Plex on Synology DS1618+ is horrid - thinking of a DS 920+ Question about replacement drive size needed

[bob2k2]

My Synology DS1618+ just slowly chugs play any video media via Plex. I thought about upgrading to a QNAP TVS-872XT  but it's 1700+   & just too expensive. I've read positive things about the Synology DS 920+ ($525) for Plex but it only has four drives as  my current 1618+ has six slots. Currently on the 1618+ I'm using only five of the  six drives which are each 4 TB drives - the 6th being a hot spare. The DS1618+ is configured for Raid 5. My current 1618+ setup shows my Volume Usage as being 10.7TB  of the 14.7TB and I'm happy with that storage buffer.  The question is if I move to a four-drive DS 920+ system what size drives should I put in the system to have an approx  volume usage equivalent with RAID 5 to what I have with my current 1618+?  I guess the next options are for 6, 8 or 10TB. At  some point the drive cost could make this prohibitively expensive. TIA

 

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

I think one of your HDDs are bad. What I can understand..

 

@BudMan

[i_was_here]

Why not just get a NUC or spare computer to run Plex? Keep your NAS for storage and just move Plex elsewhere. This should help greatly with performance and decoding.

[+BudMan MVC]

You could get 1 16TB drive and be good - if you really really what drive redundancy get 2 of them..  This would give you enough to store what you have now with some growth.  SHR would allow you to add more drives in the future to your 4 bays.

 

https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

 

here is something that might be helpful for you

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator

 

I run plex on my ds918+ and have had no issues with it, max I have seen in the last month is 7 concurrent connections, while in the past I have seen up to 8.

 

 

You do need plex pass to be able to do hardware transcoding. Which I do, and don't do any 4k on plex other than a few test files.  I personally can not tell the difference really between it an 1080, so save space and only store 1080.

 

 

 

 

 

[+mram Subscriber²]

Ditto on the DS918+, it's pretty awesome.

Raid5 is pretty much up to you as far as what you need for storage.

[HoochieMamma]

Sounds like you're transcoding. I have a 1513+ and I play everything just fine via an Nvidia shield.

 

What are you using to play your media? You need to make sure it can direct stream/play so your NAS CPU isn't getting mauled while playing anything.

[+BudMan MVC]

^ very valid point, I know there are some differences between the 1618+ and the 918+  And what players your using can make a huge difference to if you have to transcode or not - along with media type..

 

My library is strictly x264 or x265 all in mkv container.. Also what audio format and even subs.

 

I have standard for all files I add to my library, audio is all AC3 and subs are all srt.  I do have some that are AAC but when I get the urge I go through and find a few files with still AAC and convert them.  There are tools you can setup to auto work through your library and change everything to what you want them to be.

 

While part of the beauty of plex is to just be able to play anything.   But you can make your life easier if you keep your library with files that most likely can play direct for the majority of your user base.

 

Also users tend to not adjust the player to play original, so quite often even if they could direct stream your media in its native 1080 for example, it tends to transcode that down to 720 because that is default for players.. So some user training on how to change their player hopefully direct stream/play vs transcode help out your server a lot in not having to transcode.  There are many a guide out there on the net to help users set their device to be more open to direct vs plex having to transcode..