ASK NC

HI, I have a DS920+, and with black friday coming up, I want to get drives for it so that I can use it as a personal storage drive (like dropbox) and also as a Plex server.
I was thinking that I am best to have 4 drives that are at lest 8tb.
There are also two additional storage/memory drives on the bottom of the NAS.

My questions are:
1. What drives do you recommend? (I have seen WD Red, red plus, red pro, and seagate ironwolf, iron wolf pro, and ironwolf pro nas).
2. What amount of storage should I have for the Plex server use? Is 32 TB enough, or should it be higher?
3. It is necessary for me to get SSDs for the NAS (slots on the bottom), what is the pro/con for them?
4. Is there any info or video on how to run/maintain a plex server.....I am pretty new to this.

thanks in advance for your help!

It's great that you're planning to upgrade your DS920+ for personal storage and use it as a Plex server. Here are some recommendations for your queries:

Recommended Drives:

For a NAS like the DS920+, WD Red and Seagate IronWolf series are excellent choices. The WD Red series, especially the Red Pro, is designed for NAS systems and offers good reliability. Similarly, Seagate IronWolf and IronWolf Pro are optimized for NAS use with features like AgileArray™ technology for optimal reliability and system agility.
Plex Server Storage:

The amount of storage you need depends on the size of your media library and whether you plan to store other data on the NAS. For a Plex server, 32TB is quite substantial and should be sufficient for a large collection. However, it's always good to plan for future expansion. If you have the budget and anticipate significant growth, going for a higher capacity, such as 40 or 50TB, might be a good idea.
SSDs for NAS:

The SSDs in the bottom slots are typically used for caching, which can improve performance. However, for basic home use and Plex streaming, it might not be a necessity. SSDs are faster than traditional HDDs, but they are also more expensive per terabyte. If you have specific high-performance needs or frequently access and modify large files, SSD caching could be beneficial. Otherwise, for general storage and Plex, traditional HDDs should suffice.

https://www.youtube.com/@nascompares/sea...all%20plex