NAS for Plex use... Again
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@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Pete-S said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Grey said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Pete-S said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
It really depends how much storage and CPU you need. If you need lots of storage, nothing beats unlimited, and I think only G Suite Business is viable option. I know lots of people host Plex with Hertzner, Vultr is probably attractive option too.
I had a look and it looks like you need 5 minimum users on G Suit Business to get unlimited TBs. If it's $12 per month then that becomes $60 per month. Under a five year period that's $3600.
Not saying it's the same thing but for the exact same money you can buy 9 x 16TB enterprise drives with 5 year warranty. That's about 100 TB of actual storage.
Using Drive makes sense in your case but if someone only needs say 10-15 TB, I'm not sure it does. And 10 TB may not sound like a lot but if we are talking about H.264 video it's more than 3000 movies/5000 episodes. Even if you binge watch 5 hours a day, every day, it will take about 3 years to get through it.
Google doesn't enforce that limit, and one of their engineers confirmed that, I just can't find the source. I'm paying $12/mo for 1 user and I'm using close to 100TB. My 5 year cost is $720, good luck finding drives for that price.
Average 1080p movie is about 25GB.
Ehhhh... No. Average 1080p is about 3gb. It really depends on the bitrate used when you encode the ripped data. I have 2 1080p movies and one is 18564 kbps bitrate while the other is 2634 kbps. The second one is 2:40 long and just under 3gb, but the other one is 1:30 and just shy of 16gb. You really have to pay attention to more than just the resolution. Audio can change things a lot, too.
That's on the low end, usually ripped from Netfilx, iTunes or some other web source. And most likely with AC3 audio. If you want good quality rip, 25GB is actually conservative estimate, I have some files over 65GB.
Ah, you're a videophile.
Good to know that they don't enforce the file limit. As long as they don't, you have a good thing going. Google is loosing money on you for sure. But who knows how long that will last?
The only thing I'm wondering is how you watch your movies? If a movie is 25GB and say 90 minutes for simplicity, then that's about 50 Mbps average transfer rate. That's about 10 times more than Netflix at their highest 1080p quality. Do you get that from google drive consistently?
I don't think Google cares too much, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of users like me. And if we all upload the same file, which is quite likely if you get them from torrents or usenet, it gets deduplicated, so Google hardly even notices it. I wouldn't be surprised if my actual usage was 0.
I have symmetric 1Gbit Fios, so I never have any issues with streaming. And some stream 4k videos, I've heard about 90GB 3D 4k files, encrypted, streaming smoothly, without any hiccups. I think both Plexdrive and Rclone have decent buffering logic built in.
Plex will test your network connection and transcode to whatever you have. One of the reasons I had to upgrade from the 2950, aside from all the other reasons, was this transcoding process that uses cpu. The 2950 just couldn't keep up. My first 4k movie (Dark Crystal) was impossible to watch. After my recent storage upgrade, it's smoothly delivered with transcoding, if needed. As the line is tested, it also buffers the video to prevent stutters. I've done server updates with no interruption because the buffered video is longer than the plex delay caused by the software update.
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@Grey said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Pete-S said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Grey said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Pete-S said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
It really depends how much storage and CPU you need. If you need lots of storage, nothing beats unlimited, and I think only G Suite Business is viable option. I know lots of people host Plex with Hertzner, Vultr is probably attractive option too.
I had a look and it looks like you need 5 minimum users on G Suit Business to get unlimited TBs. If it's $12 per month then that becomes $60 per month. Under a five year period that's $3600.
Not saying it's the same thing but for the exact same money you can buy 9 x 16TB enterprise drives with 5 year warranty. That's about 100 TB of actual storage.
Using Drive makes sense in your case but if someone only needs say 10-15 TB, I'm not sure it does. And 10 TB may not sound like a lot but if we are talking about H.264 video it's more than 3000 movies/5000 episodes. Even if you binge watch 5 hours a day, every day, it will take about 3 years to get through it.
Google doesn't enforce that limit, and one of their engineers confirmed that, I just can't find the source. I'm paying $12/mo for 1 user and I'm using close to 100TB. My 5 year cost is $720, good luck finding drives for that price.
Average 1080p movie is about 25GB.
Ehhhh... No. Average 1080p is about 3gb. It really depends on the bitrate used when you encode the ripped data. I have 2 1080p movies and one is 18564 kbps bitrate while the other is 2634 kbps. The second one is 2:40 long and just under 3gb, but the other one is 1:30 and just shy of 16gb. You really have to pay attention to more than just the resolution. Audio can change things a lot, too.
That's on the low end, usually ripped from Netfilx, iTunes or some other web source. And most likely with AC3 audio. If you want good quality rip, 25GB is actually conservative estimate, I have some files over 65GB.
Ah, you're a videophile.
Good to know that they don't enforce the file limit. As long as they don't, you have a good thing going. Google is loosing money on you for sure. But who knows how long that will last?
The only thing I'm wondering is how you watch your movies? If a movie is 25GB and say 90 minutes for simplicity, then that's about 50 Mbps average transfer rate. That's about 10 times more than Netflix at their highest 1080p quality. Do you get that from google drive consistently?
I don't think Google cares too much, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of users like me. And if we all upload the same file, which is quite likely if you get them from torrents or usenet, it gets deduplicated, so Google hardly even notices it. I wouldn't be surprised if my actual usage was 0.
I have symmetric 1Gbit Fios, so I never have any issues with streaming. And some stream 4k videos, I've heard about 90GB 3D 4k files, encrypted, streaming smoothly, without any hiccups. I think both Plexdrive and Rclone have decent buffering logic built in.
Plex will test your network connection and transcode to whatever you have. One of the reasons I had to upgrade from the 2950, aside from all the other reasons, was this transcoding process that uses cpu. The 2950 just couldn't keep up. My first 4k movie (Dark Crystal) was impossible to watch. After my recent storage upgrade, it's smoothly delivered with transcoding, if needed. As the line is tested, it also buffers the video to prevent stutters. I've done server updates with no interruption because the buffered video is longer than the plex delay caused by the software update.
I had the same experience with 4k, on local storage, even before I moved to Gdrive. General consensus is not to transcode 4k files at all, because it's so taxing on your system, and just download 1080p version and keep both.
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@marcinozga said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
I had the same experience with 4k, on local storage, even before I moved to Gdrive. General consensus is not to transcode 4k files at all, because it's so taxing on your system, and just download 1080p version and keep both.
I agree, I'm in the anti-transcoding camp.
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My idea is:
Option 1:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) with 16 Tb of storage and Plex on that same VM.
This way, the data never leaves the host and has maximum efficiency.
OROption 2:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) as a "NAS" with NFS shares for content.
Point existing Plex Vm at the new NAS.
Data would traverse network between 2 hosts unless Plex was migrated to other host. -
@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
My idea is:
Option 1:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) with 16 Tb of storage and Plex on that same VM.
This way, the data never leaves the host and has maximum efficiency.
OROption 2:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) as a "NAS" with NFS shares for content.
Point existing Plex Vm at the new NAS.
Data would traverse network between 2 hosts unless Plex was migrated to other host.I have option 2, but CentOS 7 and only one host with all my guests.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
My idea is:
Option 1:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) with 16 Tb of storage and Plex on that same VM.
This way, the data never leaves the host and has maximum efficiency.
OROption 2:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) as a "NAS" with NFS shares for content.
Point existing Plex Vm at the new NAS.
Data would traverse network between 2 hosts unless Plex was migrated to other host.Option 1. Less complexity, less things to fail. Although I prefer containers rather than VM.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
My idea is:
Option 1:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) with 16 Tb of storage and Plex on that same VM.
This way, the data never leaves the host and has maximum efficiency.
OROption 2:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) as a "NAS" with NFS shares for content.
Point existing Plex Vm at the new NAS.
Data would traverse network between 2 hosts unless Plex was migrated to other host.What about Option 3:
Exactly like Option 2, but migrate Plex VM to same host as the new storage? Avoid traversing the physical network for the Plex backend. -
@travisdh1 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
What about Option 3:
Exactly like Option 2, but migrate Plex VM to same host as the new storage? Avoid traversing the physical network for the Plex backend.I thought about this too. Could set up another virtual switch between the NAS and Plex. It makes the most sense actually.
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@travisdh1 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Exactly like Option 2, but migrate Plex VM to same host as the new storage? Avoid traversing the physical network for the Plex backend.
That is what I do.
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@JaredBusch said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@travisdh1 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Exactly like Option 2, but migrate Plex VM to same host as the new storage? Avoid traversing the physical network for the Plex backend.
That is what I do.
Do you just have those 2 VMs on a host by themselves? I see that they are the only 2 listed after the list -all command.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@JaredBusch said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@travisdh1 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Exactly like Option 2, but migrate Plex VM to same host as the new storage? Avoid traversing the physical network for the Plex backend.
That is what I do.
Do you just have those 2 VMs on a host by themselves? I see that they are the only 2 listed after the list -all command.
Only because I do not need anything else at home.
I have a host in colo for work stuff and then Vultr for things.
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@JaredBusch I have Hyper-V at home with Nginx, Nextcloud, Bookstack, PiHole, and Plex. Don't have a colo close enough. My internet service with 1 static is cheaper than the cost of colo.
I haven't had a good enough reason to move away from Hyper-V yet. I always contemplate it. I've had a spare server with KVM in my lab and it was great and light on resources.
What made you switch from Hyper-V?
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I do have my Unifi controller on Vultr and use it for "lab" if I need a public IP for various stuff. I plan on setting up a FreePBX instance for testing but haven't yet.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@JaredBusch I have Hyper-V at home with Nginx, Nextcloud, Bookstack, PiHole, and Plex. Don't have a colo close enough. My internet service with 1 static is cheaper than the cost of colo.
I haven't had a good enough reason to move away from Hyper-V yet. I always contemplate it. I've had a spare server with KVM in my lab and it was great and light on resources.
What made you switch from Hyper-V?
I went from Hyper-V (Desktop), Fedora KVM (Desktop,R710) and now using Proxmox (R710). Proxmox is by far the most convenient one for my home environment.
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@black3dynamite said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@JaredBusch I have Hyper-V at home with Nginx, Nextcloud, Bookstack, PiHole, and Plex. Don't have a colo close enough. My internet service with 1 static is cheaper than the cost of colo.
I haven't had a good enough reason to move away from Hyper-V yet. I always contemplate it. I've had a spare server with KVM in my lab and it was great and light on resources.
What made you switch from Hyper-V?
I went from Hyper-V (Desktop), Fedora KVM (Desktop,R710) and now using Proxmox (R710). Proxmox is by far the most convenient one for my home environment.
Same here, more or less. Same conclusion.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
My idea is:
Option 1:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) with 16 Tb of storage and Plex on that same VM.
This way, the data never leaves the host and has maximum efficiency.
OROption 2:
Set up a new raid10 volume on my host with my spare drive bays.
Install a new VM (Fedora 32 server) as a "NAS" with NFS shares for content.
Point existing Plex Vm at the new NAS.
Data would traverse network between 2 hosts unless Plex was migrated to other host.Yes, why wouldn't you do the bolded part - which is what other people are now calling option 3 LOL
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I've been using Hyper-V for a while, almost exclusively. I use it at work, and for other clients. I have not found a good enough reason to switch over to another hypervisor. Sadly, its the only real reason I still keep a Windows laptop - to manage Hyper-V. Windows Admin Center is a dumpster fire IMO. All my HV installs are non-GUI.
I had Proxmox running in my lab for a while with a few test VMs and it worked great. I just have flashbacks of many people being against it for so long. I know that is not a valid reason to not use something but...
Again, with HV being free and having no issues with it - makes it hard to justify switching, although the web management of Proxmox would be nice. Another advantage of HV is that Veeam works so well with it.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
I just have flashbacks of many people being against it for so long.
Because it sucked. But....
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Sadly, its the only real reason I still keep a Windows laptop - to manage Hyper-V.
This is why I do not use it.
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@JaredBusch said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Sadly, its the only real reason I still keep a Windows laptop - to manage Hyper-V.
This is why I do not use it.
This is something MS is just totally failing at with Hyper-V.
