NAS Upgrade from ReadyNAS/Plex Media Server?

[Enquiries]

Robbie:

I found your incredible YouTube channel & website by searching for PLEX help topics. What an excellent resource!!

I'm hoping you can weigh in on my questions!

I have an extensive movie and music collection scattered among 4 Netgear ReadyNAS's:

RN516: Total volume 18TB, which holds 17TB of BluRay movies, in MKV containers; No 4K movies yet; RSync backups pushed to RNDP6350.

RNDP6350 ReadyNAS Pro (running OS6): Movie backup NAS (18TB total volume) with files at 17TB

RN214 - Approx. 2TB of high resolution FLAC music files feeding a SonicOrbiter ROON Server (https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-roon-server-hqplayer?variant=31106712502341); this NAS also contains digital photos; Total volume of 11TB

RN102: 4TB NAS is Music NAS backup; 2TB in backup files

As you can see, this unwieldy setup has grown over the last 10 years. I'm rapidly running out of space on the ReadyNAS movie NAS's and have ordered 2 16TB drives to expand each NAS for extra space on an emergency basis.

I'm running X-RAID in a RAID-5 configuration. At one time, I ran Plex Media Server from the RN516 but have since moved this to the SonicOrbiter i9.

The Sonore SonicOrbiter i9 is really built for ROON but is also promoted as a PLEX Server. That was a mistake as I'm having issues running PLEX from it.

I only run Direct Play to the various screens in the house. I'm still experiencing a lot of buffering. If Direct Stream is checked off, movies simply will not play on the Plex clients.

I also plan to buy a NVIDIA Shield Pro at some point as a PLEX client/Netflix/Amazon streamer for my LG OLED screen.

So, I'm thinking it's time to replace all 4 Netgear NAS's with a new QNAP TVS-h1288X as it seems that QuTS Hero is the future OS for QNAP. I want a NAS that is most suitable for future-proofing.

The ReadyNAS will permit me to swap out one 4TB drive with a 16TB drive at a time. It will take several days to resync each drive but I will eventually have an expanded volume. This is a great feature as it makes volume expansion affordable.

Can you tell me if QNAP has the same ability as ReadyNAS? I'm hoping I can start with 4 bays with 4 TB drives and 2 bays with 16TB drives, slowly adding more 16 TB drives as budget permits. Would that work?

I'd like to replace using the STi9 as a Plex Media Server. I know it will be a nightmare moving PMS again ... this time from a Linux box (STi9) to QNAP NAS. I had no luck moving the metadata files from the ReadyNAS to the STi9 so ended up MANUALLY rebuilding the Collections library, etc ... what a headache.

Regardless, I am prepared for more pain ahead moving PMS from SonicTransporter to a powerful NAS that won't run out of space and has plenty of horsepower to play 4K files in the future.

The ReadyNAS's have been super-reliable workhorses for the last 10+ years. I'm hoping an investment in a new NAS, designed to run PMS, will do the same.

One more question: There are many advocates out there who recommend building your own NAS and PMS using UnRaid. While I'm proficient with hardware, I am very green with Linux systems. Regardless, I would appreciate an objective opinion about this.

Lastly, once a new QNAP PMS NAS is built and setup, what do you recommend for backups? Do I retain the RN516 and use it purely for backups from the QNAP, via RSync? Or, do I build a Unraid server from spare old PC's, etc for the backups only?

Anyway, I look forward to your opinion on this. Much appreciated.

All the best during the Holiday Season!

Cheers,
Herb ...

[ed]

I am surprised i9 could not cope with 4K. Maybe they are using a model without a graphics chip. Really strange.Either way, Xeon is indeed more powerful. It has no graphics but its performance can crunch even 4K. Some people go for a TS-673 with a PCIe graphics card. This way CPU does not need to deal with transcoding. Alternatively, you can indeed you ShieldTV as a transcoder and attach a NAS as a storage unit only.Qnap Hero at this point is a new OS and do not allow upgrading drives without resetting it. But there will be an update hopefully.Building an open-source NAS is an option, but it will ofter require your attention. It is OK if you have time.Yes, you can use Netgear with RSYNC to back up your NAS. This is a clever idea.I hope this helps.