#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER UPGRADE#
#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER SOFTWARE#
#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER TV#
#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER DOWNLOAD#

1/3rd of the space on these disks will be taken up by the redundancy information.

It requires a minimum of 3 disks of the same size. RAID 5 still offers 100% redundancy, but with a catch. This is generally used in more corporate situations where redundancy and speed of replacement is imperative. Example: 4x4tb = 8TB storage, 8TB backup. It requires disks be added in multiples of 2 and every disk needs to be the exact same size (preferably same brand). If you go with the Synology platform, you have a third type called Synology Hybrid RAID, which is the most flexible of all of them. You have a lot of different options when it comes to storing and securing your data on RAID, but the most common ones are RAID 1 and RAID 5. While it is much more expensive to start, I believe it'll definitely be worth it in the long run.

#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER UPGRADE#

I have a 4-bay NAS with 2 drives in it that I'll upgrade over time. That way you can always add more to increase capacity. You're much better off to get a 4-6 bay NAS and just start with 2 HDDs in it. There's really not much point to 'entry level' NAS as you're completely blocking yourself from any future expansion without needing to start again from scratch. I'd also recommend giving Plex the highest priority, or your transcoding/streaming will suffer. Being built on Linux means that there's quite a lot you can do with the NAS - you just need to be careful not to overload the NAS. On top of that, I'm also running my network controller on my NAS (Ubiquit Unifi system).

#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER DOWNLOAD#

There's even a fantastic Chrome plugin to send magnet links directly to your Synology, track the download progress, and send a notification when it completes. So I have a single app to handle all my downloads, including automatic downloads. For example, the default DownloadStation app on Synology devices is a fork of the Transmission BT client with some added functionality (like RSS feed updates). This is true across pretty much all solutions, but there's a few things that NAS can do which will make other applications or services redundant. The DIY solutions also generally take up more space/use more power, so you're not necessarily 'saving' in the long term.

#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER SOFTWARE#

Unless you're very technically proficient in Linux and debugging issues yourself, you're better off going with Synology/QNAP as their software is very solid and easy to configure. Lots of suggestions here of DIY/Unraid, which is definitely cheaper in the short term but there's a few issues with it. It's a very different story if you're intending on streaming to mobile devices or Chrome Cast devices, where you'll generally need to transcode or create optimized versions of the file for these clients.

#CHEAP NAS FOR PLEX MEDIA SERVER TV#

You will find the highest compatibility with AppleTV 4K and nVidia Shield TV here, with decent compatibility on PS4/Xbox One. So depending on the device you're streaming to, you may be able to play the file directly without Plex needing to do anything but serve the file. The streaming method with the lowest overhead is Direct Play/Direct Stream, which means that Plex is literally just sending the file in its original format to the device and letting the device decode it. But fear not, because transcoding isn't necessarily required depending on how you're going to be watching these files. Note that almost none of the NAS support 4K HDR transcoding. Plex have provided a detailed spreadsheet of the capabilities of the major NAS' out there. This means that transcoding is often not possible at all, or can only be done on lower resolution files. The CPU in pretty much every NAS is a low-end CPU (often ARM, not even Intel-based architecture). This is actually possibly the single most important factor when considering whether a NAS is what you'll need or not. TLDR is that you should sell your Mac Mini (they hold value well, mine went for $350) and buy a Synology DS418play or higher. So here's all the legwork I did and some details on most stuff you'll want to know. Strangely enough, I was actually in exactly the same position as you recently, even down to the Mac Mini 2012 model with a 4TB external drive.

Cheap nas for plex media server