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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So many people here, not knowing the the first thing about NASes, dropping $200-400+ on a device, blindly -- asking questions like "ok, I just bought this. what drives should I put into it?" Without even once asking themselves "why am I buying it? what am I going to use it for?"
Everyone is screaming about using it for Plex -- aka totally-not-media-piracy-wink-wink. Why oh why are you using a low wattage shoebox of a computer (aka a NAS) to do transcoding? Why not use the NAS for what it excels at....NAS things....and then build a separate PC (linux, NUC/server class, whatever) with a boatload of extra RAM and CPU cores so it can gargle all the hentai anime in those totally-linux-isos you downloaded.
In other words, separate your network-storage-compute. Trying to combine them will eventually lead to compromises. Like the next gen of Synology units being AMD, which doesn't support transcoding of those linux-isos that fell off the back of a truck.
And now you get people demanding "teach me how to setup pihole on it", as if they suddenly forgot how to use google.
Synology reps, if you're reading this thread -- you must love these impulsive sales.
hardware/software just kills all flavors of Linux.. always and forever.. and warrants these ridiculous prices. a NUC with this same hardware is like $50 now. I'm just saying, it's true. Anyways.. i'm rolling out, I am not liked here, so hold the fort. You can argue with these folks. It appears the difference between 10w and 40w CPU pulls are so massive it will cripple the power grid.
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Wifey is a photog with about 10tb in files. She currently has two external drives and Back blaze, each with a copy of her whole library. But she complains the externals are slow, they periodically fail etc.
Would this make good Xmas present or is not an improvement? If good, how many bays and what size drives do you imagine would be a good fit? Of course it will grow over time and would be nice to backup computers to it too.
Please keep in mind that Backblaze won't recognize a network drive as an external drive for their backup purposes. So the way your wife is backing up her 2 externals via her computer to Backblaze won't work unless you are sneaky and set up an iSCSI drive (which prevents access in other ways). You can set up Backblaze's B2 solution in the Synology but that isn't unlimited like the consumer backup is. Also Lightroom doesn't accept reading a catalog off a network drive either so she'll need a local copy of her catalog (photos can be on a network drive just fine). Recommend using smart previews so you only need the catalog file and not the original raws for some efficiency.
*My own experience anecdotal evidence
I think my years old $100 i3 NUC with 12gb of ram running ubuntu will easily run circles around this.. since it can do about 10x more things at once eating less power. Research what you can do with some NUCs in your home network. Peace out.
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I've had the QNAP 453-Be for quite some time as a Plex server (4x8, Raid whatever he heck it would be where I could lose one drive). I store movies/DVR'ed episodes/music on it. It has been stable and reliable for me. Some say that QNAP has security issues, but others counter it and say that as long as you keep your FW reasonably up to date, you'll be fine.
So many people here, not knowing the the first thing about NASes, dropping $200-400+ on a device, blindly -- asking questions like "ok, I just bought this. what drives should I put into it?" Without even once asking themselves "why am I buying it? what am I going to use it for?"
Everyone is screaming about using it for Plex -- aka totally-not-media-piracy-wink-wink. Why oh why are you using a low wattage shoebox of a computer (aka a NAS) to do transcoding? Why not use the NAS for what it excels at....NAS things....and then build a separate PC (linux, NUC/server class, whatever) with a boatload of extra RAM and CPU cores so it can gargle all the hentai anime in those totally-linux-isos you downloaded.
In other words, separate your network-storage-compute. Trying to combine them will eventually lead to compromises. Like the next gen of Synology units being AMD, which doesn't support transcoding of those linux-isos that fell off the back of a truck.
And now you get people demanding "teach me how to setup pihole on it", as if they suddenly forgot how to use google.
Synology reps, if you're reading this thread -- you must love these impulsive sales.
If the community is asking what drives to buy, and how to install pihole, do you expect them to know how building their own DiY solution? What's so bad about asking questions? Are you seriously gatekeeping on a deal forum?
It's like you can have multiple use cases for these, and it works for all of them for the average joe!
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i.e. keep your NAS updated, since software vulnerabilities always crop up given enough time.​
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