I've been running Plex servers of one kind or another for at least 6 or 7 years now. Windows, Linux, you name it, and finally I've settled on this little beauty. One less PC to take care of, you just turn it on, set it up, and it works for months and months without touching it. It has plenty of processing power to transcode HD video, it does RAID so you can protect your data, you can put whatever size drives you want in it, you can access it remotely, etc. IMO, it's the easy button:
In Curtis's case, he would still need a client to view the plex stream as well. So in a way its more devices to deal with.
That is a sexy solution, but in the 4tb flavor, it's over $500. 8tb is pushing $600. I was hoping not to spend more than a couple bills at most.
That MyCloud... am I correct that the main difference between a Pi and a HD and that thing is the proprietary software that grants remote access? If so, it's not quite a worthwhile expense for me. An extra $400 to be able to store photos while on a vacation isn't really proportional for what I'm intending. $400 buys a lot of SD cards for the camera.
Don't get me wrong... super sweet box, just maybe a little too sweet for my wallet.
I'll dig into the possibility of some software that would let me network this contraption and see what I come up with.
The one in the post above you has 2 drives & the hardware needed to make a good network storage drive. Plus of course software to do other things.
In the case of the Pi + HD... can you do all of that? Yeah. Its messy and complicated, and far from out of the box. But if you just want to share the drive on your network, that is easy.
In terms of capability, 1 is the F350, 2 is the Mazda pickup.
But you only need to carry a few 2x4s.
ProDarwin said:In Curtis's case, he would still need a client to view the plex stream as well. So in a way its more devices to deal with.
He said he has a smart TV and a smart Blu-Ray player, so he's covered there.
But yeah, it's not a cheap solution. Like I said, I went around and around with homemade solutions for years before I decided to bite the bullet and spend the money. If you're willing to tinker, you can absolutely get the same functionality for less $$.
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:He said he has a smart TV and a smart Blu-Ray player, so he's covered there.
But yeah, it's not a cheap solution. Like I said, I went around and around with homemade solutions for years before I decided to bite the bullet and spend the money. If you're willing to tinker, you can absolutely get the same functionality for less $$.
I haven't kept up with Plex, do they have an 'app' for everything now? For a while it was just Roku, PC/Phone, Pi and or a hacked Amazon Fire.
FWIW, both the TV and blu-ray are stuffed with Roku software.
Reviving another zombie thread because I'm moving forward.
I found another NAS system that doesn't cost an arm and or a leg. I snagged a Synology DS118 and an 8tb drive to put in it.
I have the whole home theater torn apart right now, and I haven't ripped any DVDs yet so I can't test anything. Would you folks be willing to look over the link and tell me if it looks good? I haven't opened anything yet (kinda impulse-bought knowing I could return it).
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS118
I figured $150 for the NAS (diskless) and $150 for a Barracuda 8tb drive meant $300 worth of pre-packaged simplicity instead of RPi4 and a bunch of technical open-source stuff that I may or may not get to work.
Did I do ok, or should I rethink?
Also... the HDD I bought (but wisely didn't open yet) is not listed on their compatibility chart... also not listed on their INcompatible chart. They just haven't tested it.
Should I risk it by opening/trying it and making it non-returnable? Seagate Barracuda (not pro) 8tb. I mostly picked that one because it was rated pretty highly for its price point.
Getting into this thread late, I don't use any particularly fancy A/V equipment just for budgetary reasons but the function of my system should be the envy of the world. Just a server serving files over Samba and SFTP, the files are a directory of symlinks for tidiness pointing to whatever files I want. Played back with desktop PCs or Android boxes or anything you want. No special apps or hardware needed, just common open protocols, regular generic hardware and free+libre software, and everything is a file.
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