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[wildcatknh]

Hello all,

I am looking for some advice and things to look for in a NAS device purchase.

I currently have a good-sized media library (~10TB) that I use MC with.  I have a home theater PC connected to an AV receiver and on to my TV.  Currently my media is stored on several external hard drives connected to my HTPC via USB.  I recently had an 'episode' with one of the externals and had to do a lot of work to recover the media stored on that drive.  As a result of that episode, I have decided to purchase a NAS device with RAID to hopefully avoid any content disasters in the future.  I am also going to get a new beefy HTPC capable of playing 4K/HDR media and video games (most likely an NVidia GTX 1080Ti GPU). 

I have never installed or configured a NAS device before and am looking for some advice as to what kinds of things I need to look for or what options/features I need to try to find for a smooth setup while also having the proper features and functions to play current media formats in MC.  I have recently started adding 4K/HDR HEVC MKV video with Dolby Atmos audio to my collection of media so I will need to make sure that these formats are supported in my new setup.  I also will be using Plex Media Server for remote access to media (not for me but for friends and family who will be accessing my media collection but don't use JRiver).

So .... can anyone offer some advice or suggestions for features, functions, brands, etc. to look for?  I'm sure many on here have made this transition before .... what do I need to watch out for?  Were there unexpected problems or issues that came up that you had to work around?  Between a new HTPC and NAS device, I am going to be spending a significant amount of money for my budget and just want to make sure I've covered all the bases as much as possible in my research so that I don't regret anything afterwards.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JimH]

I'd recommend internal hard drives over a NAS drive.  NAS drives usually work, but there's more to maintain and more opportunity for failure, in my opinion.

[robt]

I'll add a vote for Synology. I'm on my third, currently a DS1511+ and very happy. Have run it for about 6 years in raid5 and to date no issues. I also have a separate usb drive connected that runs a regular (automatic) back up of critical data so belt and braces. I do need to take some data off site for the last bit of protection.

In terms of what to buy, whatever you think you need or may need then double it! You can add disks to a raid set up but only matching the size you are already using. I use 4 x 3tb discs and have spare capacity to add one more 3 tb. Once that is no longer adequate then the only realistic way to move on is buy a whole new machine and discs and then migrate the data across. After that of course the original set up can be moved on..

Serving data for home use is not a problem, I have successfully streamed 3 different blu ray rips (full rate) to 3 different clients simultaneously across my wired gigabit network without issue. I dont envisage (at the moment) a need for more than that. I haven't as yet got involved with 4k..

Last bonus with a nas, you can run always on servers 24/7. I run Synologys own server software and Logitech Squeezebox server, can also run Plex if I need to and it doesnt have any noticeable impact on the NAS capability to respond to requests.

So for me, a NAS is a must have. And the Synology kit I've used over the last 10+ years has been totally reliable and done everything I want (and much more besides).

If you have any questions, please ask.

[millst]

OP, RAID is NOT a backup! Your recent data loss is not a valid reason for getting a NAS with RAID. Depending on how the RAID is configured, the biggest benefits are uptime and performance. RAID adds complexity, which works against your desire. Also, it does nothing to protect you against malware or accidental deletions.

Benefits of a NAS are tied to its centralizing of your data. You can access that data from any machine on the network. Now that all your eggs are in one basket, it's also easier to regularly back everything up. Some NAS will provide advanced features like periodic snapshots and self-healing capabilities.

If you aren't interested in those NAS benefits, you need to work on your backup solution. Otherwise, you're making things more complicated (as Jim noted).

-tm

[rec head]

NAS alone is not a backup but a NAS that is running in RAID mode does offer some redundancy. Good enough for media in my book. I still have all the discs if something really bad happens.

I recently setup a Synology 1517+ with 8TB drives and 1 drive redundancy. MY HTPC setup is similar to yours and I run UHD+ATMOS without a problem (well not a throughput problem but that's a different thread.) I think the only problem would be if your network can handle it. I have found that Plex running on the NAS is OK for audio but not for video in most instances. Ripping discs is not any slower.

Setting up the Synology is simple. Just follow the instructions. Then map the NAS volume(s) to the HTPC and your computer and MC will see the NAS as a normal hard disk. I believe there are some complicated steps out there to map the NAS but I'm pretty sure I just tried it in Windows 10 and 7 without doing anything fancy and it worked. You can map the drives to all the computers in the house if you want them to access it.

[RD James]

OP, RAID is NOT a backup! Your recent data loss is not a valid reason for getting a NAS with RAID. Depending on how the RAID is configured, the biggest benefits are uptime and performance. RAID adds complexity, which works against your desire. Also, it does nothing to protect you against malware or accidental deletions.

This. There is nothing wrong with a NAS device that uses RAID, but it is not a backup system.
 
A backup system protects against accidental or malicious changes to your data.
RAID will happily clone all of those changes to the second drive as it's happening.
 
RAID is about availability (data is still accessible if a disk fails) rather than protecting against the loss of your data.
With more complex tiers of RAID than RAID1 (mirroring) such as RAID5, when a single disk fails, you often find that you can lose the entire array during the rebuild process, as the intensive rebuild process can cause another of the drives to fail - especially if they are the same age.
 

NAS alone is not a backup but a NAS that is running in RAID mode does offer some redundancy. Good enough for media in my book. I still have all the discs if something really bad happens.

I would generally suggest keeping backups of small disc formats such as CD and DVD, while worrying less about Blu-ray/UHD discs.
The cost to have a backup for that media is less than the time it would take to re-rip hundreds of discs.
It's generally a lot less storage to keep backed up too, since the largest a CD can be is 700MB, and ~7GB for DVDs.