NAS Solution - NAS Chassis, NAS OS

K

Kleine Fische

Active Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
88
Reaction score
0
Location
Century City; Cape Town
Hi Guys,

I need some help on finding a NAS (Minimum 4 bay) Chasis. Ideally, I would like to use a collection of drives I already have to populate the NAS.

Intentional use of the NAS is to be a Plex media Server sothat my TV plex or xbox plex apps can access the media on the NAS.

If possible I would like to manage my torrents from the NAS too... is this possible?

What NAS software should i be looking at to manage my NAS?

Thanks
 
Subbing as I am also looking for a similar solution. So far found a PLink USA 3U chassis which will meet my needs, shipping is just a bitch. Will probably go Unraid with a windows VM for doing work.
 
TheDoctor said:
You should have a look at Wootware.co.za

They have a few NAS chassis options. Here's two:

http://www.wootware.co.za/cfi-2060-home-server-mini-itx-nas-storage-chassis.html

http://www.wootware.co.za/cfi-a7x79...i-itx-chassis-can-be-used-as-nas-storage.html

Edit-
Here's a nice Lian-Li

http://www.wootware.co.za/lian-li-pc-q18-mini-itx-black-chassis.html
Click to expand...

Those are pretty cool Chassis, The CFI option (CFi 2060 Home Server Mini-ITX 300W NAS Storage Chassis) looks great.

However Im guessing I now need to put in a moptherboard and a graphics card and basically build a PC to become a NAS?

Ideally I would like the NAS to connect via HDMI to my display (Samsung LED) for configuration purposes and loading other 3rd part apps. Is it possible for the NAS to have its own OS and be accessable on its own without a PC?

My ambition is that I dont have to do that and that the NAS Chassis will not need a motherboard to be added to it ect ect or is this not a possibility?
 
Last edited:
This still maintains I need a PC to manage my NAS solution, so not really an option. Im looking for a PC free NAS solution, basically the NAS is the "PC" allowing me to plug in a screen, keyboard, Network and load 3rd party apps onto it.

@TheDoctor thanks for the links and effort though, but not what Im trying to explore
 
Kleine Fische said:
Those are pretty cool Chassis, The CFI option (CFi 2060 Home Server Mini-ITX 300W NAS Storage Chassis) looks great.

However Im guessing I now need to put in a moptherboard and a graphics card and basically build a PC to become a NAS?

Ideally I would like the NAS to connect via HDMI to my display (Samsung LED) for configuration purposes and loading other 3rd part apps. Is it possible for the NAS to have its own OS and be accessable on its own without a PC?

My ambition is that I dont have to do that and that the NAS Chassis will not need a motherboard to be added to it ect ect or is this not a possibility?
Click to expand...

A Microserver will be a much simpler and cheaper solution actually: http://www.firstshop.co.za/hp-proliant-microserver-gen8-819185-421-p-28997

It's not the most powerful solution around but it should do just fine as a Plex server especially once the newer versions of PMS start incorporating hardware transcoding in the release builds.
 
Esquire has the microserver for sale again for less than 3K
 
the only way to go PC free NAS is a qnap or synology nas, which both run their own NAS OS.. You plug in your drives, access the NAS OS and build your volume, create your shares and you are good to go.. However, I dont think they are capable of doubling up as a media player and be able to connect to your TV.. for that you will need something like a raspberry pi running kodi.. the raspberry pi connects to your tv, can be controlled with your tv's remote control provided the tv supports cec.. in kodi you then mount the share you created on your qnap or synology nas over the network and bob's your uncle..

the raspberry pi is tiny and you wont know it exists and is inexpensive..
 
WAslayer said:
the only way to go PC free NAS is a qnap or synology nas, which both run their own NAS OS.. You plug in your drives, access the NAS OS and build your volume, create your shares and you are good to go.. However, I dont think they are capable of doubling up as a media player and be able to connect to your TV.. for that you will need something like a raspberry pi running kodi.. the raspberry pi connects to your tv, can be controlled with your tv's remote control provided the tv supports cec.. in kodi you then mount the share you created on your qnap or synology nas over the network and bob's your uncle..

the raspberry pi is tiny and you wont know it exists and is inexpensive..
Click to expand...

Think he has the Plex App on his TV already, so one can load the Plex server app on the qnap
I see some of the qnap's come with a HDMI port and media remote

FreeNAS also supports a torrent client and plex server if I'm not mistaken, good choice if one wants to build a NAS
 
Last edited:
irBosOtter said:
Think he has the Plex App on his TV already, so one can load the Plex server app on the qnap
I see some of the qnap's come with a HDMI port and media remote

FreeNAS also supports a torrent client and plex server if I'm not mistaken, good choice if one wants to build a NAS
Click to expand...

WAslayer said:
the only way to go PC free NAS is a qnap or synology nas, which both run their own NAS OS.. You plug in your drives, access the NAS OS and build your volume, create your shares and you are good to go.. However, I dont think they are capable of doubling up as a media player and be able to connect to your TV.. for that you will need something like a raspberry pi running kodi.. the raspberry pi connects to your tv, can be controlled with your tv's remote control provided the tv supports cec.. in kodi you then mount the share you created on your qnap or synology nas over the network and bob's your uncle..

the raspberry pi is tiny and you wont know it exists and is inexpensive..
Click to expand...

Thanks guys, now we heading in the right direction for my solution.

I was just looking into a NUC and the RaspberyPi options which seem plausable. However I am interested in what @WAslayer has mentioned with the qnap or synology nas options. Going to look into this further.
 
Kleine Fische said:
Thanks guys, now we heading in the right direction for my solution.

I was just looking into a NUC and the RaspberyPi options which seem plausable. However I am interested in what @WAslayer has mentioned with the qnap or synology nas options. Going to look into this further.
Click to expand...

Qnap NAS is nice, I have a old 4 bay model at home, TS 410U. Only has 512mb mem and a 800Mhz CPU but works fine for what I use it for

Apart from using it as a NAS I currently run the Plex server, web server, OpenVPN server and a Squid proxy App on it and cpu and mem at 50%
Got 4 3Tb drives in, 2 x 3Tb in raid 1 for shared storage, then the other two also in raid 1 but assigned as iSCSI storage to another pc over the second 1Gb port on it
 
@irBosOtter thanks for your reply, I really do like the Qnap. Going to put some cash aside and build my solution on one of the mid SOHO 4 or 6 bay models. Thanks for your post.
 
@OP: Synology or QNAP is rock-solid. Just be aware that most of those systems will have a too slow CPU to encode on the fly for Plex (without having to wait/buffer).

I am running a 5-bay Synology which has all my media content / iTunes library and I then use LibreElec on a Odroid C2 (http://ameridroid.com/products/xbmc-kodi-4k-kit) where the C2 is connected via HDMI to the TV. For Plex I am running a separate Xtreamer Ultra2 (that used to be my primary XBMC unit which I replaced with a C2). If I didn't have the spare Xtreamer, I would have bought another C2 just as the Plexserver (I am not sure if one C2 would function well enough as XBMC and Plex).

Synology is expensive but lasts forever - my 1010+ has been going since 2010. Don't fall for the trap of plugging a NAS into a TV. A NAS should be very good at storage and running background jobs. It should not be a media player. Ever.
 
Last edited:
I have a QNAP NAS, but if you are planning to use a QNAP for Plex then the TS-431, TS-431P & TS-451 CPU is not powerful enough to play HEVC x265 codec encoded video. You must have a QNAP with quad core CPU, but they are very expensive. Quite a bit out of your intended price range.

There's no point investing so much money if it can't cope with 1080P HEVC video. H264 is on the way out. The midrange TS-453 which has a quad core CPU is R12k before you buy the HDDs.
 
Last edited:
Kleine Fische said:
@irBosOtter thanks for your reply, I really do like the Qnap. Going to put some cash aside and build my solution on one of the mid SOHO 4 or 6 bay models. Thanks for your post.
Click to expand...

Just be sure to chose wisely, as you're using it for a Plex Server you'll probably want transcoding capabilities. Most of the lower cost NAS devices will not have enough processing power to do any transcoding and probably won't support hardware transcoding when that is available in release (only recent Intel CPUs with QSV will support hardware transcoding).
 
Don't fall for the trap of plugging a NAS into a TV. A NAS should be very good at storage and running background jobs. It should not be a media player. Ever. (Forgot to mention, get a NAS which can run Docker, which sorts out your "app-requirements")
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X