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ELI5: how a NAS can be used for plex

Ins0mnyteq

Ins0mnyteq

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
1,079
so right now i have a HP system with 8gb ram, a 4130 cpu that struggles cpu wise with plex, generally i have 2-3 people using it. the cpu hovers between 80-100 all the time. How can a NAS unit work well in this environment?
 
Some specific NAS boxes on the lower end have processors that have hardware acceleration for the style of transcoding that Plex does, and other NAS boxes on the higher end just have great processors that can handle the stress. What clients are you using and are they capable of using direct play instead of transcoding? You may need to upgrade to an i5 or i7 if your i3 can't keep up.
 
I use a Roku 3 and my kids play it through chrome. Os there a way to force Direct play on the pc's?

With Direct play on the Roku its laggy, also i have the transcoding is set to make my cpu hurt. I used to have a dual zeon server doing it all, but th e thing was noisy and bulky. once i moved all of my DB work to my laptop i got rid of it and have been using this HP 800 series box. just recently it started to give me issues, plus i just wanna have a smaller foot print but i dont wanna sacrifice any performance from what i have, this is why i am curious.
 
Freenas 9.3.1 with a workstation board supporting ECC ram, Xeon E3 1220v3 or 1231V3, 16-32GB DDR3 ECC RAM, as many disks as you want/whatever your board can support.
 
Wade88 said:
Freenas 9.3.1 with a workstation board supporting ECC ram, Xeon E3 1220v3 or 1231V3, 16-32GB DDR3 ECC RAM, as many disks as you want/whatever your board can support.
Click to expand...



im thinking more a traditional NAS device, as opposed to running PC/ Server hardware, as that's what i have now. Im looking at getting a traditional NAS , im just worried it wont be able to perform even as well as what i have.
 
Ins0mnyteq said:
im thinking more a traditional NAS device, as opposed to running PC/ Server hardware...
Click to expand...

If there's any transcoding involved and you're looking for HD resolutions, it's simply not gonna work.
 
Ins0mnyteq said:
im thinking more a traditional NAS device, as opposed to running PC/ Server hardware, as that's what i have now. Im looking at getting a traditional NAS , im just worried it wont be able to perform even as well as what i have.
Click to expand...

Plex needs a strong processor for transcoding. Did it for years with ps3mediaserver, HD content can really stress a processor unless you have it setup to process on a graphics card.

I recommend at least a 2.5gHz, more if you plan on going to more than 1 device at once.

IMHO its better to do the dumb server route of kodi with uPnP for phones/tablets, where each client needs to do its own source processing, but with the prices of efficient linux based units its cheap and effective to go this route and serve as many clients as your network can handle.

I use this one, its quick and handles my library easily.

http://www.amazon.com/Pigflytech®-M...TF8&qid=1444235718&sr=8-1&keywords=pigflytech

My other mediabox is a zacate e-350 running debian backend with kodi configured as an appliance. On it's 1.6gHz processor I get 10-20% utilization when browsing or playing, everything is offloaded to the graphics portion, plays 1080p flawlessly.

Long story short - I think plex was more useful before on device transcoding because so ubiqutious and efficient (back 5 yrs ago when you had to jump through hoops to get graphics card offload).

Now its not much better than kodi, which is free and open source.
 
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looks interesting, .....explain me how to use a gpu to transcode. i have a ton of entry level gpus (610s, 740s) i might get that thing though for $100
 
It's an embedded CPU and only available with a motherboard. Supermicro makes a decent board using it.
 
staticlag said:
Plex needs a strong processor for transcoding. Did it for years with ps3mediaserver, HD content can really stress a processor unless you have it setup to process on a graphics card.

I recommend at least a 2.5gHz, more if you plan on going to more than 1 device at once.

IMHO its better to do the dumb server route of kodi with uPnP for phones/tablets, where each client needs to do its own source processing, but with the prices of efficient linux based units its cheap and effective to go this route and serve as many clients as your network can handle.

I use this one, its quick and handles my library easily.

http://www.amazon.com/Pigflytech®-M...TF8&qid=1444235718&sr=8-1&keywords=pigflytech

My other mediabox is a zacate e-350 running debian backend with kodi configured as an appliance. On it's 1.6gHz processor I get 10-20% utilization when browsing or playing, everything is offloaded to the graphics portion, plays 1080p flawlessly.

Long story short - I think plex was more useful before on device transcoding because so ubiqutious and efficient (back 5 yrs ago when you had to jump through hoops to get graphics card offload).

Now its not much better than kodi, which is free and open source.
Click to expand...
because its easy, free, there web/mobile client just works and it works with chromecast. Need I say more.
 
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Ins0mnyteq said:
looks interesting, .....explain me how to use a gpu to transcode. i have a ton of entry level gpus (610s, 740s) i might get that thing though for $100
Click to expand...

Now-a-days it's baked into most player distributions and will do it automatically.

But if you happen to have a program that can't, you need to get a program that will send all the data to be transcoded to a language compatible graphics card CUDA/OpenCL, the card processes it and feeds it to your clients. There were some windows wrappers around, but for the most part it was linux essentially. The packages are in most distributions.

Setup correctly you could have a small footprint server with one or two graphics cards in it that could easily transcode to everything at wire speed.

But then you have to ask yourself, is it really easier to setup this complicated box with a pricey graphics card, than to just transcode all your movies into stream-friendly mobile versions with the cost of HDs being so low?

I'm talking large scale here, maybe 30-40 people streaming.

But really here I mean everyone should realize Kodi and Plex are the same as two different distributions of linux, it's like arguing Debian vs SuSE.

I mean they both will do 95% of the same thing the same way, using the same backend.

Only difference is you have centralized server (Plex) and its benefits (transcoding, main database).

and non central server (kodi) that makes each device it's own entity. But since it's open source you have tons of mods and the ability to do central SQL server.
 
Trimlock said:
I know what the 1540 is I'm just wondering where the poster got theirs.
Click to expand...

I believe Newegg. Get my stuff from either there, Wiredzone or SuperBiiz. Sometimes the latter choices have better pricing but their return policy isn't as convenient as Newegg.

I saw some open Box 1540's recently for $800. That's pretty cheap IMHO. The SuperMicro Mini Server case is pretty convenient with the hotswap etc. I like it. I would not say it's the quietest but if you don't want to screw around with buying fans, powersupply etc and are ok with reasonably quiet it might be a good solution.
 
staticlag said:
Now-a-days it's baked into most player distributions and will do it automatically.

But if you happen to have a program that can't, you need to get a program that will send all the data to be transcoded to a language compatible graphics card CUDA/OpenCL, the card processes it and feeds it to your clients. There were some windows wrappers around, but for the most part it was linux essentially. The packages are in most distributions.

Setup correctly you could have a small footprint server with one or two graphics cards in it that could easily transcode to everything at wire speed.

But then you have to ask yourself, is it really easier to setup this complicated box with a pricey graphics card, than to just transcode all your movies into stream-friendly mobile versions with the cost of HDs being so low?

I'm talking large scale here, maybe 30-40 people streaming.

But really here I mean everyone should realize Kodi and Plex are the same as two different distributions of linux, it's like arguing Debian vs SuSE.

I mean they both will do 95% of the same thing the same way, using the same backend.

Only difference is you have centralized server (Plex) and its benefits (transcoding, main database).

and non central server (kodi) that makes each device it's own entity. But since it's open source you have tons of mods and the ability to do central SQL server.
Click to expand...

so im def gonna stick with plex being that there is no app for roku on kodi ,( being that all of my tvs have this) and even though my nerdgasm over it being called isengard, having to setup a web server to play it in a browser is annoying, i do enough tinkering for work, i just wanna watch shit,, and plex is a lazy IT mans dream ....


thanks being said, you if set up correctly, so tell me how to do this i have a 610 im going to use in a box that's running windows server 2012r2, how do i make that thing transcode off the gpu
 
davewolfs said:
I believe Newegg. Get my stuff from either there, Wiredzone or SuperBiiz. Sometimes the latter choices have better pricing but their return policy isn't as convenient as Newegg.

I saw some open Box 1540's recently for $800. That's pretty cheap IMHO. The SuperMicro Mini Server case is pretty convenient with the hotswap etc. I like it. I would not say it's the quietest but if you don't want to screw around with buying fans, powersupply etc and are ok with reasonably quiet it might be a good solution.
Click to expand...

Interesting thanks a ton as I have never heard of wiredzone before. I wanted the Xeon 1540 mini server by supermicro but now I'm only interested in the motherboard.
 
I have the MiniServer. I went with it because I wanted the support and easy replacement just in case. Apparently there is a 1541 to be released in November. Depending on timeline might be worth waiting for. I'm very happy with the platform. Only thing that doesn't work are the 10GB ports on ESXi, no driver yet.

Hard to beat this price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-Skimlinks
 
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Vengance_01 said:
For transcoding its not going to be strong enough for more than 1-2 1080P streams that require transcoding.
Click to expand...

No, the Avoton C2750 can handle transcoding 3+ high bitrate 1080p streams simultaneously.

https://cyberj0ck.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/my-review-of-the-freenas-mini-part-2/
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/8...ssor-powerful-enough-to-do-1080p-many-streams

As expected, it is not very fast for single threaded applications.
However, I love how fast it is when multi-threaded! For example, on the multi-threaded 3D particle movement benchmark, the C2750 finds itself stuck between the Core i5 2500K and the i7 4770K in terms of performance! Keep in mind that those parts are 95W and 84W, respectively. The C2750 puts out only 20W and is fanless
Click to expand...
 
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