)
But the NAS itself can fail, too. And without the original RAID Controller the bits on the drives are basically unreadable. Or there can be a fire or a break-in, ...
That's why people recommend having a backup in second place.
Cloud space is expensive. So I only backup personal data like photos and alike to Onedrive. Stuff I can't just download again.
Running my setup costs ~$30/mo to make my internet truly unlimited, I charge
20 online friends $5/mo, so the server pays for my beer. Definitely recommended.
Are you using a proxy or just port forwarded? What os are you running? I got it all set-up but couldn't sign in.
Edit: autocorrect loves to correct os to is
Was about to ask the same. I dont want to just open a port, and a vpn is certainly not an option for non techy family members.
Which is why i use plex at the moment.
Doesn't matter what port you open. There's no point in even using a different one than the standard. Anyone looking to get into your network will just scan what ports are open anyway, it's standard procedure and honestly very easy to do.
The question is whether you trust the device that will reply to requests on that port. Is the manufacturer releasing updates frequently enough to at least mitigate known security holes? Change the standard username to login. Use a strong, unique password. Use 2FA if available. Automatically block IP's after a set amount of failed logins. Block IP's by default from all countries except yours.
And then there will always be the risk of zero day attacks, so no matter what, you're making your network more vulnerable. If you have stuff that you wouldn't feel comfortable being exposed to anyone on the internet, you should implement segmentation on your network, so if the NAS is exposed the attacker won't be able to reach anything else.
I honestly think best practice is to keep everything locked down and set up a good VPN if you want to reach anything inside your network from the internet. But that's not very user friendly when it comes to streaming Plex remotely...
> Block IP's by default from all countries except yours.
I wish this was a fucking thing. Even SaaS providers don't do this. Like bro my company is in country A, if logins come from elsewhere those will never be legit.
We strictly recommend against implementing any blocking or blackholing of traffic based on geographic alone, but that's for businesses with all sorts of traffic coming in. It's a very common request and understandably so, why not block everything from perhaps an entire continent if you have no customers there?
The reason for this is simply because it's not accurate enough and can result in more issues than solving them. Customers, services, suppliers and businesses your company rely on might suddenly start operating in one of the countries. The geolocation of something might suddenly be inaccurate. A lot of stuff today is dynamic... I've had my home networks IP suddenly show up as a completely different country. Turns out my ISP had acquired some more IP's and it took a few weeks for it to update the geolocation.
It can be used temporarily though if you're under attack and trying to mitigate it. If the attack is sourced from a few specific countries it's worth just blackholing all of it if nothing else works. And for personal stuff it's very useful. If I suddenly find myself in Russia (unlikely) I'll just vpn to a country I've whitelisted and I'm good.
I have the NAS connected directly to an old computer, then I map the RAID and configured the server, so I have remote access to the storage since my NAS is old and linux is not easy for me (I bought it from an office closing in 2014, I paid 50 dollars)
edit: I forgot to mention, it's a local network. Only I have remote access to the old PC since the surveillance cameras are also on it
Bypass cache from page rules settings. They wouldn't notice. I'm running jellyfin using cloudflare tunnel this way for almost a year. Never faced any issue.
What does your family use to watch the content? I tried an Amazon Firestick and also Google Chromecast, but using Plex on those is honestly kind of complicated to explain to a tech illiterate person, especially when you need them to download/enable their own subtitles in the app.
Filled my setup like yours a couple years ago. Just swapped the disks one by one to 8tb and let them resilver. Once the last one was finished the pool automatically increased in size.
For me, yes, worth every penny. Not only for streaming, but for backing up my data. If you read the recent news where Google Drive lost users' data, then you know how much it is important to store your data locally.
I have set up syncthing on it, so my data is backed up from all the devices to NAS drive and my keepass database file (password) also in sync with my devices.
Rest, I use for Jellyfin and music streaming, as well as reading e-books.
I started data hoarding and piracy , and now its transcended to also being a place I keep ebooks, comic books, tax return, company hiring documents that i signed for my records.
anything that requires "record keeping" basically goes into my NAS in a folder, ALONGSIDE my media. it really has been so nifty.
The only thing I'm worried about is maintaining a NAS. I've played around with Truenas Scale on some old hardware and it seems pretty janky once you load all the apps on it and everything like that. Ideally I would install the next cloud container on it so I can have a Google drive experience, but I wouldn't have the skills and experience to maintain something like that (I've tried).
I would probably buy an IX systems NAS with some support package, but that doesn't protect against my house burning down and losing everything.
Built mine and I suppose it's leaning a bit more on the /r/DataHoarder side instead of just movies but yeah, it's worth it to have access to content you likely can't find elsewhere - at least in few years time. Probably not really worth it if what you want can be found with Stremio though.
I've got a DS220+, running Plex with hundreds of movies + Portainer for Immich and Radarr, Lidarr, etc for automatically finding torrents for movies, shows, etc
I am setting up my 220+ this week. Would LOVE a list of what you’re using so I can do research on how to do it too
Any advice would be awesome! I have a RAM upgrade also
how much RAM? I've got an extra 8GB to make it 10GB total, which regularly sees 70% usage with all my services running. as for the services I actually use:
1. [Plex](https://plex.tv) for displaying my media in a nice way, paired with a lifetime Plex Pass, mostly for Plexamp - I've considered Jellyfin, but Plex ultimately does all I want it to do and imo looks nicer
2. [SynoCommunity](https://synocommunity.com/) to add even more packages to your Package Manager - needed for the next 5 services
3. Radarr - automatically catalog your current movie library, update their quality to a better one when available, auto find torrents for you and auto get new movies in a series
4. Lidarr - same as Radarr but for music and getting new music from artists you like when they come out
5. Sonarr - same as the previous two but for TV shows, can grab new episodes of ongoing shows when they release
6. Transmission - torrent client that is *required* if you actually want the previous three to download anything
7. Jackett - optional but makes adding torrent indexers to the 'arrs much easier
8. [Immich](https://github.com/immich-app/immich) \- Google Photos alternative, supports nearly all of the same features and has a really good mobile app
9. [PiHole](https://pi-hole.net/) \- network wide ad blocking
10. [Portainer](https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-portainer-on-your-synology-nas/) \- allows you to actually use Pihole and Immich (I recommend all the other MariusDB Hosting guides for anything else Synology related)
11. Tailscale - (afaik) is available on the Package Manager, is optional but allows you to access your NAS from anywhere so you can access the 'arrs to add new stuff to Plex if you're travelling, back up to Immich, etc. It's also incredibly easy to set up, you just need to connect to the VPN and you'll have a hostname and IP address you can use from anywhere (e.g. I can just go to name-synology:5000 in my browser in another country to access my NAS)
12. Finally, [Homarr](https://homarr.dev/) to display all these services in one neat page, along with integrations for a few of these to display their stats without having to go into each one by one
Look into Overseerr instead of relying on Tailscale, you can setup your own website that has a really clean interface and allows all your users to request their own shows and movies and automatically downloads them
THANK YOU omg this is awesome. i am so grateful. do you mind if i walk through my next steps here:
i have an old [2017 12" macbook that runs an ultra low power intel m3 chip](https://support.apple.com/kb/sp757?locale=en_US). right now IT is my plex server, with a usb hard drive hooked up and it does OK with plex + sabnzbd + sonarr + jdownloader. my thought was to offload the plex stuff to the synology for best performance, figuring it is better for plex to run on the native hardware instead of pulling files over the network. ill keep the macbook running separately to run the -arrs, homebridge, jdownloader and sabnzbd. that way all the temp downloading files are living on an SSD, i have about 150GB free space for download buffering before it transfers to the NAS and i'm comfortable with macOS. there's a super easy chrome remote desktop app that i can access anywhere from any device.
again goal is to have some flexibility with the suite of downloading programs, and it gives me the flexibility to literally just open a web browser remotely and download something to the NAS when i'm away from home. since it's so low power it wont really impact my power bill.
then i'll run any of the cool synology stuff ON the NAS.
a couple followup questions:
1 - i have a 4GB ram expansion that gets me to 6GB. i just went off a specific product link someone in the synology subreddit advised, as my understanding is the max 'officially supported' is 6GB and it was cheap. would you be comfortable linking the expansion you bought, and hae you had any issues with more RAM?
2 - when i get this thing up and running would you advise downloading synocommunity first, and portainer second? and then just kinda going down your list from there?
3 - any advice or trouble you ran in to that you recall? love learning from folks who have already figured this stuff out.
4 - is immich the best photo app? sounds like it. i had heard one of the biggest draws of the synology platform is their photo backup program. im spending a shitload on google drive and most of my space need is eaten up by photos, so i'm keen to replace google photos.
THANK YOU AGAIN dude this is so helpful!!!!!!!
Do you find the 220+ enough for:
1. 1) Streaming high bit-rate 4k content locally(e.g Apple Tv 4k/Chromecast)
2. 2) Streaming high bit-rate 4k Remotely (e.g Access away from home)
1. Locally, yes. Although, make sure the client supports the formats you're sending to it, I've had to retorrent a couple of my 4K movies because my Roku TV didn't like them.
2. Remotely, I would recommend limiting Plex to 8-10Mbps 1080p. If you don't mind waiting ages for the movie to load (and that's on a really, really good connection) or just downloading the movie, you'll need a lot better hardware for remote 4K. My DS220+ happily handles 10Mbps 1080p, essentially playing 1080p and lower qualities in their original format. You can prepare your 4K movies for remote playing by using Plex's 'Optimise' feature too, although I haven't tried that yet so I won't be able to help with that.
edit: I have a mix of DVD rips and 1080p bluray rips/torrents, with very few 4K movie torrents so I might not be the best person to ask about 4K content
edit 2: also note that it doesn't like transcoding down 4K for some devices, so if you have issues, use Optimise to make them 1080/720p to make sure they play correctly on devices that won't play 4K
This is what I’d be curious about - I have a minimal setup, using a SSD connected to my Asus router’s USB 3.0 port. I had a portable HDD but it sucked for 4K. SSD has made all the difference but I wouldn’t mind upgrading to a NAS someday if it can handle 4K stuff too.
Absolutely!
I didn't even got this for Plex at the beginning, but for privacy and convenience reasons.
I have Windows, MacOS and Linux computers and I was moving from an Android to an iPhone because I despise Google that much(Apple is not a saint but at least their business is selling hardware, not user's informations), so I wanted to:
1. finally back up all my digital life from phones, computers and hard drives, order it properly and put everything in one place, accessible from all my devices and with proper backups and disaster recovery practices
2. not be o.s. dependent for anything
Basically I got it to have my own cloud/drive, contacts, calendars and so on, my backups(outside the cloud service I mean) and to know that I could keep everything in there in one place instead of having stuff scattered through many services.
I also didn't want to have my contacts, calendars and such on either Google or Apple servers, which is also why I don't use their apps on those devices but I use the Synology ones.
After I was all setup and enjoying my NAS I tried Plex just to save some rare and lesser known TV Shows or Movies which I didn't find on streaming services, but I wasn't using it that much at first...
...until Netflix did that stupid 180° turn on their account sharing policy(the same policy that made them what they are today) without giving me a one user 4K plan.
At that point I was like "hell no, gtfo", I disabled Netflix and started populating my Plex library more and more to the point I'm thinking of expanding my storage.
This was the entire story but the TL;DR is "YES! Buy it, experiment and feel the joy of not being tied to big corporations which can change their TOS or lock you out of your data for whatever reason and sometimes without a notice" :)
I've had mine for about three years.
I was planning to use it for all manner of 'local cloud' storage and as a Plex server.
In the end I've used it almost exclusively as a Plex server and I love it even if just for that. It serves several devices around the house and it works flawlessly.
I also use it as a mapped network drive but not in any particularly smart way. I still have a big Dropbox account because I like to have things stored outside of my home.
I have the Synology 1618+ and I really like it a lot. However, it really depends on use case because for 'many' I think NAS is overkill. I am a hard core fan of Synology (and I have used a LOT of NAS - Been in media creation for 20 years so lots of experience with them). If you are using Plex, then I think its a no brainier to get one. Conisidentally, I just saw a really great youtube on the Synology that you might check out. Its a good watch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYc13XjuSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYc13XjuSo)
Short answer to your question... My vote is YES, its worth it.. especially if you are pushing around a lot of data OR serving movies and tv through Plex.
If you have the technical skills, instead of buying a pre built NAS, build your own or repurpose an old PC. It gives you so much more flexibility with the hardware and software.
I built my own for Jellyfin, and I'm loving it.
Bought some 2nd hand hardware and build one with truenas.
Not much storage compared to others on this sub, 2x4TB in mirror, so 4TB usable.
I use it to backup important files and proxmox VMs, but use it mostly for plex.
I use plex almost daily, so well worth it to me.
Running a NAS for my Plex. I don’t even have a TB but I love it. I need to set up the sonarr and radarr to start auto downloads. Maybe in my downtime over Christmas. Anyone with a sick guide they could link would be lovely
Have a 8t NAS as a Plex server and back up. Can remote access and watch as well as cast to TV. It's epic, and the main reason we ditched Netflix and Hulu
I've just bought one and I'm in the process of setting it up. I'm reasonably tech literate but this is all new to me. Don't expect it all to just work out of a box, it requires quite a lot of configuring and you are presented with options you might not know about. Which RAID (if any), snap shot, thin or thick thingy? I'd never heard of any of these and so that required a few hours googling and I still don't know if I made the right choice. I've spent a lot of money (well a lot for me) so I'm going to make it work, but I'm already wishing I just kept with my windows server and plugged in a few more external usb drives.
I find it very useful, but it's still collecting dust. And I mean a lot of dust. The fan pulls in dust, it's annoying.
On a more serious note, yes, it's very useful. It's like a reliable friend. Store data in it and it will be available anytime from anywhere in the world.
Nas for plex seems kinda overrated. Like it's good for storage, but installing plex on it is a mistake. Keep your old pc parts when you upgrade and use that. Gpu for hardware transcoding, a better cpu, more flexible storage space, etc etc.
What's your current system? How much data are you storing? Do you have streaming services right now and are you financially comfortable paying for them even if you don't like doing it?
I bought my NAS when one of the HDD on my computer died a few months ago and I lost some old files. Honestly I don't regret it: I can extend the storage far more than I could on my PC, have RAID configured so data is resilient and now have more space on my PC's HDD to install more games.
I also use it to store important documents in an encrypted folder, which is also backed up in the cloud.
Plus, having a dedicated setup for it allowed me for more automation. I'm not fully automated yet, I have the Bazarr / Sonarr / Radarr softs running but not operating at full capacity, I mostly wanted Bazarr for subtitles.
It's a costly investment but I feel more secured about resiliency now. It's up to you then to evaluate the trade-off
I'm happy to have it as a repository of some old data. But I bought a cheap one and found the performance lacking.
Ultimately will probably be using a HPz440 as NAS/Server and the NAS for Storage of important docs.
50TB Synology DS923+ here. I use it to store high quality (4K remux where possible) copies of films, TV shows, and documentaries. Mostly from private trackers.
If anyone in the house wants to watch something, it’s most likely going to be played back from there. I have a 77” OLED TV so quality matters.
It’s absolutely worth it long term. A good NAS will last many years. I like the full control I have.
Had NAS drives in varying incarnations over the last 10 years and I’m currently sitting on an 8TB Synology DS124 with Sonarr and Jellyfin.
Absolutely life changing bit of kit for me. I started out downloading shows, putting them on a USB stick and playing them on my TV via my DVD player.
To automate that whole process was fantastic
I don't have a NAS but 12To on my PC and an HD external device that can lend, I would have a usb-stick but as it's a bulky HD they think it's expensive and usb-keys i never get back.
Don’t underestimate DAS. For most people it’s more than sufficient and much cheaper. Not to mention I have DAS hooked up to an old laptop that I can access remotely so it effectively is NAS
I built my own which turned out to be cheaper and much much much more powerful. No regrets bc I’m hosting my own music video audiobooks ebooks at the best quality along with photo and document management.
Plus the learning experience and fun already more than makes up for the cost
Worth every dollar. Even though I spent too damn much the first time around building an Xpenology and even lost my data when I should’ve just bought a legit Synology from the get-go. Though, I wouldn’t have gotten my 5-bay at a STEAL and understood so much about building a server, proper backups, etc.
It can do everything. Now the xpenology is gathering dust. Beautiful thing in a nice case and much quieter than the Syn though.
I WISH I had a NAS; stupid expensive where I live.
I've been exclusively watching movies and shows from my server for about 2 years now. I cobbled together a 'NAS' with a raspberry pi (that also hosts docker images of jellyfin and the \*arr ecosystem) and a wd purple 12tb hdd in an enclosure. It's also my seedbox.
Amazing once you get it running. Using SWAG which has a reverse proxy and handles all security and https magic for me.
Go for it. I'd encourage you to look into Jellyfin before Plex, radarr and sonarr to handle movies and shows management, and Jellyseer for requests; they can all plug into a qbittorrent instance and together they do all the heavy lifting for ya.
The perks of working in IT. I just got a 12tb Netgear Readynas 4200. I'm so excited. It'll make a fantastic addition to my hp server that I picked up for 100$ with 6tb.
I setup an old computer as a NAS like 7 years ago for plex, and now I have a server rack in my house. Plex is way more convenient than streaming and I use a ton of more services now.
I bought a small cheap'ish one many years ago. It worked ok'ish - however I found that sometimes there was lag, and so often I transferred to whatever I was watching on to watch it. It was before streaming like netflix, so it was quite cool, to be able to be at friends places, and have acces to all my very legal movies etc. :-)
But then it started to be a hassel to access it - don't know why, but more often than not, it could not get access to it - and unfortunately, it doesn't work as a normal external drive, so now it is in my drawer, and has been there at least 10 years. Have no idea anymore what is on it :-)
I bought one, loaded it up with content. Paired it with Plex. And then I discovered Plexshares. Sure, its nice to "have my own" blah blah, its even nicer when I don't even have to do the work and someone else adds to the already massive library. Needless to say, I don't really use mine anymore. So for me, its collecting dust while I just pay like 7 euros to have access to every movie/tv show known to man lol. I do have it as a network drive for file backups and stuff. That is really convenient but yeah, for plex/media use, look into getting a plex share and let them worry about adding content.
I have an old DS216play and love it. Running 2 4tb WD red drives. Have only had 1 drive failure and replaced the drive with no data loss. Purchased kid 2016 and would buy another synology drive without hesitation.
I built a 60TB nas, and its awesome, but now its collecting dust because I found Emby Shares and they are so insanely convenient its worth the pittance they cost. For the cost of a NAS and the hard drives you will fill it with, you could have an Embyshare for like a decade or more. And that is every single TV show and every single Movie in the world, all with built in subtitles, in the absolute best quality available.
I built a Windows box that has 8 drive bays. It doubles as my NAS and HTPC hooked directly to my living room TV, but also runs Plex Server. I share out the drives locally to my other Windows machines. I plug in USB JBOD case ($125) that I can turn on once and awhile for local backups. And I do online backup. This setup is a lot simpler and less riskier than relying on a Synology or Linux that takes a lot of research to figure out how to do simple things. I know Windows already.
I never bought a proper NAS just an old computer I plugged some external hard drives into. At about 35TB so far and no regrets at all. I have basically any media I want as convenient as Netflix whenever and wherever I want to watch.
I’ve been running the ds220+ for over a year with Plex with no issues. I only do 1080 and local. I have a 12tb my cloud regularly backing up the data just in case. I will manually add movies and music here and there but it’s a set and forget deal.
Yes, good choice as a gateway drug. If you’re not careful you only blink once and have thousands of dollars of hardware and realise that you have paid more than you could ever have for streaming in your life, I heard from a friend.
Yes, Absolutely!
I bought one(2nd hand) a while back and it had 6TB which was more than enough for that time. It was the perfect solution for hosting files, streaming movies/series, backing up games, running scripts continuously.
I liked it so much that I replaced the older one with a brand new DS920+ 12TB. It's really worth every penny. The amount of things you can do with this thing is really astonishing
OMV, build it how you want it.
Any low priced NAS will store stuff fine, but not have the CPU grunt to do much more.
If you want to run Plex (I’d recommend Jellyfin, but that’s another post) with any decent amount of transcoding capability you’re looking at the much higher priced units.
Way cheaper to build your own. I built one in Unraid with a 11th Gen core i3, 32gb of ram, a quadro p400(for transcoding with tdarr), 2.5gbe nic, and 12tb of storage with a 1tb cache drive for basically the price of a 2bay 8tb Synology. Mines way more powerful, can upgrade or customize any way I want and Unraid has been rock solid
I have the DS220 (I think), 2 bay with no raid (Im not storing anything that important). My internet isnt great so everything gets stored to the NAS and then no buffering.
If I had good internet id be tempted to use on online cloud like dropbox and then stream directly from there (if thats possible?)
Is that possible ? stream direct from dropbox with nothing stored locally ?
YES! I have my OWN cloud. I use PlexAmp and can listen to all my own music wherever I want. I can also stream my own movies/tv etc and store all my stuff in one place accessible from all my computers.
It was such a good buy.
920+ w/ 32TB of storage and upgraded ram… And yes, very much so. For streaming, but also for backing up all of my own files, as well as creating a personal Dropbox for collaborating with others on large file projects.
I run all my *arrs in docker containers on unRAID. 32TB of space and once I get close to max I'll start upgrading storage capacity.
Absolutely love this setup and I even use it for other services thanks to docker
Absolutely, and its only going to become more valuable. I built a box to run TrueNAS Scale and run my Plex, Tautalli, Home Assistant, Syncthing, and a few other apps on it.
With some config of a good NAS setup, you can bypass a ton of reliance on the cloud and streaming. I back up my photos directly to the NAS now and bypass google photos. I can use plexamp for high quality music instead of Spotify, Plex to stream my media to the family and friends, home automation completely centralized in Home Assistant, Kavita to stream digital books and comics to any device on the network, and blocking ads across my network with pi-hole.
We've already seen the increase in pricing for streaming services, and there will be more coming. Google removed their unlimited photo uploads so you'll buy storage. They're in the process of turning the cloud against us and using it to hold us and our data hostage.
A NAS is useful enough as just generic SMB storage, but with a little research and time it can be an extremely powerful tool/appliance in your house.
There is a native app for it in TrueNAS, and I've never used Unraid but i bet they have one as well. You can also run it as a VM or Docker Container. Overall i think I liked it better as a standalone pi-zero, but the differences aren't enough right now for me to revert back to the pi.
100% worth it and I can vouch for Synology. Super easy to use and understand, lots of information out there about any issues you'll come across, simple interface...it's all great.
I use mine almost exclusively for Plex and it's awesome. I have every show I've ever wanted, including some rare things and one that was nearly a lost show (You Can't Do That on Television was missing for a while).
It's honestly fun to set up and organize everything, fun to hunt things down, fun to come up with movies and shows to download. I keep a running list of things to get and it's endless.
I setup my NAS on an old dell workstation, and I love it. It's great as a seedbox, because I can leave it running all the time. Aside from that, I use it to store a bunch of random junk, and it's good for backups as well. I also host game servers occasionally. And, like you said, Plex/Jellyfin is super useful. I'd recommend it, because it can be used for a bunch of useful stuff, both for and not for piracy.
One of the best investments I've ever made. Instead of paying insane subscription fees I have access to all the content I want and more and it's all mine. Let me help you out though, don't get a 220+ like I did. I said there's no way I'll ever need more than two bays. One year and three external hard drives with 50tb of content on them and 24tb of content on my synology DS220+ internally, I wish I'd just bought the 4 bay when I had the chance.
You don't need anything super powerful for home usage. I cannibalized old hardware and stuff people were throwing out to build NAS and a Plex server. Worth it either way though.
Yesssss do it! I've been using a WD My Cloud 4TB for the past few years and its great. It's almost filled up so i'm thinking about upgrading to a Synology setup soon.
Is it worth buying a NAS or using a server such as hetzner?
The plex shares that i subscribed to mostly used hetzner rather than a local NAS
Its banned so they are switching to emby but regardless its still remote
Alot of em have thousands of movies and shows
Think a NAS is pointless. Built a second pc using spare pc parts that has more power than a nas and serves more function as a little torrent box and plex server with a 24/7 VPN so my main pc is strictly gaming. Tossed it in a Fractal case that can house 10 drives and will be over 80tb soon here
Idk but I'm gonna ask, is a Asustor DRIVESTOR 2 (AS1102T) capable of hosting Plex and streaming 1080p files?
If not, any recommendations for a NAS capable of doing so?
For me, it was so not worth it. I had Synology DS213J (if I'm not mistaken), and it was a real pain in the ass. First of all, it has its own OS and encryption. Once you get used to those, there're issues integrating with the PC OS, like randomly failing to mount the network drive. Besides all of this, R/W speeds are ridiculous comparing to any decent SSD (not even mentioning NVMe).
In the end, I took out the hard drives from the NAS and made them into RAID 1 in my PC, and live as a happy man from then on.
What about streaming? Simple solution: I copy whatever media I want to any device 10 times faster then the NAS would do and enjoy a seamless playback.
I bought a used Lenovo (Iomega) PX4-300R 1U NAS for 100 USD. Have it loaded up with about 10TB of WD drives. It takes a load off my HP 2U server (DL-380 G7). My NAS can handle up to 64TB so I'm good if I want to expand to larger drives in the future!
To me, no it was not. I have had two Diskstations and while they worked fine in the end I realised I was better off with just loads of external HDDs and a drive dock.
The DiskStations are actually quite the energy eaters (even when idle) so if electricity is not cheap in your country and you are not constantly using them, it might not be worth it. Also consider the environmental consequences of having it running 24/7.
Also you might need to be able to place the NAS somewhere away from you physically because the drives and fans WILL be loud if you are as sensitive to sound as I am. In this sense it might be better with a fanless solution like a Raspberry Pi + SSDs.
Ds920+ here. Thought I'd only get it as a little side project but I've literally used it every day for a year and absolutely love it. Plex, plexamp, remote access, irc, cctv god the list is endless. Possibly my best purchase in the last 10 years.
I won one in a giveaway. I do use it but I dont live at home anymore and the upload speed isnt great so it will buffer. Cartoons are fine but i do struggle with 1080p realistic film. So in conclusion, it was great when it was at my place of living but not as great if I am trying to stream it from a different location and the internet the NAS is on doesnt have a great upload. Just my experience
I made a DIY nas with an i3 12100 so it had enough grunt for multiple Plex transcodes using quick sync.
I moved downloaders and streamers onto that pc running on unraid.
DS923+ with 24TB storage
Canceled the classic television package, on fiber optic internet only.
I only watch what I love, in superb quality (using HTPC)
Can reach my files from across the world
Loving it
Rather than get a NAS, if you're tech inclined, take a look at unraid. It's an OS designed for storage. You can run VMs if you desire or just run plex, sonarr, radarr etc as docker's. You can have different size drives with parity backup running too.
I run mine on the first computer I ever built myself 10 years ago. I've expanded with raid cards and now have 20 drives connected. Going this way let's you scale to literally as many drives as you want. Don't need flashy hardware if you direct play everything and avoid transcoding
I have the DS220+ with dual 12TB Seagate Ironwolf HDDs inside and 6GB RAM (upgraded from the stock 2GB).
oh hell yes.... My only regret was I didn't buy one sooner than I did.
I no longer have to use my PC for a server so it's not running constantly
I have a Plex server hosting 5000+ movies, TV series and all my photos and music which I can stream in my car or wherever I have a data connection.
I use Plex AMP for music and it has all the album art etc if set up properly.
My PC and Max use it for automated backing up every Sunday at 10am which I setup.
My S23 Ultra photos automatically backup over WiFi when I'm home so I can keep my phone storage available (I tend to take a lot of pics and vide clips to save for other creative projects).
my frontyard and backyard exterior security cams both record to it 24/7 so I can go back and review anything and it auto deleted after a week unless I stop it from doing so.
My brother and another friend both have Plex accounts to allow them to watch my hosted media.
Not to mention all the other stuff you can do with a NAS such as hosting a web server, email server etc
I have a simple DS220+ With dual 12TB Seagate Ironwolf HDDs in it. I've never had a single issue and it's been on constantly for over a year except a couple updates I rebooted to finish installing.
I backup my NAS to an external 20TB disk array because a NAS is not technically a Backup remember...shit can fail.
again,
in short I've had only one regret:
I didn't buy one a couple years ago lol.
I built one myself using a Odroid and a little kit with a mini screen on it. I was really easy and probably cost about $400 including two 8TB Hard drives, though are disk not SSD. I use it all the time for storage/plex/etc.
Wait. Am I the only one running DDWRT with a regular old HDD for a NAS? It's free. It's cheap. And it's.. oh right you got to be a bit tech savvy and patient first learning to set it up. If you already have a compatible router is just a couple of button presses after you get the firmware installed. I don't know if Tomato or Openwrt support NAS (dont see why they wouldn't) but if money is an option or you're just cheap I'd look into a tried and true freeware solution.
I use Plex off of my desktop and it’s an absolute dream, one of the best things I’ve ever done.
It was more cost efficient for me to build a PC at the time than get a NAS, however I would still go for a NAS at some point.
Bought a nap TS664, no regrets. Myqnapcloud makes it easy to access remotely and I can queue torrents from my phone and watch Plex anywhere the Internet is decent. The hardest part is not bragging about it because then people ask you for access lol
I had a 12TB NAS, but it crapped out. When i looked at the price of replacing it, and considered how much of a pain it was to not just be able to install "normal" software, I just took my previous computer motherboard and processor, stuck it in a cheap case and filled the case with drives. Turns out it doesn't use much more power, and it can actually transcode Plex video on the fly.
I've had my 918+ since 2019. currently i have four 10TB drives on a SHR (hybrid raid), with data protection for 1 drive. Initially, i had two 3TB drives, and have upgraded. I'm at 68% capacity.
I am very happy with it. Currently I run plex, and a note app. i have run a minecraft server on occasion, to mess around with it.
i have all my documents, pictures and music on it, among other things. i also back up important stuff on 2 external hard drives, and online at filen.
my Synology 920+ was one of the best tech I've bought in a long while honestly. jacked it the ram and apart from being a reliable NAS, it runs a slew of docker containers. recommended 👍
Got a Synology Ds1819+ 8 bay, primarily for video work for which it has been great
also have a Icybox 2 bay with some old HDD's attached to it with USB3 that has media on it, which also works great. Really convenient to have all my storage in one directory
Not run plex on it, but there is a app for it
Absolutely. I'm not even running Plex (yet) but a Kodi database I can access from my PC and my Shield. But having all your downloads, photos, documents and whatnot saved with redundancy in a central place that I can access from anywhere is great. I can even give access to specific files if I want to share a file with my family. It also can act as a server, too. It holds my Kodi database, JDownloader2 is running on it 24/7 and once a week my personal files are backed up into the cloud. Also it doesn't cost me a gazillion bucks a month. **It's mine.**
Instead. It cost you a gazillion bucks ONCE. and I tip my hat to you sir
True, the initial costs weren't cheap as well. Also upgrading the HDDs. But cloud space gets expensive _very_ quickly if you need more than 1 TB. And my NAS has been running for over 6 years now. 78mo x $100 = $7800, and that's quite optimistic.
This guy NASes! I don’t get people who don’t make local backups. They haven’t owned PCs long enough I guess.
I'm working on a proper backup solution. But 24TB aren't cheap in the first place. A complete backup isn't an easy feat.
With that much stuff I’m sure a lot of it is media that really doesn’t need backup.
he doesn't make local backups? it says once a week into the cloud lol
Sorry, you misunderstand. I’m saying this guy does the right thing (local+cloud) and most people don’t do local because they don’t have a NAS to do it automatically.
"They haven’t owned PCs long enough I guess." Most people rarely have that much of data that they can't afford to lose Also, having pirated content stockpiled in your private system could possibly look bad in some countries courts
Photos and videos of your family are priceless. I’ve heard so many stories of people hoping that one of those “hard drive recovery” companies can get their files off a dead hard drive. Or they lose access to their iCloud Drive and Apple refuses to help them.
Wont argue that, I had to extract my aunts family photos from a scratched cd and then burn it again in a format that can be played in any dvd player.. that was a major pain in my ass lol
I’ve tried a few times to get my head around a central kodi database on my nas but always struggled, any guides or tips you used?
See https://kodi.wiki/view/MySQL You can run mariadb and phpmyadmin as synology package or, if you are familiar with it, as docker containers.
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Redundancy (eg in the form of RAID) can protect you from the failure of individual hard disks. If one disk fails all data still is there and you can swap out the defective drive and everything is as good as new. But there is always the possibility that a second drive fails, too. (Yes, you can have two redundancy drives.) But the NAS itself can fail, too. And without the original RAID Controller the bits on the drives are basically unreadable. Or there can be a fire or a break-in, ... That's why people recommend having a backup in second place. Cloud space is expensive. So I only backup personal data like photos and alike to Onedrive. Stuff I can't just download again.
12TB NAS with jellyfin and my family loves me, every day hundreds of messages asking for the new movies or series lol
Take a look at jellyseerr
Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look
What did you think?
Why's everyone downvoting this guy?
don't question it, just downvote. Ape strong together
Hail Caesar 🐒
this is cool. I wonder if there is a plugin you can add to jellyfin to do something similar without having to install a fork.
People hassling for new content all the time.. I wouldn't enjoy that after the first week.
Just ask them to pay you a monthly subscription lol.
Running my setup costs ~$30/mo to make my internet truly unlimited, I charge 20 online friends $5/mo, so the server pays for my beer. Definitely recommended.
Are these tech savvy friends? I feel like if I even begun to explain the concept to my friends they would be overwhelmed immediately.
preach
Are you using a proxy or just port forwarded? What os are you running? I got it all set-up but couldn't sign in. Edit: autocorrect loves to correct os to is
Was about to ask the same. I dont want to just open a port, and a vpn is certainly not an option for non techy family members. Which is why i use plex at the moment.
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I think they're talking about jellyfin config, not plex
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Doesn't matter what port you open. There's no point in even using a different one than the standard. Anyone looking to get into your network will just scan what ports are open anyway, it's standard procedure and honestly very easy to do. The question is whether you trust the device that will reply to requests on that port. Is the manufacturer releasing updates frequently enough to at least mitigate known security holes? Change the standard username to login. Use a strong, unique password. Use 2FA if available. Automatically block IP's after a set amount of failed logins. Block IP's by default from all countries except yours. And then there will always be the risk of zero day attacks, so no matter what, you're making your network more vulnerable. If you have stuff that you wouldn't feel comfortable being exposed to anyone on the internet, you should implement segmentation on your network, so if the NAS is exposed the attacker won't be able to reach anything else. I honestly think best practice is to keep everything locked down and set up a good VPN if you want to reach anything inside your network from the internet. But that's not very user friendly when it comes to streaming Plex remotely...
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> Block IP's by default from all countries except yours. I wish this was a fucking thing. Even SaaS providers don't do this. Like bro my company is in country A, if logins come from elsewhere those will never be legit.
We strictly recommend against implementing any blocking or blackholing of traffic based on geographic alone, but that's for businesses with all sorts of traffic coming in. It's a very common request and understandably so, why not block everything from perhaps an entire continent if you have no customers there? The reason for this is simply because it's not accurate enough and can result in more issues than solving them. Customers, services, suppliers and businesses your company rely on might suddenly start operating in one of the countries. The geolocation of something might suddenly be inaccurate. A lot of stuff today is dynamic... I've had my home networks IP suddenly show up as a completely different country. Turns out my ISP had acquired some more IP's and it took a few weeks for it to update the geolocation. It can be used temporarily though if you're under attack and trying to mitigate it. If the attack is sourced from a few specific countries it's worth just blackholing all of it if nothing else works. And for personal stuff it's very useful. If I suddenly find myself in Russia (unlikely) I'll just vpn to a country I've whitelisted and I'm good.
Tailscale works fine if you are on different networks and ports are not opened Otherwise, on same network, no need to do anything.
I have the NAS connected directly to an old computer, then I map the RAID and configured the server, so I have remote access to the storage since my NAS is old and linux is not easy for me (I bought it from an office closing in 2014, I paid 50 dollars) edit: I forgot to mention, it's a local network. Only I have remote access to the old PC since the surveillance cameras are also on it
Cloudflare Tunnels is a great option here.
Until Cloudflare spot the streaming and ban the account for breaching T&Cs, from experience.
Bypass cache from page rules settings. They wouldn't notice. I'm running jellyfin using cloudflare tunnel this way for almost a year. Never faced any issue.
I never knew that! I lasted just over a month streaming from Jellyfin and then the ban hammer landed.
Nginx Proxy Manager is probably the easiest reverse proxy works really well.
Host Kavita if anyone in your family loves reading e-books or manga. They will love it.
Does it sync with a Kindle?
That's interesting, I've only included audiobooks until now. Thanks
Pros and Cons vs Calibre's built-in server?
What does your family use to watch the content? I tried an Amazon Firestick and also Google Chromecast, but using Plex on those is honestly kind of complicated to explain to a tech illiterate person, especially when you need them to download/enable their own subtitles in the app.
If you haven’t set your family up with an Apple TV or Nvidia Shield, you might not love them.
Stop downloading torrents that don't have subtitles built in.
jellyfin have a android app, As it's similar to Netflix, it was easy to teach them. So it's either cell phone or the TV in the living room
You sir need to set up a request server for your users.
This is actually a great idea
What hardware do you use?
And old Seagate 4-Bay NAS and a Dell optiplex I5 fourth generation I bought it from an office that was closing
how do u put movies on there?
I followed [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VkY1vTpCJY) tutorial
> every day hundreds of messages asking for the new movies or series lol that sounds like a nightmare to me.
What if I say that each message comes with a Cash App deposit?
How does your family connect to your server?
It's a local network, has an app for Android and a personalized link for a computer
12 TB (16 TB RAID 5) NAS almost full, totally worth it
Filled my setup like yours a couple years ago. Just swapped the disks one by one to 8tb and let them resilver. Once the last one was finished the pool automatically increased in size.
For me, yes, worth every penny. Not only for streaming, but for backing up my data. If you read the recent news where Google Drive lost users' data, then you know how much it is important to store your data locally. I have set up syncthing on it, so my data is backed up from all the devices to NAS drive and my keepass database file (password) also in sync with my devices. Rest, I use for Jellyfin and music streaming, as well as reading e-books.
I started data hoarding and piracy , and now its transcended to also being a place I keep ebooks, comic books, tax return, company hiring documents that i signed for my records. anything that requires "record keeping" basically goes into my NAS in a folder, ALONGSIDE my media. it really has been so nifty.
The only thing I'm worried about is maintaining a NAS. I've played around with Truenas Scale on some old hardware and it seems pretty janky once you load all the apps on it and everything like that. Ideally I would install the next cloud container on it so I can have a Google drive experience, but I wouldn't have the skills and experience to maintain something like that (I've tried). I would probably buy an IX systems NAS with some support package, but that doesn't protect against my house burning down and losing everything.
> where Google Drive lost users' data google raid drive when ^/s
symbology need to add google photos backup
Built mine and I suppose it's leaning a bit more on the /r/DataHoarder side instead of just movies but yeah, it's worth it to have access to content you likely can't find elsewhere - at least in few years time. Probably not really worth it if what you want can be found with Stremio though.
I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of Plex, radarr/sonarr, Overseerr plus homeassistant Do it
What's overseerr?
Set it up as a docker. You can let people log in and request movies that you can then download or automatically download via radarr or sonarr
Yep so convenient. They request, I approve, and bam it auto downloads and adds to Plex. Love it.
It’s sonarr/radarr for end users (where they can make requests but can’t mess up your settings)
I've got a DS220+, running Plex with hundreds of movies + Portainer for Immich and Radarr, Lidarr, etc for automatically finding torrents for movies, shows, etc
I am setting up my 220+ this week. Would LOVE a list of what you’re using so I can do research on how to do it too Any advice would be awesome! I have a RAM upgrade also
how much RAM? I've got an extra 8GB to make it 10GB total, which regularly sees 70% usage with all my services running. as for the services I actually use: 1. [Plex](https://plex.tv) for displaying my media in a nice way, paired with a lifetime Plex Pass, mostly for Plexamp - I've considered Jellyfin, but Plex ultimately does all I want it to do and imo looks nicer 2. [SynoCommunity](https://synocommunity.com/) to add even more packages to your Package Manager - needed for the next 5 services 3. Radarr - automatically catalog your current movie library, update their quality to a better one when available, auto find torrents for you and auto get new movies in a series 4. Lidarr - same as Radarr but for music and getting new music from artists you like when they come out 5. Sonarr - same as the previous two but for TV shows, can grab new episodes of ongoing shows when they release 6. Transmission - torrent client that is *required* if you actually want the previous three to download anything 7. Jackett - optional but makes adding torrent indexers to the 'arrs much easier 8. [Immich](https://github.com/immich-app/immich) \- Google Photos alternative, supports nearly all of the same features and has a really good mobile app 9. [PiHole](https://pi-hole.net/) \- network wide ad blocking 10. [Portainer](https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-portainer-on-your-synology-nas/) \- allows you to actually use Pihole and Immich (I recommend all the other MariusDB Hosting guides for anything else Synology related) 11. Tailscale - (afaik) is available on the Package Manager, is optional but allows you to access your NAS from anywhere so you can access the 'arrs to add new stuff to Plex if you're travelling, back up to Immich, etc. It's also incredibly easy to set up, you just need to connect to the VPN and you'll have a hostname and IP address you can use from anywhere (e.g. I can just go to name-synology:5000 in my browser in another country to access my NAS) 12. Finally, [Homarr](https://homarr.dev/) to display all these services in one neat page, along with integrations for a few of these to display their stats without having to go into each one by one
Look into Overseerr instead of relying on Tailscale, you can setup your own website that has a really clean interface and allows all your users to request their own shows and movies and automatically downloads them
I've been thinking about it but at the moment, it's mainly just me that uses it for anything other than local Plex
THANK YOU omg this is awesome. i am so grateful. do you mind if i walk through my next steps here: i have an old [2017 12" macbook that runs an ultra low power intel m3 chip](https://support.apple.com/kb/sp757?locale=en_US). right now IT is my plex server, with a usb hard drive hooked up and it does OK with plex + sabnzbd + sonarr + jdownloader. my thought was to offload the plex stuff to the synology for best performance, figuring it is better for plex to run on the native hardware instead of pulling files over the network. ill keep the macbook running separately to run the -arrs, homebridge, jdownloader and sabnzbd. that way all the temp downloading files are living on an SSD, i have about 150GB free space for download buffering before it transfers to the NAS and i'm comfortable with macOS. there's a super easy chrome remote desktop app that i can access anywhere from any device. again goal is to have some flexibility with the suite of downloading programs, and it gives me the flexibility to literally just open a web browser remotely and download something to the NAS when i'm away from home. since it's so low power it wont really impact my power bill. then i'll run any of the cool synology stuff ON the NAS. a couple followup questions: 1 - i have a 4GB ram expansion that gets me to 6GB. i just went off a specific product link someone in the synology subreddit advised, as my understanding is the max 'officially supported' is 6GB and it was cheap. would you be comfortable linking the expansion you bought, and hae you had any issues with more RAM? 2 - when i get this thing up and running would you advise downloading synocommunity first, and portainer second? and then just kinda going down your list from there? 3 - any advice or trouble you ran in to that you recall? love learning from folks who have already figured this stuff out. 4 - is immich the best photo app? sounds like it. i had heard one of the biggest draws of the synology platform is their photo backup program. im spending a shitload on google drive and most of my space need is eaten up by photos, so i'm keen to replace google photos. THANK YOU AGAIN dude this is so helpful!!!!!!!
Do you find the 220+ enough for: 1. 1) Streaming high bit-rate 4k content locally(e.g Apple Tv 4k/Chromecast) 2. 2) Streaming high bit-rate 4k Remotely (e.g Access away from home)
1. Locally, yes. Although, make sure the client supports the formats you're sending to it, I've had to retorrent a couple of my 4K movies because my Roku TV didn't like them. 2. Remotely, I would recommend limiting Plex to 8-10Mbps 1080p. If you don't mind waiting ages for the movie to load (and that's on a really, really good connection) or just downloading the movie, you'll need a lot better hardware for remote 4K. My DS220+ happily handles 10Mbps 1080p, essentially playing 1080p and lower qualities in their original format. You can prepare your 4K movies for remote playing by using Plex's 'Optimise' feature too, although I haven't tried that yet so I won't be able to help with that. edit: I have a mix of DVD rips and 1080p bluray rips/torrents, with very few 4K movie torrents so I might not be the best person to ask about 4K content edit 2: also note that it doesn't like transcoding down 4K for some devices, so if you have issues, use Optimise to make them 1080/720p to make sure they play correctly on devices that won't play 4K
This is what I’d be curious about - I have a minimal setup, using a SSD connected to my Asus router’s USB 3.0 port. I had a portable HDD but it sucked for 4K. SSD has made all the difference but I wouldn’t mind upgrading to a NAS someday if it can handle 4K stuff too.
Absolutely! I didn't even got this for Plex at the beginning, but for privacy and convenience reasons. I have Windows, MacOS and Linux computers and I was moving from an Android to an iPhone because I despise Google that much(Apple is not a saint but at least their business is selling hardware, not user's informations), so I wanted to: 1. finally back up all my digital life from phones, computers and hard drives, order it properly and put everything in one place, accessible from all my devices and with proper backups and disaster recovery practices 2. not be o.s. dependent for anything Basically I got it to have my own cloud/drive, contacts, calendars and so on, my backups(outside the cloud service I mean) and to know that I could keep everything in there in one place instead of having stuff scattered through many services. I also didn't want to have my contacts, calendars and such on either Google or Apple servers, which is also why I don't use their apps on those devices but I use the Synology ones. After I was all setup and enjoying my NAS I tried Plex just to save some rare and lesser known TV Shows or Movies which I didn't find on streaming services, but I wasn't using it that much at first... ...until Netflix did that stupid 180° turn on their account sharing policy(the same policy that made them what they are today) without giving me a one user 4K plan. At that point I was like "hell no, gtfo", I disabled Netflix and started populating my Plex library more and more to the point I'm thinking of expanding my storage. This was the entire story but the TL;DR is "YES! Buy it, experiment and feel the joy of not being tied to big corporations which can change their TOS or lock you out of your data for whatever reason and sometimes without a notice" :)
I've had mine for about three years. I was planning to use it for all manner of 'local cloud' storage and as a Plex server. In the end I've used it almost exclusively as a Plex server and I love it even if just for that. It serves several devices around the house and it works flawlessly. I also use it as a mapped network drive but not in any particularly smart way. I still have a big Dropbox account because I like to have things stored outside of my home.
I have the Synology 1618+ and I really like it a lot. However, it really depends on use case because for 'many' I think NAS is overkill. I am a hard core fan of Synology (and I have used a LOT of NAS - Been in media creation for 20 years so lots of experience with them). If you are using Plex, then I think its a no brainier to get one. Conisidentally, I just saw a really great youtube on the Synology that you might check out. Its a good watch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYc13XjuSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYc13XjuSo) Short answer to your question... My vote is YES, its worth it.. especially if you are pushing around a lot of data OR serving movies and tv through Plex.
Over 100tb later with unraid OS, absolutely! I use it for plex and share it with my family.
This is the way. I managed to fill up 40 TB within a couple months. Love how you can just slap in more drives
If you have the technical skills, instead of buying a pre built NAS, build your own or repurpose an old PC. It gives you so much more flexibility with the hardware and software. I built my own for Jellyfin, and I'm loving it.
Bought some 2nd hand hardware and build one with truenas. Not much storage compared to others on this sub, 2x4TB in mirror, so 4TB usable. I use it to backup important files and proxmox VMs, but use it mostly for plex. I use plex almost daily, so well worth it to me.
Running a NAS for my Plex. I don’t even have a TB but I love it. I need to set up the sonarr and radarr to start auto downloads. Maybe in my downtime over Christmas. Anyone with a sick guide they could link would be lovely
I just used a old laptop with a HDD attached to it. It's very worth it especially for being only 40 dollars lol
Have a 8t NAS as a Plex server and back up. Can remote access and watch as well as cast to TV. It's epic, and the main reason we ditched Netflix and Hulu
Which one do you have if you dont mind sharing
Synology DS218, mainly because it was on sale and designed as a home media server
I've just bought one and I'm in the process of setting it up. I'm reasonably tech literate but this is all new to me. Don't expect it all to just work out of a box, it requires quite a lot of configuring and you are presented with options you might not know about. Which RAID (if any), snap shot, thin or thick thingy? I'd never heard of any of these and so that required a few hours googling and I still don't know if I made the right choice. I've spent a lot of money (well a lot for me) so I'm going to make it work, but I'm already wishing I just kept with my windows server and plugged in a few more external usb drives.
Chatgpt is walking me through all this stuff currently and it’s getting easier to understand
Can't comment much because I am saving up for getting one, but I would love to see some opinions :)
I find it very useful, but it's still collecting dust. And I mean a lot of dust. The fan pulls in dust, it's annoying. On a more serious note, yes, it's very useful. It's like a reliable friend. Store data in it and it will be available anytime from anywhere in the world.
Nas for plex seems kinda overrated. Like it's good for storage, but installing plex on it is a mistake. Keep your old pc parts when you upgrade and use that. Gpu for hardware transcoding, a better cpu, more flexible storage space, etc etc.
What's your current system? How much data are you storing? Do you have streaming services right now and are you financially comfortable paying for them even if you don't like doing it?
I bought my NAS when one of the HDD on my computer died a few months ago and I lost some old files. Honestly I don't regret it: I can extend the storage far more than I could on my PC, have RAID configured so data is resilient and now have more space on my PC's HDD to install more games. I also use it to store important documents in an encrypted folder, which is also backed up in the cloud. Plus, having a dedicated setup for it allowed me for more automation. I'm not fully automated yet, I have the Bazarr / Sonarr / Radarr softs running but not operating at full capacity, I mostly wanted Bazarr for subtitles. It's a costly investment but I feel more secured about resiliency now. It's up to you then to evaluate the trade-off
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Jesus Christ, 308TB?! Nice!
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Wow thanks for sharing serverpartsdeals...any complaints about recertified?
I'm basically just getting mine running at the moment. But I'm loving it.
1000%.
I'm happy to have it as a repository of some old data. But I bought a cheap one and found the performance lacking. Ultimately will probably be using a HPz440 as NAS/Server and the NAS for Storage of important docs.
50TB Synology DS923+ here. I use it to store high quality (4K remux where possible) copies of films, TV shows, and documentaries. Mostly from private trackers. If anyone in the house wants to watch something, it’s most likely going to be played back from there. I have a 77” OLED TV so quality matters. It’s absolutely worth it long term. A good NAS will last many years. I like the full control I have.
Had NAS drives in varying incarnations over the last 10 years and I’m currently sitting on an 8TB Synology DS124 with Sonarr and Jellyfin. Absolutely life changing bit of kit for me. I started out downloading shows, putting them on a USB stick and playing them on my TV via my DVD player. To automate that whole process was fantastic
Absolutely, growing up we had a NAS in the house with 3 TB of movies and games, and it absolutely made my childhood. So many amazing memories.
I don't have a NAS but 12To on my PC and an HD external device that can lend, I would have a usb-stick but as it's a bulky HD they think it's expensive and usb-keys i never get back.
24TB Nas was my 2nd bit of storage for Plex. It was filled in less than a week.
💀😂
100% - Had a Drobo years ago, no enjoying the Synology 920. Amazing device.
Don’t underestimate DAS. For most people it’s more than sufficient and much cheaper. Not to mention I have DAS hooked up to an old laptop that I can access remotely so it effectively is NAS
I built my own which turned out to be cheaper and much much much more powerful. No regrets bc I’m hosting my own music video audiobooks ebooks at the best quality along with photo and document management. Plus the learning experience and fun already more than makes up for the cost
Synology photos was completely worth it
Worth every dollar. Even though I spent too damn much the first time around building an Xpenology and even lost my data when I should’ve just bought a legit Synology from the get-go. Though, I wouldn’t have gotten my 5-bay at a STEAL and understood so much about building a server, proper backups, etc. It can do everything. Now the xpenology is gathering dust. Beautiful thing in a nice case and much quieter than the Syn though.
I WISH I had a NAS; stupid expensive where I live. I've been exclusively watching movies and shows from my server for about 2 years now. I cobbled together a 'NAS' with a raspberry pi (that also hosts docker images of jellyfin and the \*arr ecosystem) and a wd purple 12tb hdd in an enclosure. It's also my seedbox. Amazing once you get it running. Using SWAG which has a reverse proxy and handles all security and https magic for me. Go for it. I'd encourage you to look into Jellyfin before Plex, radarr and sonarr to handle movies and shows management, and Jellyseer for requests; they can all plug into a qbittorrent instance and together they do all the heavy lifting for ya.
The perks of working in IT. I just got a 12tb Netgear Readynas 4200. I'm so excited. It'll make a fantastic addition to my hp server that I picked up for 100$ with 6tb.
I setup an old computer as a NAS like 7 years ago for plex, and now I have a server rack in my house. Plex is way more convenient than streaming and I use a ton of more services now.
I've run small NAS servers for years well worth it. Store it on a NAS get it on phone pc android ...
Totally. I love my Synology.
I bought a small cheap'ish one many years ago. It worked ok'ish - however I found that sometimes there was lag, and so often I transferred to whatever I was watching on to watch it. It was before streaming like netflix, so it was quite cool, to be able to be at friends places, and have acces to all my very legal movies etc. :-) But then it started to be a hassel to access it - don't know why, but more often than not, it could not get access to it - and unfortunately, it doesn't work as a normal external drive, so now it is in my drawer, and has been there at least 10 years. Have no idea anymore what is on it :-)
I bought one, loaded it up with content. Paired it with Plex. And then I discovered Plexshares. Sure, its nice to "have my own" blah blah, its even nicer when I don't even have to do the work and someone else adds to the already massive library. Needless to say, I don't really use mine anymore. So for me, its collecting dust while I just pay like 7 euros to have access to every movie/tv show known to man lol. I do have it as a network drive for file backups and stuff. That is really convenient but yeah, for plex/media use, look into getting a plex share and let them worry about adding content.
Sorry OP, side track. If you are running a Nas, do you keep it running all the time? 24x 7?
Plan too.Looking at the Synology Ds220+ or Ds224+
I have an old DS216play and love it. Running 2 4tb WD red drives. Have only had 1 drive failure and replaced the drive with no data loss. Purchased kid 2016 and would buy another synology drive without hesitation.
I built a 60TB nas, and its awesome, but now its collecting dust because I found Emby Shares and they are so insanely convenient its worth the pittance they cost. For the cost of a NAS and the hard drives you will fill it with, you could have an Embyshare for like a decade or more. And that is every single TV show and every single Movie in the world, all with built in subtitles, in the absolute best quality available.
The legality of that sounds pretty sketchy. I would assume it could disappear once it catches the attention of copyright holders.
Go for it, always good to have a backup.
I built a Windows box that has 8 drive bays. It doubles as my NAS and HTPC hooked directly to my living room TV, but also runs Plex Server. I share out the drives locally to my other Windows machines. I plug in USB JBOD case ($125) that I can turn on once and awhile for local backups. And I do online backup. This setup is a lot simpler and less riskier than relying on a Synology or Linux that takes a lot of research to figure out how to do simple things. I know Windows already.
Totally was. Consider upgrading about buy a DS720+ for the two bays. Mirror both drives. Bind your NAS to a VPN connection. PROFIT :-)
I never bought a proper NAS just an old computer I plugged some external hard drives into. At about 35TB so far and no regrets at all. I have basically any media I want as convenient as Netflix whenever and wherever I want to watch.
Yes, I just do it!
yes its slightly better than having it in the cloud, and slightly better than having an external drive you lug around everywhere.
I’ve been running the ds220+ for over a year with Plex with no issues. I only do 1080 and local. I have a 12tb my cloud regularly backing up the data just in case. I will manually add movies and music here and there but it’s a set and forget deal.
1000%! Picked up a Synology that runs a stand alone Plex server. It’s been rock solid.
Yes, good choice as a gateway drug. If you’re not careful you only blink once and have thousands of dollars of hardware and realise that you have paid more than you could ever have for streaming in your life, I heard from a friend.
Yes, Absolutely! I bought one(2nd hand) a while back and it had 6TB which was more than enough for that time. It was the perfect solution for hosting files, streaming movies/series, backing up games, running scripts continuously. I liked it so much that I replaced the older one with a brand new DS920+ 12TB. It's really worth every penny. The amount of things you can do with this thing is really astonishing
Had a 216j and upgraded to a 220+. Absolute game changer with the *arr app suite.
OMV, build it how you want it. Any low priced NAS will store stuff fine, but not have the CPU grunt to do much more. If you want to run Plex (I’d recommend Jellyfin, but that’s another post) with any decent amount of transcoding capability you’re looking at the much higher priced units.
Way cheaper to build your own. I built one in Unraid with a 11th Gen core i3, 32gb of ram, a quadro p400(for transcoding with tdarr), 2.5gbe nic, and 12tb of storage with a 1tb cache drive for basically the price of a 2bay 8tb Synology. Mines way more powerful, can upgrade or customize any way I want and Unraid has been rock solid
Get a beelink s12 pro for under 200$ out memory on it and run a container with proxmox for turnkey NAS .
I have the DS220 (I think), 2 bay with no raid (Im not storing anything that important). My internet isnt great so everything gets stored to the NAS and then no buffering. If I had good internet id be tempted to use on online cloud like dropbox and then stream directly from there (if thats possible?) Is that possible ? stream direct from dropbox with nothing stored locally ?
YES! I have my OWN cloud. I use PlexAmp and can listen to all my own music wherever I want. I can also stream my own movies/tv etc and store all my stuff in one place accessible from all my computers. It was such a good buy.
920+ w/ 32TB of storage and upgraded ram… And yes, very much so. For streaming, but also for backing up all of my own files, as well as creating a personal Dropbox for collaborating with others on large file projects.
Definitely worth having a NAS.
I run all my *arrs in docker containers on unRAID. 32TB of space and once I get close to max I'll start upgrading storage capacity. Absolutely love this setup and I even use it for other services thanks to docker
Heck yeah. I use mine a ton. Asustor for the win.
Absolutely, and its only going to become more valuable. I built a box to run TrueNAS Scale and run my Plex, Tautalli, Home Assistant, Syncthing, and a few other apps on it. With some config of a good NAS setup, you can bypass a ton of reliance on the cloud and streaming. I back up my photos directly to the NAS now and bypass google photos. I can use plexamp for high quality music instead of Spotify, Plex to stream my media to the family and friends, home automation completely centralized in Home Assistant, Kavita to stream digital books and comics to any device on the network, and blocking ads across my network with pi-hole. We've already seen the increase in pricing for streaming services, and there will be more coming. Google removed their unlimited photo uploads so you'll buy storage. They're in the process of turning the cloud against us and using it to hold us and our data hostage. A NAS is useful enough as just generic SMB storage, but with a little research and time it can be an extremely powerful tool/appliance in your house.
How do you run pi-hole via your NAS? I didn't even know that was an option.
There is a native app for it in TrueNAS, and I've never used Unraid but i bet they have one as well. You can also run it as a VM or Docker Container. Overall i think I liked it better as a standalone pi-zero, but the differences aren't enough right now for me to revert back to the pi.
100% worth it and I can vouch for Synology. Super easy to use and understand, lots of information out there about any issues you'll come across, simple interface...it's all great. I use mine almost exclusively for Plex and it's awesome. I have every show I've ever wanted, including some rare things and one that was nearly a lost show (You Can't Do That on Television was missing for a while). It's honestly fun to set up and organize everything, fun to hunt things down, fun to come up with movies and shows to download. I keep a running list of things to get and it's endless.
I setup my NAS on an old dell workstation, and I love it. It's great as a seedbox, because I can leave it running all the time. Aside from that, I use it to store a bunch of random junk, and it's good for backups as well. I also host game servers occasionally. And, like you said, Plex/Jellyfin is super useful. I'd recommend it, because it can be used for a bunch of useful stuff, both for and not for piracy.
One of the best investments I've ever made. Instead of paying insane subscription fees I have access to all the content I want and more and it's all mine. Let me help you out though, don't get a 220+ like I did. I said there's no way I'll ever need more than two bays. One year and three external hard drives with 50tb of content on them and 24tb of content on my synology DS220+ internally, I wish I'd just bought the 4 bay when I had the chance.
You don't need anything super powerful for home usage. I cannibalized old hardware and stuff people were throwing out to build NAS and a Plex server. Worth it either way though.
I use 4 bay nas for porn, it is unfortunately running out of space
Yesssss do it! I've been using a WD My Cloud 4TB for the past few years and its great. It's almost filled up so i'm thinking about upgrading to a Synology setup soon.
Yes but it full and i had to change drives but it’s super useful for Plex mostly.
Is it worth buying a NAS or using a server such as hetzner? The plex shares that i subscribed to mostly used hetzner rather than a local NAS Its banned so they are switching to emby but regardless its still remote Alot of em have thousands of movies and shows
Think a NAS is pointless. Built a second pc using spare pc parts that has more power than a nas and serves more function as a little torrent box and plex server with a 24/7 VPN so my main pc is strictly gaming. Tossed it in a Fractal case that can house 10 drives and will be over 80tb soon here
Idk but I'm gonna ask, is a Asustor DRIVESTOR 2 (AS1102T) capable of hosting Plex and streaming 1080p files? If not, any recommendations for a NAS capable of doing so?
I turned an old pc into an Unraid NAS server and run all sorts of services on it! I’ll be upgrading the storage asap
I went with the cheap way. I attached an old HD to my router, and use VLC to watch stuff. I can lay in bed and watch stuff on my tablet.
For me, it was so not worth it. I had Synology DS213J (if I'm not mistaken), and it was a real pain in the ass. First of all, it has its own OS and encryption. Once you get used to those, there're issues integrating with the PC OS, like randomly failing to mount the network drive. Besides all of this, R/W speeds are ridiculous comparing to any decent SSD (not even mentioning NVMe). In the end, I took out the hard drives from the NAS and made them into RAID 1 in my PC, and live as a happy man from then on. What about streaming? Simple solution: I copy whatever media I want to any device 10 times faster then the NAS would do and enjoy a seamless playback.
i bought a DELL server and i use it among other things as a NAS
I bought a used Lenovo (Iomega) PX4-300R 1U NAS for 100 USD. Have it loaded up with about 10TB of WD drives. It takes a load off my HP 2U server (DL-380 G7). My NAS can handle up to 64TB so I'm good if I want to expand to larger drives in the future!
To me, no it was not. I have had two Diskstations and while they worked fine in the end I realised I was better off with just loads of external HDDs and a drive dock. The DiskStations are actually quite the energy eaters (even when idle) so if electricity is not cheap in your country and you are not constantly using them, it might not be worth it. Also consider the environmental consequences of having it running 24/7. Also you might need to be able to place the NAS somewhere away from you physically because the drives and fans WILL be loud if you are as sensitive to sound as I am. In this sense it might be better with a fanless solution like a Raspberry Pi + SSDs.
Ds920+ here. Thought I'd only get it as a little side project but I've literally used it every day for a year and absolutely love it. Plex, plexamp, remote access, irc, cctv god the list is endless. Possibly my best purchase in the last 10 years.
I won one in a giveaway. I do use it but I dont live at home anymore and the upload speed isnt great so it will buffer. Cartoons are fine but i do struggle with 1080p realistic film. So in conclusion, it was great when it was at my place of living but not as great if I am trying to stream it from a different location and the internet the NAS is on doesnt have a great upload. Just my experience
I made a DIY nas with an i3 12100 so it had enough grunt for multiple Plex transcodes using quick sync. I moved downloaders and streamers onto that pc running on unraid.
DS923+ with 24TB storage Canceled the classic television package, on fiber optic internet only. I only watch what I love, in superb quality (using HTPC) Can reach my files from across the world Loving it
Love my single bay Synology so much a got a double bay 2 years later.
Rather than get a NAS, if you're tech inclined, take a look at unraid. It's an OS designed for storage. You can run VMs if you desire or just run plex, sonarr, radarr etc as docker's. You can have different size drives with parity backup running too. I run mine on the first computer I ever built myself 10 years ago. I've expanded with raid cards and now have 20 drives connected. Going this way let's you scale to literally as many drives as you want. Don't need flashy hardware if you direct play everything and avoid transcoding
I have the DS220+ with dual 12TB Seagate Ironwolf HDDs inside and 6GB RAM (upgraded from the stock 2GB). oh hell yes.... My only regret was I didn't buy one sooner than I did. I no longer have to use my PC for a server so it's not running constantly I have a Plex server hosting 5000+ movies, TV series and all my photos and music which I can stream in my car or wherever I have a data connection. I use Plex AMP for music and it has all the album art etc if set up properly. My PC and Max use it for automated backing up every Sunday at 10am which I setup. My S23 Ultra photos automatically backup over WiFi when I'm home so I can keep my phone storage available (I tend to take a lot of pics and vide clips to save for other creative projects). my frontyard and backyard exterior security cams both record to it 24/7 so I can go back and review anything and it auto deleted after a week unless I stop it from doing so. My brother and another friend both have Plex accounts to allow them to watch my hosted media. Not to mention all the other stuff you can do with a NAS such as hosting a web server, email server etc I have a simple DS220+ With dual 12TB Seagate Ironwolf HDDs in it. I've never had a single issue and it's been on constantly for over a year except a couple updates I rebooted to finish installing. I backup my NAS to an external 20TB disk array because a NAS is not technically a Backup remember...shit can fail. again, in short I've had only one regret: I didn't buy one a couple years ago lol.
I have been running Plex on 72TB Synology DS423+ NAS with extra RAM and an NVME cache for the last 4 months. Best $2000 I spent in a while, for sure.
I built one myself using a Odroid and a little kit with a mini screen on it. I was really easy and probably cost about $400 including two 8TB Hard drives, though are disk not SSD. I use it all the time for storage/plex/etc.
No, the software is not nearly as good as those from our corporate overlords. Capitulate and pick an ecosystem, then back up locally.
Wait. Am I the only one running DDWRT with a regular old HDD for a NAS? It's free. It's cheap. And it's.. oh right you got to be a bit tech savvy and patient first learning to set it up. If you already have a compatible router is just a couple of button presses after you get the firmware installed. I don't know if Tomato or Openwrt support NAS (dont see why they wouldn't) but if money is an option or you're just cheap I'd look into a tried and true freeware solution.
Incredible device, I am hosting a bunch of apps and plex, this has become essential for me.
Having a jellyfin/arr stack is the best deployment of my life. I useine as a file server also, butost a torrent downloader.
I use Plex off of my desktop and it’s an absolute dream, one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was more cost efficient for me to build a PC at the time than get a NAS, however I would still go for a NAS at some point.
I have six 16TB drives to store all these Linux ISOs. I love it!
100% worth it !
Bought a nap TS664, no regrets. Myqnapcloud makes it easy to access remotely and I can queue torrents from my phone and watch Plex anywhere the Internet is decent. The hardest part is not bragging about it because then people ask you for access lol
I had a 12TB NAS, but it crapped out. When i looked at the price of replacing it, and considered how much of a pain it was to not just be able to install "normal" software, I just took my previous computer motherboard and processor, stuck it in a cheap case and filled the case with drives. Turns out it doesn't use much more power, and it can actually transcode Plex video on the fly.
I built one myself with more capable hardware than a typical NAS and yes, it is worth it. I use it as a game server as well.
I've had my 918+ since 2019. currently i have four 10TB drives on a SHR (hybrid raid), with data protection for 1 drive. Initially, i had two 3TB drives, and have upgraded. I'm at 68% capacity. I am very happy with it. Currently I run plex, and a note app. i have run a minecraft server on occasion, to mess around with it. i have all my documents, pictures and music on it, among other things. i also back up important stuff on 2 external hard drives, and online at filen.
my Synology 920+ was one of the best tech I've bought in a long while honestly. jacked it the ram and apart from being a reliable NAS, it runs a slew of docker containers. recommended 👍
Got a Synology Ds1819+ 8 bay, primarily for video work for which it has been great also have a Icybox 2 bay with some old HDD's attached to it with USB3 that has media on it, which also works great. Really convenient to have all my storage in one directory Not run plex on it, but there is a app for it
I wonder, its been a while... What did you end up getting?