NAS drive for media server in PC query

[Technique]

I was considering having a re-jig of my PC so there’s more storage but eventually less drives. 

 

I was thinking of a NAS HDD, 4TB put in to my PC tower and just rip movies to it and put anything else on there I basically want on my Plex server. 

 

Eventually im looking at getting a NAS enclosure. Could I then just put the drive in the enclosure straight from the PC? Windows won’t have written files to this that’ll make it not work in this setup in any way will it?

 

just want to check before I spend. 

[CC2009]

My experience with QNAP and Linksys NAS enclosures is they run on Linux based software.

This means the added hard disk will be first formatted to this system. (deleting all files on the added hard disk).

After this is done then you can copy your files to the NAS from the PC.

[Technique]

Ahh so it would be pointless putting the drive in to a windows PC, ripping movies & just basically putting various media files on there and THEN putting it in the enclosure? 

 

So so I’ll have to rip to a drive & when I eventually buy a NAS enclosure & suitable drive go through the process of copying over all the movies etc. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

5 hours ago, Technique said:

Ahh so it would be pointless putting the drive in to a windows PC, ripping movies & just basically putting various media files on there and THEN putting it in the enclosure? 

 

So so I’ll have to rip to a drive & when I eventually buy a NAS enclosure & suitable drive go through the process of copying over all the movies etc. 

Yeah, pretty much. Most NAS devices can read several formats of HDDs. But If you are to RAID them, you would be wiping all your data. Again, most NAs use SAMBA/CFS, so it is viewable from Windows/Mac/Linux computers.

[DevTech]

22 hours ago, Technique said:

Ahh so it would be pointless putting the drive in to a windows PC, ripping movies & just basically putting various media files on there and THEN putting it in the enclosure? 

 

So so I’ll have to rip to a drive & when I eventually buy a NAS enclosure & suitable drive go through the process of copying over all the movies etc. 

Options:

 

1. somebody might have a device driver to use one of the zillion Linux files systems on Windows. The format for Windows is NTFS and some Linux systems support that as well but I don't know if that is any good yet after 10 years of trying...

 

2. Keep drive in computer and buy 2nd driver later for NAS. When you get your NAS, start the copy over the LAN and walk away for a couple of hours...

 

3. When the time comes, buy the new PC you have always wanted and use the current one as your media server.

 

4. Just keep your large drive in your compute and keep using as is - no real need for a NAS box - all they do is keep costs low on the equivalent of having a second computer but their costs have typically ballooned over the years into "not such a great deal" - I eventually re-purpose all my older computers into useful servers on my LAN, and hence have ZERO use for a NAS...

 

-------------

 

Also, when you buy a drive, consult the reliability data at Backblaze.com - they are the ONLY reliable source of reliability info.

 

The WD Black is one of the best constructed disk drives, but it is not designed for low power. I always start by asking myself "Is there a HUGE overriding reason NOT to use a WD Black for my next purchase?"

 

https://www.wd.com/products/internal-storage/wd-black-desktop.html

 

 

[Technique]

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

Options:

 

1. somebody might have a device driver to use one of the zillion Linux files systems on Windows. The format for Windows is NTFS and some Linux systems support that as well but I don't know if that is any good yet after 10 years of trying...

 

2. Keep drive in computer and buy 2nd driver later for NAS. When you get your NAS, start the copy over the LAN and walk away for a couple of hours...

 

3. When the time comes, buy the new PC you have always wanted and use the current one as your media server.

 

4. Just keep your large drive in your compute and keep using as is - no real need for a NAS box - all they do is keep costs low on the equivalent of having a second computer but their costs have typically ballooned over the years into "not such a great deal" - I eventually re-purpose all my older computers into useful servers on my LAN, and hence have ZERO use for a NAS...

 

-------------

 

Also, when you buy a drive, consult the reliability data at Backblaze.com - they are the ONLY reliable source of reliability info.

 

The WD Black is one of the best constructed disk drives, but it is not designed for low power. I always start by asking myself "Is there a HUGE overriding reason NOT to use a WD Black for my next purchase?"

 

https://www.wd.com/products/internal-storage/wd-black-desktop.html

 

 

Yeah i think that second option is probably the most likely to be honest.

 

Option 1 i was like uhhh yeah ok

Option 3 isn't an option as i have no room in the house for a second PC. I only have room for one and the one will always have to be a 'daily' PC. Plus my existing PC is powerful enough for what i need these days.

Option 4 i think you're saying use my existing PC as the media server? As discussed previously, i'm not a fan of always on PC. I know many do this and they spit out their coffee when i say what i just did but such is life. This isn't 'THE' reason but when i lived at my mother's the PC was in an ideal slot. I had plenty of room for everything i needed to plug in.

Since i got my own place the PC room is a 2mtr-x-2mtr box room that also has storage cabinets in it and other things so it's probably like a 1.5mtr-x-1.5mtr box room. The PC tower ends up having to be kept on the floor and just collects dust inside & out for fun. My printer also has to be stored on the floor in front of my desk and connected up whenever i need to use it. Not ideal but such is life. I prefer not to have a PC always on in a dusty environment. Yeah i clean it out from time to time but even still.

 

 

 

Regards the drives, i was Googling the past couple days actually and the WD Black seemed to be the one to have .......... then i saw the price though. Ouch.

Only question really would be whether to go for 4TB or 6 TB regardless of which drive i buy. Now it's easy to say 6TB is better because it's more just like you'd say 8TB is better because it's more & therefore why don't we all just buy the biggest hard drive known to man when all we may store on the thing is 1 photo. My point is i need to decide whether the 6TB is overkill or not. Example - i bought 16GB RAM for this PC. For what i do i could very easily get away with 6GB & certainly 8GB. I just bought it because 'it's more'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIDE NOTE.....

Although one thing i liked when looking in to all this storage was how much the price of SSDs has come down.

I have a Samsung SSD 830 series which 'Samsung Magician' quotes the drive condition as being 'Good' (i don't know what their best rating is). It's a 256GB drive.

I can now get almost double that at 500GB for £85 in the 860 https://www.ebuyer.com/824749-samsung-860-evo-500gb-ssd-mz-76e500b-eu

 

There were some i saw that looked like RAM modules though. Never seen those before but unless it was a misprint then the read & write speeds dwarfed the standard look SSD drive that i just posted a link to https://www.ebuyer.com/836854-samsung-970-evo-v-nand-m-2-500gb-ssd-mz-v7e500bw

 

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, Technique said:

Yeah i think that second option is probably the most likely to be honest.

 

Option 1 i was like uhhh yeah ok

Option 3 isn't an option as i have no room in the house for a second PC. I only have room for one and the one will always have to be a 'daily' PC. Plus my existing PC is powerful enough for what i need these days.

Option 4 i think you're saying use my existing PC as the media server? As discussed previously, i'm not a fan of always on PC. I know many do this and they spit out their coffee when i say what i just did but such is life. This isn't 'THE' reason but when i lived at my mother's the PC was in an ideal slot. I had plenty of room for everything i needed to plug in.

Since i got my own place the PC room is a 2mtr-x-2mtr box room that also has storage cabinets in it and other things so it's probably like a 1.5mtr-x-1.5mtr box room. The PC tower ends up having to be kept on the floor and just collects dust inside & out for fun. My printer also has to be stored on the floor in front of my desk and connected up whenever i need to use it. Not ideal but such is life. I prefer not to have a PC always on in a dusty environment. Yeah i clean it out from time to time but even still.

 

 

 

Regards the drives, i was Googling the past couple days actually and the WD Black seemed to be the one to have .......... then i saw the price though. Ouch.

Only question really would be whether to go for 4TB or 6 TB regardless of which drive i buy. Now it's easy to say 6TB is better because it's more just like you'd say 8TB is better because it's more & therefore why don't we all just buy the biggest hard drive known to man when all we may store on the thing is 1 photo. My point is i need to decide whether the 6TB is overkill or not. Example - i bought 16GB RAM for this PC. For what i do i could very easily get away with 6GB & certainly 8GB. I just bought it because 'it's more'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIDE NOTE.....

Although one thing i liked when looking in to all this storage was how much the price of SSDs has come down.

I have a Samsung SSD 830 series which 'Samsung Magician' quotes the drive condition as being 'Good' (i don't know what their best rating is). It's a 256GB drive.

I can now get almost double that at 500GB for £85 in the 860 https://www.ebuyer.com/824749-samsung-860-evo-500gb-ssd-mz-76e500b-eu

 

There were some i saw that looked like RAM modules though. Never seen those before but unless it was a misprint then the read & write speeds dwarfed the standard look SSD drive that i just posted a link to https://www.ebuyer.com/836854-samsung-970-evo-v-nand-m-2-500gb-ssd-mz-v7e500bw

 

Option 3 isn't an option as i have no room in the house for a second PC. 

 

Option 4 

Since i got my own place the PC room is a 2mtr-x-2mtr box room that also has storage cabinets in it and other things so it's probably like a 1.5mtr-x-1.5mtr box room. The PC tower ends up having to be kept on the floor and just collects dust inside & out for fun.

 

My printer also has to be stored on the floor in front of my desk and connected up whenever i need to use it. 

 

I prefer not to have a PC always on in a dusty environment. Yeah i clean it out from time to time but even still.

 

--------------------------

So, 3 & 4 are space limitations

 

- think the apartment Bruce Willis is occupying at the start of Fifth Element... 3D space usage! In your case, with some screws and scrap wood, you can probably make custom little shelves to hang PCs and Printers and 2nd PCs and 3rd PCs and...

 

- dust is in the air so off the floor still sucks in dust - buy 5 air cans to keep next to each device - cut out bits of furnace filters etc to duct tape on fan intakes - and dust isn't so bad anyways - I have lots of computers, one on floor and I air can them twice a year or so...

 

- think of PCs as first class citizens in your family and solutions will pop into your head - tape faces to them and give them names maybe!

 

----------------------------

 

now if you don't actually use your PC very much, then you could look into power settings and also WOL ("Wake on LAN") where the PC wakes up when it is being accessed as needed...

 

-----------------------------

 

SSD: my standard suggestion is Samsung 860 for older SATA based mobos and Samsung 970 for M.2 NVMe x 4 based mobos.

 

Samsung SSD tech is just better than anything else right now so no discussion needed.

 

The 970 looks like a circuit board because it is!

 

It plugs into a special slot in the mobo which can have one or two slots. You can also buy a ASUS HyperX expansion card that plugs into a PCIe x 4 slot on your mobo.

 

It is super fast because it uses 4 PCIe lanes out of the chipset. The same high speed tech used by your GPU card which uses 8 or 16 PCIe lanes.

 

 

[Technique]

Yeah, i tried drilling in to the walls in this room. Joys of an old house Let's say it just didn't turn out well. It's not like a modern house that's got walls of plasterboard (not sure if you're from America or not. Forget what you guys call it, drywall or sheet rock or something? I forget). Even the walls in here that are supposed to be brick were a nightmare. Was able to drill in some locations but others God knows what they put in that wall but it blunted my drill bits.

 

Yeah my MOBO is quite old now. 2010 the thing was built so very old by technology standards. ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is the name.

[DevTech]

5 hours ago, Technique said:

Yeah, i tried drilling in to the walls in this room. Joys of an old house Let's say it just didn't turn out well. It's not like a modern house that's got walls of plasterboard (not sure if you're from America or not. Forget what you guys call it, drywall or sheet rock or something? I forget). Even the walls in here that are supposed to be brick were a nightmare. Was able to drill in some locations but others God knows what they put in that wall but it blunted my drill bits.

 

Yeah my MOBO is quite old now. 2010 the thing was built so very old by technology standards. ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is the name.

 

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A88TDV_EVOUSB3/specifications/

 

Yeah, bit old

 

You can put this in the grey slot:

 

Asus Hyper M.2 PCI-Express x4 Mini Card Adapter Model HYPER M.2 X4 MINI

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0DS-00BS-00001

 

But the mobo is old enough that it might not recognize the M.2 as a bootable device for the O/S, but you would still have a super fast drive for "stuff"

 

-------------------

 

With plasterboard, you need to find the wooden studs behind, so your advantage without the plasterboard is that you can drill anywhere you want as long as you have a Hammer Drill.

 

I live in a building with no drywall - concrete with an embedded metal mesh!

 

You need a "Hammer Drill" and a masonry type of drill bit and some plastic plugs and screws.

 

I looked for Home Depot and got this:

 

https://girlgonelondon.com/is-there-a-home-depot-in-the-uk-2/

 

So you need this:

 

https://www.diy.com/departments/tools-and-equipment/power-tools/drills/hammer-drills/_/N-b7u

 

This one at 15 euros (or is it brexit pounds?) might do for light duty use:

 

https://www.diy.com/departments/500w-corded-impact-drill-vid500hf/735538_BQ.prd

 

Compared to your experience you will be quite surprised at how easy it is to drill a 1/4 inch hole in the wall for a plug - "like butter"

 

 

[DevTech]

Oh, you also need this secret ingredient:

 

https://www.diy.com/departments/tools-equipment/power-tool-accessories/drill-bits-accessories/masonry-drill-bits/DIY830219.cat

 

Don't waste time using one of those without the hammer drill. I tried that for 2 holes before I gave up and bought the Hammer Drill...

 

BTW the name is a bit misleading, the hammer action is more like a vibration that hits the masonry at a high frequency.

 

Also, they all have a handle for your other hand becuase you have to push a bit but be gentle and take a bit longer with a cheapo drill...

 

[Technique]

Lol we're way off topic now talking about DIY But still.

 

Yeah i have a cordless with the hammer action. I used it to do a bit around the house. That wire meshing is curious - i hit metal in the wall when i was drilling and no amount of pressure would let me drill further. The house is 1930s with original horsehair plaster, or at least on the walls that aren't plaster & lath.

 

On another wall i tried to put in a simple rawl plug just to hang an extension lead. The damn thing ended up shooting straight through. I had a few holes where the plaster must just be weak as sh#t.

 

To be honest i'm surprised i haven't brought the house down yet the way my DIY 'skills' are.

[Ready2018]

19 minutes ago, Technique said:

Lol we're way off topic now talking about DIY But still.

 

Yeah i have a cordless with the hammer action. I used it to do a bit around the house. That wire meshing is curious - i hit metal in the wall when i was drilling and no amount of pressure would let me drill further. The house is 1930s with original horsehair plaster, or at least on the walls that aren't plaster & lath.

 

On another wall i tried to put in a simple rawl plug just to hang an extension lead. The damn thing ended up shooting straight through. I had a few holes where the plaster must just be weak as sh#t.

 

To be honest i'm surprised i haven't brought the house down yet the way my DIY 'skills' are.

If you're hitting metal in the wall then that wall is load bearing and drilling in it is a very bad idea unless you really know what you're doing as you can do damage that can weaken the load bearing wall.

[Technique]

51 minutes ago, Technique said:

 

To be honest i'm surprised i haven't brought the house down yet the way my DIY 'skills' are.

Famous last words then 🤣

[+Warwagon MVC]

Personally, for storage, I use WD Reds.

[DevTech]

3 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Personally, for storage, I use WD Reds.

I like Reds but since it was going in his main PC, and considering the additional benefits of MUCH better performance and better construction (those extra ball bearings etc) and the 5 year warranty, the Black just seemed far more appropriate.

 

If he goes with the "buy the NAS later on plan" then a Red might be worth looking at IMO at that time.

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just now, DevTech said:

I like Reds but since it was going in his main PC, and considering the additional benefits of MUCH better performance and better construction (those extra ball bearings etc) and the 5 year warranty, the Black just seemed far more appropriate.

 

If he goes with the "buy the NAS later on plan" then a Red might be worth looking at IMO.

 

My bad I suck at reading the entire thread lol, I just assumed he would be using an ssd as his boot drive.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, Technique said:

Lol we're way off topic now talking about DIY But still.

 

Yeah i have a cordless with the hammer action. I used it to do a bit around the house. That wire meshing is curious - i hit metal in the wall when i was drilling and no amount of pressure would let me drill further. The house is 1930s with original horsehair plaster, or at least on the walls that aren't plaster & lath.

 

On another wall i tried to put in a simple rawl plug just to hang an extension lead. The damn thing ended up shooting straight through. I had a few holes where the plaster must just be weak as sh#t.

 

To be honest i'm surprised i haven't brought the house down yet the way my DIY 'skills' are.

1930's predates cookie cutter wood frame construction with studs.

 

You might have the more expensive "Post and Beam" construction which permits a lot more custom stuff as long as you don't mess with a post or beam... Some Google of your local info base should give you the answer.

 

Computer stuff is complicated. Unless ancient neolithic builders had Einstein IQs, construction knowledge is basic stuff that anyone can come up to speed with quickly.

 

You could try taking a 6" to 10" thin and wide plywood or similar about 6 feet long and cover the entire surface with "grab adhesive" and then gluing to a test area of strong looking plaster wall.

 

After drying, screw in a large hook and see if it supports your weight (it should) - if so, it will hold equipment!

 

Ask at B & Q (or similar) for their strongest Grab Adhesive:

 

https://www.diy.com/search?Ntt=grab+adhesive

 

 

 

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, Technique said:

Lol we're way off topic now talking about DIY But still.

It's the way I approach solving problems. Look for anomolies, find the bottleneck.

 

In your case, simple construction issues are severely bottlenecking/blocking the totality of computer configuration solution sets.

 

So, exploring ways to quickly expand possible approaches even if you reject those options later on for whatever reason is still withing the realm of being completely on topic.

 

All of this is within the computer science/mathematics topic of "Game Theory" but in reality grabbing some glue and plywood and various shelves and brackets and duct tape and cable ties to hang servers everywhere (and why not a few glowing neon wires too) gets to the heart of why tech is just plain FUN!

 

 

 

[Odom Member]

When you mention NAS enclosure, it depends what you mean by it. NAS systems like Qnap and Synology need to initialise any drive you put in them, this process wipes all the data on it. Even if you put a drive into one of these NAS systems and decide to use it as a single drive (or JBOD), you still have to initialise it, thus wiping it. You can however put data on that one drive, later add a second drive and create a RAID without losing data. For example, add one drive, put dome data on it. Add 2 more drives and then create a RAID5 from it.

If you mean a NAS enclosure in which you only have a box where you can put in some drives, it would also depend on the model. Whilst some read any disk you put in it without, others make you prepare the drive for usage, thus also wiping the contents. It all depends on the individual models.

As to drives, in my Qnap NAS I use WD Red drives. If you want more performance, you could go with WD Red Pros (7200rpm). Currently I have a mix of 3TB, 6TB and 8TB drives, all WD Red. It all really depends how much storage you want, there are drives for all sizes.