expired Posted by iconian | Staff • Nov 22, 2022
Nov 22, 2022 5:13 PM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expired Posted by iconian | Staff • Nov 22, 2022
Nov 22, 2022 5:13 PM
Synology DiskStation NAS Enclosure: DS1621+ 6-Bay $720, DS220j 2-Bay
+ Free Shipping$150
$190
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Many people that have built a legitimate library of DVDs over the years have started digitizing legally due to the prevalence of streaming boxes - one of the primary Plex use cases. And when you have media on a Plex server, the media can only be encoded in one format, at one resolution (let's say 4K, Format 1).
So if you stream that 4K media file straight to a device (let's say an Apple TV with 4K) no transcoding is needed and the file is accessed as is.
But if you stream that file on your secondary 1080p Roku TV, it needs a different resolution and maybe a different format. Then the Plex server will transcode the file as it streams, converting the file from 4K Format 1, to 1080p Format 2. This requires computational resources from the CPU/RAM of the device, and the Intel/Plex combo is better suited, for deeper technical reasons.
This also applies to Synology's music and video integrated streaming services as well as other manufacturer offerings.
Now if your reference of "storing and accessing files" simply means "flat files" like documents and photos, no, transcoding is not a factor for you and yes the AMD solutions will be a general performance improvement. But many people use NAS for their significant media streaming features, as a legal digitization/streaming of their owned content, and thus the spirited conversation on this post.
Hope this helps!
Plex users aren't "made obsolete" By Synology because they've chosen to shift their "+" line to the SMB market. That has no bearing on Plex Users, Transcoding, or even the previous gen "+" models. They didn't lose QSV transcoding capability overnight. They still transcode exactly as well as they did the day they launched.
Synology has just chosen to end that product line's support for Intel iGPU assisted transcoding going forward. Weighing their customer base for these lines, and choosing SMB customer needs for CPU performance, over enthusiast Plex users.
And as for being "limited to 4 bays" there's always the DX517.
But if your storage needs are growing that much, you should either be replacing aging low capacity HDDs, or transitioning to a more robust storage solution.
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I'm not too concerned about transcoding since I typically keep a 1080p copy for all my 4k content.
*My own experience anecdotal evidence
For example you would want to employ something like a 3-2-1 backup strategy (3 copies, 2 media types, 1 off site). A NAS can play a role in this strategy and Synology has excellent options via 1st party apps that can help with backups.
There are additional time and cost to buy additional storage (another NAS, cloud, etc.) and set up, maintain, and secure it all yourself so there is added appeal to simple solutions like iCloud and Google Photos.
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For backup I use Synology's Hyper Backup which in my opinion is an excellent consumer backup application. It allows for client side encryption and block-level incremental backups (which also provides snapshot capability). It connects to many cloud storage services which includes Synology's own, Dropbox, Google Drive, and others but unfortunately not OneDrive. Other backup destinations include another Synology NAS, attached USB device, rsync, and WebDAV (I use this as a workaround to back up to OneDrive).
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