NAS For Plex Media Server – 8 Mistakes People ALWAYS Make

If I could go back in time, you started that as a complete, you sang two songs in one line, you were, if I could go back, I think you're the first man to properly confuse the youtube ai bot, you took two songs to win, splat, hello and welcome back and it's me and eddie the web guy and once again we're talking about a

plex

media

server

on

plex

network attached storage in an ad it's simple however even though we've been talking about this topic for more years and I would like to remember that it is worth highlighting that we do it in general, whether in the latest subtle plugin of the comparison tips section or just on the Internet on Reddit and forums and things like that, the People seem to

make

the same

mistakes

many times.

They buy a network attached storage device for plex and don't realize that one bought the wrong early gates or two don't realize they could have a better experience, so today Eddie and I have put together the eight

mistakes

biggest things

people

commit. seem to

make

when buying their first nas for flexible

media

server

some of this is nas some of plex some of both but these are the eight mistakes we keep seeing over and over again Eddie what is the first mistake the first mistake would be choosing a suitable CPU because, um, that's just when you're in kind of the nas industry, now it's like our market, you might think that all I need is a really good CPU because this is what you would normally do on your nuc PC. because before you had nas, you might have had a computer that you turned into a plex, but then you realize that your power supply and all this stuff is tickling you and keeping it on and it's like it's just not worth it and you also run out of space.

So you go in and out and then you think I probably need to match the same CPU that I had in a computer with nas, which in most cases is correct, true, but the other thing is that most of the time. On desktops or laptops or wherever you run your plex, you will find a CPU that has integrated graphics, so in that case you don't need to worry much about that performance because this chip inside that CPU will take care of transcoding up to Obviously, certain resolution, when you go to 4k then this chip will simply be too weak to convert this video to something smaller, in that case it borrows some performance from the overall CPU performance and calculations, so if you have some like i7 with graphics chip.

In some cases up to 1080p the little graphics chip will take care of it so your nas performance won't be affected so you will still be able to use other apps and everything will be fine but once you start transcoding 4k , everything will be fine. I'm just going to take all the resources I can on this side of the i7 to transcode this 4k and it will work, so the same applies to nas as well because in some cases if you only need 1080p video transcoding then that's all you need. It's really a cheap base nas seller that has integrated graphics, so it will take care of the graphics and you'll still have nas fast enough to handle other things like backups and whatever you want, and that's thanks to that integrated processor. and yes, time and time again we see

people

buying xeon based nozzles again here in the background, it's a bit out of the picture, there is the ds1621xs plus xeon base nas, a really very good system, it worked very well on nas, but proportionally the cpu utilization percentage was just crazy compared to a standard celeron again once you hit 4k, slightly different because then the gpu just freaks out with the onboard gpu and then the raw cpu power kicks in anyway, for what the second mistake we see a lot of people making when they get to the first Plex media server now is the noise a lot of you make when you buy a network attached storage device now and I get it and now not everyone had one before They put it in the attic, they put it in the closet, etc., etc. but many of you have the nas in an area that you are going to be in regularly, whether it is the same one you know the home theater flipping through movies or boom avengers or that you are using in a home office or one way or another.

I bought a nas that you are using mainly for the plex media server and it is in a place where you are going to watch the media at the same time or generally very close to it and the problem is that the nazis can generate ambient noise. The internal drives can make ambient noise and I don't know if you have ever enjoyed watching TV when there is noise, it's not fun, it's not fun and many of you don't take into consideration the noise that nas makes when you use it for The Flexible Media Server throw that somewhere really far away, not in the sky, I'm talking in the attic, cover something like that and basically make sure it's not in your immediate reach, but secondly, be aware of the noise these devices make.

Very very good point to talk about ambient noise levels and hard drives once they hit the hallowed atb marks you get one two four six eight tb after that hard drives generally have a more enterprise architecture and although You might think I want to buy my first network. connected to one device or plex and don't want to buy another one for the next five six years. I'm going to put some 18TB drives in there, good for you, they're going to make a big deal, get them, but make sure nas is not in their local environmental environment, if you don't believe me, look at the videos from a couple of months ago where we did audio testing on a single hard drive, it was like a jar of nails falling down the stairs, it wasn't. funny noise Eddie yes exactly and if you want to connect via HDMI because a lot of people might want to and you also want massive capacity then you might want to consider getting really cheap secondary nuts that you can keep somewhere in a closet and then the nuts that connect via HDMI, just insert an SSD in there, it's silent because the main multimedia nas can be linked with your additional storage in a closet, you know that one can make noises, so yeah, so we can move. about memory and plex nas because people usually think how much memory do i need because with plex plex requires a lot of resources its a third party its not like an integrated video station or a video ds but you would find it in qnap. or Synology plugs need more RAM so at least somewhere like a gigabyte I would choose two even gigabytes but also a lot of people buy nas with this gigabits is too good a minimum requirement and then end up realizing there isn't enough memory because they forgot about our system itself and other applications because it's not just complex, the other applications also need memory if, especially if you run things like virtual machines or a web server or something like that, all these things need to run and Also, if you enable caching you also need ram all this extra stuff needs to be run but if there is only going to be plex on the nas then most of the time with two gigabytes there should be enough for the system stuff to run and and the boards also another thing is that other people also vis-a-ram actually say they ask if I'm going to add more ram like four gigabytes six gigabytes is my place it's going to run faster and the answer to the question is really whether to run out memory, yes, it will improve the speed because when the memory runs out, the system borrows the storage space from the hard drive, which is much slower than RAM, so in those cases it needs more RAM, but if it never reaches the RAM memory. maximum of your ram you're going to add more ram it's not going to change anything I mean again the only thing I would add to that is if in doubt 4 gigs minimum there's a reason why a lot of these celeron systems from four cores and particularly media systems are a minimum of four gigs, just go with that in general because system and live caching absolutely reason number four, I'll say reason number four, the fourth mistake that we see you make many people when purchasing nars with net media server is reduced to hevc Codec or highly efficient video compression, depending on where you read, an acronym also known as h.265, has been around for several years, now four five years, and it is, By far the most efficient multimedia compression technique, so why do I use it?

What is the error? Nice and simple - its predecessor hr264 has been around for a while, although not as compressed, it must be said, it plays on practically everything, while h.265 uh hevc and generally in more modern times is found in Timber HDR , the result is with them activated. many modern systems do not reproduce. Have you ever tried to play a modern file on a Windows PC and any window that calls up your video player these days says no, I don't have it? We need something more for this. I need a codec because h.265 has a more complex royalty structure.

H.264, I should say, only has one set of patents, so they're a group of brands that, as you know, worked together to produce this in R&D and it's so simple it's unreal. uh, h.265 has three sets of patents and the royalty structure behind it is much more complex, the result is that everything from Windows to Apple, Google and the nas brands are not licensed, not allowed to use of the codec. and the result is that it costs money to do it. The result is that if you try to play h.265 natively and since it will be automatically transcoded, you will automatically have to change that file.

It won't because that file is too complex. or do it due to inconsistencies, it does it because it is forced to do it the same file in h264 and h265 10 bits or not the latter requires changes it does not require much but it has a tremendous impact on the system watch a lot In my videos I transcoded many of those files from jellyfish and, although the file sizes 264 and 265 were the same caliber and scale, the result was that 265 had to be transcoded and the result was that system resource utilization skyrocketed, so find out which ones your library needs to figure out which are those files because chances are you are getting a nas system that in theory can play all those files but yet when you play it you hit a wall instantly, are there ways around this, qnap for example has um cyan . or cayenne player that allows you to add codec support for h.265 on your nas, thus avoiding this, but that is an additional monthly fee, it is a payment structure that several of you were thinking, no, no, no, I just buy a nas.

I'm not going to leave that to you, Eddie, yes, exactly, so first you need to find out if your TV supports this new way of compressing these video files, which is 265, and if your TV doesn't support it, you may need to consider it. um uh, usb, not hdmi dongle like the one from amazon or android and therefore you would have this compatibility with these types of codecs or another way, obviously, is to connect your nas to your television directly through hdmi, so you don't need to convert things you just play. directly the original file, um, we can continue, yeah, about the plex pass too, uh, a lot of people think: do I really need it or if I get it, is it worth it and, um, most of the time, you might don't you need it?

If you just want to simply play your videos, if you want other extras like access to a hardware transcoding chip, then plex has made this a demand as a premium requirement to be able to sell their passes, so if you want to take advantage of them. this transcoding chip, uh, so you have to pay for this pass, but the board too, yeah, also the board, they won't give you full access, to see how many CPU resources they're taking for transcoding and uh, and things like that in in a normal case if you don't have many users you wouldn't really care about these things but otherwise you do a lot of the stuff on the plex media server behind the plex pass it's very ambiguous because a lot of people when using flex plus It's been free most of the time they use it, it's like people who don't pay for winrar, people who don't pay for vlc or donate, I'm one of them, so a lot of people when they use it flexible media server, already have felt the nerve of having to buy a network attached storage device and the idea that they have had to spend a few hundred or thousands of cents in some cases and then be told about some of the features that are expected to be missing available there is an inconsistency between plex clients and plex media server for nas compared to simply using the plex client and too often you are not aware that some of the features simply will not be available there are a lot of streaming type things that most People's, let's be honest, largely ignore, but a lot of the resources collect a lot of the metadata, some of the sources, some of the routines and definitely, as Eddie mentioned there, there's a lot of backend. in the utilization of CPU bandwidth, in network utilization, that analytical information is presented in a very complex and specific way that cannot be had without the passplex, which may annoy some people and ultimately make a lot of people pretty disappointed with the uh plex nas media server, but Number six, while I'm thinking you're not lying there to say a word, this It's something Ed actually alluded to a couple of times there and it has to do with HDMI on a nas because as Eddie rightly pointed out. there are a lot of people when it is announced that they are thinking about the 4k version of the final cut of avatar where you can actually count the pixels, but it's crazy, they want to take advantage of a plex nas with hdmi output.

Plug it into the big old TV with its own lead or something and really enjoy that media with latency that is close to zero, however what many people don't know is that in 2021 the status of HDMI output on a NAS with Plex is not is as good as it used to be plex is no longer officially available as an hdmi tool in There are several brands of nas and you have to look for third party tools, and there are home brewery type versions that are updated, but many brands of nas with hdmi output no longer have A plex media server application available immediately.

It's not their fault this is plex they just thought no we're not going to laugh at the research and a bit of budget in a gui um hdmi and so as these nazis have moved on to newer versions of your software, the qnap example is moving to hd. station um version 4, a lot of those apps needed a third party developer to come on board and the third party developer said yeah we don't have money for that, they didn't develop an hdmi alternative so the result was that right now if you buy a ass and a qnap or an asa store with an hdmi output and expect to enjoy plex, you are not going to use the right tools certified and supported by plex nor are you going to use qnap. or asus or verified tools, you'll be using slightly homebrew and repurposed tools, which again I know a number of you will look at that interface and go, well, I'm not enjoying this at all, so bear with me.

That in mind, if you are buying a plex nas for hdmi output, double check the applications you are going to use because there is a good chance that you will leave disappointed, yes, and let's move on to the next point about transcoding, really? I need it because a lot of people think that transcoding is equivalent to streaming, that's the same word, but it's not transcoding, which means it's on-the-fly video conversion, so when the file is pulled from the nas you see that the destination device will not be able to reproduce. this file, so in the middle you have to change the format of the video so that this national device can play it, that's what transcoding is, but if you have an updated TV or phone, it is very likely that you can stream the original file . on your target device, the reason you wouldn't be able to do that is that your TV is very old or if you stream on your phone locally, for example, your network um is so busy that you need to reduce the file size.

Just resize it so that there are enough limits on the network to stream, especially that applies to remote streaming when you are streaming over 3G and like 1080p or 4K there is not enough bandwidth to play the original file. Yes, the Internet is getting faster, so there are 100 200 megabit Internet available, so soon transcoding will be less and less necessary because you will be able to stream original files, but that's the best thing to keep in mind, transcoding It doesn't mean streaming, so if you have it, If you're at home, you have compatible TVs, you have compatible devices, you have fast enough Internet, I mean Ethernet or Wi-Fi, especially if you upgraded to Wi-Fi six, it's already very likely that you don't just need transcoding. really for remote transcoding or older devices, I think a lot of people when they buy a NASA flexible media server they again have a certain budget in their head.

We've talked about this before 500 1000 2 000 etc. and where that. the money goes, whether it's storage, the nas or whatever, or the memory, as we've discussed, many people increase the size of the nozzles to go for something high-end and then they know that they will never see these media outside of home. There will only be two three televisions in the house, you know, there is a home console there, no, they depend on a network, a 100 megabytes per second network, which is if you have devices as you point out correctly. What you can claim for these files is more than enough and the money that you may have stored on a nas that had an integrated GPU, you will never use it and therefore that money could go to storage, it could go to other backup levels. it could encompass a lot of other things and all too often we see people buying some pentium i3 i5 solution for a configuration where they could have gotten away with a sileron or even in some cases that new ryzen that has no integrated gpu . on the CPU, but it still has superior performance on the local area network compared to a number of high-end CPUs within that context, so know if you'll really need to reformat those files, hence our last point, and this is so minor, it's a very very small point that a lot of people overlook and most people find out about this during setup and even when they don't find out about this, when they find out later, they are awake until 2 or 3 in the morning and they are furious. they don't know what the problem is and when they find out that they are, they just live with it and that's because in many ways the plex media server is

always

online, a lot of people don't seem to realize that. while I talk about network attached storage devices and moving away from the cloud and stuff like that, the Plex media server needs to bounce occasionally, just ping the main Plex server, you can't do that if you try to set up a nas using just the network too much frequency. you find that you can't see the nas, the nas still needs to have unlimited internet access and with that ping the flexible media server, if you don't have it, sometimes the flexible media server doesn't show up or it may fluctuate its network and it doesn't show up on your client devices and it's not something you can really pin down, it's not a consistent thread, it's not that if you disconnect the flexible media server from the internet but keep it on the network it will stop working. immediately, but if that application can't just ping Flex somehow periodically and I can't even tell you what's in that, then you may run into communication problems between the client and the nas.

Have you noticed beforehand that yes, there are not only paintings? you have to remember that all the subtitles are not even providers that are icons and all these thumbnails, all of this has to sync all the time with the servers and, um, and that's true, it

always

pings because you may not have a single device. You may have multiple servers or multiple destination devices where you need to stream, that's how they keep this whole environment running so they can talk to each other, but yeah, these have been the eight things that a lot of people ever get wrong or don't do.

I don't know about Plex media server and network attached storage. I hope you found this video. It's saturated. I think it's five minutes longer than I would have liked, but we just wanted to make sure we covered all the bases. I'm sorry if you knew anything. of them and waited until the end for some massive revelation that wasn't there. I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope some of you found it very, very helpful if you think there are tips that we've missed or certain elements about being a landlord. a nas reflex media server that we didn't cover maybe there are other videos worth your time on this maybe there are things we haven't covered that we just didn't know because we wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees but other than that Thank you so much for watching , if you liked the video please click like, if you want to learn more click subscribe and if you are interested in finding the right solution for you please contact me and Eddie in the Nas free advice section Computers. it's a link in the description it's completely free it's unbiased it's only run by me and that guy there we just want to help people get the right solution again tell us what you need tell us what your expectations are we can make some recommendations and then the ball is in your court thank you very much for watching eddie I will see you later cheerio see you the rest see you in the next video