Plex server NAS vs PC build

Hi all. I am trying to get a Plex server going but I am not sure what would be the Best way to go. I have seen a lot of people using NAS servers that are stocked and they have been having good reviews. But, what I want to know is if a PC build would be best using the same amount of money.

With this NAS one of my acquaintances said he can do 20 streams no problem:

If I was to spend that same about of money on a custom build computer, would I get a better performance and more streams at once?

Thanks.

I use my PC for my Plex Server. Now, I only use it at home and don't try to access it from my phone or a computer outside of my network, but I don't see where that would be a problem. As a matter of fact, I can be playing Battlefield 4 while my family enjoys a movie over the Roku.

Juan71287 said:

With this NAS one of my acquaintances said he can do 20 streams no problem:

Click to expand...

Just about anything can do many streams no problem via Plex if they are being "direct played" aka just having the original file forwarded to the local player. In other words in this case it's more or less acting like a network drive and limited by network bandwidth and I/O of your drive setup and network connections, and almost never compute power (dunno, maybe you have a Raspberry Pi hooked up to a ****load of drives for some reason).

On the other hand, if the original file is incompatible with the local player, Plex needs to transcode it to a format the local player can understand. This is where the compute power of the Plex server comes into play. Your linked pre-build's CPU can maybe handle 3 or 4 1080p transcodes at once?

And yes, you can get comparable power cheaper using a self-build, as always for anything costing more than a few hundred bucks. Don't forget to include the actual HDDs which prebuilt servers generally don't come with either!

This is close to what I put together recently (for more than just Plex) - close in compute power, though notably lacking in the extra features of the QNAP
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4sWFvK

But that QNAP's extra features is way overkill for normal home usage. Do you really need dual 10Gb ethernet? A normal home setup with spinning HDDs in a RAID doesn't even have the IO to saturate that! Are you intend on stuffing that with SSDs or multiple striped spinning HDDs? Never used a QNAP, so don't have personal knowledge of their OS, but apparently it's good though. That's a plus I suppose.

Personally I would do a budget Server PC Build. You can always upgrade as needed. I was using my old laptop for my plex server for a while but having to keep it running all the time and with all the room it took up with the 2 harddrives i had connected it wasn't the best option. So last year i picked up a few parts from a reputable online retailer and built a inexpensive pc and setup my plex server on there. I cant tell you how much happier i am now that i did this.

Everything runs super smooth. No issues at all for since i put it together last year.
I also pay for the plex pass 5.00 a month feature and use my Xbox One as a plex reciever as well as my ipad and iphone.

Mind you the pc isnt the fastest thing around but it does the job very efficiently. I have yet to run into any problems streaming from any place and it transcodes ever file when needed flawlessly.

I have read alot of reviews and watched alot of youtube videos and the prebuilt NAS machine dont always work as well as you would like.

I hope this helps .

Well thanks for all your info. I have decided I'll just add some NAS HDD to my current PC and just use that. I have about 4x 6TB external WD and they are starting to annoy me (take up space on the floor and they don't allow me to clean that area well).

Do you guys use something special for accessing the files (movies mostly)? I ask because I know qnap and synology both have great software behind their NAS servers. Their technology on a server PC would be awesome but probably can't be done.

Plex when streaming to devices outside my network and xbmc over a file share internal to the network.

Hi all. Another related question..... Maybe.

This is my setup right now: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/juan71287/saved/vQkgXL

I have about 4x6TB western digital external HDD. I want to get a qnap NAS but I can't afford it. I want to get ride of my externals though. Would it be a good idea to just use VMware or virtual box with either freenas or Ubuntu and attach a bunch of HDD to my current build on a raid and use it as a NAS? Or should I just save and save till I can afford the NAS?

Thanks.

PS. I been reading a lot and so many people say just make your own home htpc but I just think a NAS has the software I already need. I don't know just hope someone can help me out.

Depending on what you plan to do, you could probably take apart the external drives and plug them into an internal system.

I personally use open media vault and am in the process of migrating that over to a freenas box/vm when I have the time to do so (but requires having a middleman to hold onto my data while moving it).

Freenas is an excellent nas software, but requires a lot of RAM to be effective (recommended 8gb+1gb/tb of raw space). Because of that it could be worth looking at open media vault or nas4free which do not have the lofty memory requirements as they don't use ZFS for the file system.

Either way it would be recommended to invest in an HBA card (commonly recommended is a IBM m1015 card with IT firmware or of the same family). Instead of running off of motherboard sata ports.

Most of the nas distros have all or most of the software that you would need, but it would just require using the webinterface to configure plug-ins etc. You can find numerous guides online on how to make your own and set it up.

This is what you mean I need: http://www.serversupply.com/CONTROLLERS/SAS-SATA/SERVERAID M1015/IBM/46M0862.htm

Also, this is why I want a NAS, no need to know or add to much to it, as I just want it for streaming, but on my own PC now I need to add this card that I have no clue what it does

You wouldn't run a nas OS as your main computer operating system. That would be if you built a new machine or used oldish parts for it.

The card is basically a raid card that can attach to 8 hard drives and pass through to the operating system.

I see. So I will get that then.

Do you think I should run VM with a NAS OS or just use the raid card with Windows 10 and Plex to just keep doing what I been doing this far with internal drives instead of external?

That's a good question. Ultimately it depends on how you use your machine. I personally turn off my main machine (put it to sleep, anyway) when I'm not using it, but I have my server running in my basement at all times with file shares, plex, etc all running so that it is accessible at all times and isn't dependent on my main machine to be functional. If you leave your Win10 machine on at all times anyway then you can do it however you would prefer. If you wanted to run a NAS OS inside a VM it should be possible, you would have to look into whether or not you can passthrough the HBA card to through the hypervisor (the VM application) to the individual virtual machine so that it has access to all of the drives (thus making them inaccessible to the host operating system [your windows 10 OS]). That is what I do for my secondary server running vmware esxi6 that I'm setting up for FreeNAS (passing through the HBA card to the virtual machine).

There's a lot of pros to rolling your own NAS, such as having the above customization abilities and likely more powerful base than most of the pre-built NAS (synology, qnap, etc) devices. But ultimately if the above instructions seem too complicated to do or unreasonable it may be worth saving for a month or so and getting a 4bay or so Synology box and calling it a day.

Agree.

I went with a QNAP TS-453a. It has a lot of processor. Was very easy to setup.

I've been running Plex on it for about a week. No issues so far. I am still playing with the direct play vs transcoding...none of my devices using the Plex sever have required video transcoding...just audio.

Well. I will probably end up saving up for a NAS. But before that I want to see what it would cost me with some good parts to make a NAS server build. Anyone willing to lend a hand on some parts?

I am thinking micro or mini. I am guessing micro ITX as they would be the cheaper option. Just want to get some feedback as to maybe a build? I have searched and peoples builds here are way to expensive :/.

Thanks again all for the help here.