NAS for Plex use... Again
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I currently have 2 ReadyNas 2100 units with 5 TB. One is primary and the other is a backup copy. They are used strictly as storage for Plex. I am out of space and need more. I can upgrade the drives for more storage space but the NAS is not very fast, taking into consideration that it is an older unit.
My thoughts were to set up a new server with samba to serve Plex, and re-purpose the older NAS units as backup targets for the new "solution". Plex runs as a VM and there is not enough storage on the existing host. I need another solution.Would a new NAS be a better solution or a linux server with samba shares for movies and music? Is there a better solution?
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My plex server and media are both VMs on the same KVM host. But they are two separate VMs.
The media resides on a VM named "NAS" and I have an NFS share set up.
The Plex server then mounts the NFS share to gain access to the media.
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@JaredBusch This is what I have been wanting to do. I may have to upgrade my host to pull this off. I have all the movies stored as MKV files. Maybe I should store the originals as MKV and compress the files Plex uses as mp4. Do you keep the original rips or compress them?
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@JaredBusch This is what I have been wanting to do. I may have to upgrade my host to pull this off. I have all the movies stored as MKV files. Maybe I should store the originals as MKV and compress the files Plex uses as mp4. Do you keep the original rips or compress them?
I compress everything to H265
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I've always thought having a Plex server would be useful, but then though where would I get content?
Where are you guys getting your contebt to house on your systems?
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@DustinB3403 My wife ripped all the DVD and Blu-Ray discs. It is pretty much her "project". I just maintain it. I believe we have about 460 movies or so. I ripped all my music to flac files and have it on there as well. Works great for my needs.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@DustinB3403 My wife ripped all the DVD and Blu-Ray discs. It is pretty much her "project". I just maintain it. I believe we have about 460 movies or so. I ripped all my music to flac files and have it on there as well. Works great for my needs.
So you own 460 movies on physical media?
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@JaredBusch did you go directly to H265 or start out with another container? MakeMKV has worked well and consistent. Have not used Handbrake in a while. May have to compress a few files and see how big or a reduction in size there is.
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@DustinB3403 Sadly, yes. They are now in Rubbermaid containers in my shop. If she buys a new movie, it gets removed from the package, ripped, and then put away. Haven't played a physical disc in a long time.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@JaredBusch did you go directly to H265 or start out with another container? MakeMKV has worked well and consistent. Have not used Handbrake in a while. May have to compress a few files and see how big or a reduction in size there is.
It is always an MKV container. Just using the H265 codec. I never encode things any other way anymore.
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@JaredBusch said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
My plex server and media are both VMs on the same KVM host. But they are two separate VMs.
The media resides on a VM named "NAS" and I have an NFS share set up.
The Plex server then mounts the NFS share to gain access to the media.
This may be off topic... but why separate the Plex server and the VM storage into separate VMs?
My plex server has the OS on one disk, and the movies stored on another.
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My plex is a Dell R710 with OBR10. I expanded it a while ago so I now have about 12tb total storage just to plex. Other storage is for personal files, etc. on smb in AD. The one major thing I did with the upgrade was to convert from SMB on plex to NFS and it was a 220% increase in speed, and part of that was using a new CentOS host to handle the NAS work. It was a fun project and I did the whole thing in-flight with plex. No interruptions and I learned a lot about CentOS which was part of the reason I chose it. The r710 is super required since the 4k and other high quality videos can be murder to transcode to my friends and family on their dsl lines, or @scottalanmiller's dial-up.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@DustinB3403 Sadly, yes. They are now in Rubbermaid containers in my shop. If she buys a new movie, it gets removed from the package, ripped, and then put away. Haven't played a physical disc in a long time.
That's what we do, too. Except we use these high capacity Amazon disc sleeves.
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@DustinB3403 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@DustinB3403 My wife ripped all the DVD and Blu-Ray discs. It is pretty much her "project". I just maintain it. I believe we have about 460 movies or so. I ripped all my music to flac files and have it on there as well. Works great for my needs.
So you own 460 movies on physical media?
I've got around 2,000 I'd guess.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Would a new NAS be a better solution or a linux server with samba shares for movies and music? Is there a better solution?
Mostly this comes down to form factor. If you want four or fewer drives, likely a NAS will be the only path to the form factor that you want.
But if you want an excuse to run a "real" server, this is a good one.
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I only have 850 movies, but the various TV series takes up a lot of space.
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@scottalanmiller said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
Would a new NAS be a better solution or a linux server with samba shares for movies and music? Is there a better solution?
Mostly this comes down to form factor. If you want four or fewer drives, likely a NAS will be the only path to the form factor that you want.
But if you want an excuse to run a "real" server, this is a good one.
I have "real" servers. They just don't have enough storage to move the data from the NAS. I'm looking for an excuse to upgrade though. In fact, my wife just asked me at lunch if I ordered new drives yet....
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@Grey I have 2 - R410s and 1 - R510 but they are getting a little dated and I'm wanting something newer and more efficient. They pump out a lot of heat too. Just can't decide on what I want to replace them with.
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@brandon220 said in NAS for Plex use... Again:
@Grey I have 2 - R410s and 1 - R510 but they are getting a little dated and I'm wanting something newer and more efficient. They pump out a lot of heat too. Just can't decide on what I want to replace them with.
I jumped from a 2950 to the r710. Big jump. @xByteSean or one of his buddies helped me out.
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I used to be in the same boat with a ton of movies for about 23TB but the NAS couldn't handle more than a single stream running Plex so I kept the NAS as just storage and setup the Plex server on an actual server. Then the NAS' only task was file sharing which it did well. I've now moved the entire Plex onto a Dell R520 LFF and leverage VMs as storage and Plex server at a colo. I stream from Rokus at my house that are connected to the Plex server at the colo. Stream full uncompressed 4k without any hiccups.
