Okay, so I finally tackled the Plex 4K NAS situation. Been putting it off for ages, but the buffering was driving me nuts!
First off, I did a bunch of research. Looked at Synology, QNAP, the works. Everyone’s got an opinion, right? Saw a lot of talk about transcoding and CPU power. That’s where I started.
My Goal: Direct Play 4K content without stuttering. No transcoding.
Initially, I was tempted to build my own. Figured I could save some money and get exactly what I wanted. So, I pieced together a parts list: Ryzen 5, 16GB RAM, decent motherboard, the whole shebang. But man, prices are crazy right now, and honestly, time is money. Decided against it in the end, plus I had to think about software and maintaining the thing.
Ended up going with a Synology DS920+. I know, it’s a popular choice, maybe a bit boring, but it ticked most of the boxes. Quad-core Intel Celeron processor, which isn’t amazing, but good enough for direct play. More importantly, it had 4 drive bays for expansion. I threw in 4 x 4TB WD Reds. (Yeah, I know some people swear by IronWolf, but the Reds were on sale). Set them up in RAID 5 for some redundancy.
The Setup:
- Synology DS920+
- 4 x 4TB WD Red NAS Drives (RAID 5)
- Connected to my network via Ethernet (important!)
- Plex Media Server installed directly on the NAS
Next was transferring all my media. A real pain, let me tell you. Took ages. I just copied everything over the network from my old hard drive. Not the fastest method, but it worked. After that, installed the Plex Media Server package from the Synology Package Center. Simple enough.
The real test came with playback. Fired up a 4K HDR movie. And… it worked! Butter smooth direct play. No buffering, no stuttering. Finally! I did notice the CPU usage on the NAS spiking a bit during initial playback, but it quickly settled down. I messed around with some of the Plex settings. Made sure direct play and direct stream were enabled and transcoding was disabled (unless absolutely necessary).
Things I Learned:
- Network is Key: Make sure your NAS and your streaming device (in my case, an NVIDIA Shield) are connected via Ethernet, not WiFi. WiFi is just too unreliable for 4K.
- Direct Play is the Goal: Avoid transcoding if you can. It puts a huge strain on the NAS CPU.
- Storage Space: 4K movies take up a lot of space. Plan accordingly. You can never have too much storage.
- Consider the Client: Some devices are better than others at direct playing different codecs and formats. The NVIDIA Shield is generally considered one of the best.
Overall, pretty happy with the results. The Synology DS920+ does the job perfectly for my needs. 4K Plex without the headaches. Now I can finally binge-watch in peace!