NAS for 4K streaming

1st Official Post

    Hello guys ,not sure if it's the right place to ask

    I have an amlogic TV box running libreelec and some remuxes 4k files that are pretty huge , currently I am running my pc as a NAs sharing my media over the lan (pc running win 10) using NFS protocol and its fine.

    I want to buy a real Nas though, is it every Nas capable of doing the same job as my pc(stream 4k flawless over lan) or their limited to their specs? Specifically looking at WD cloud ex cos their not so expensive.

    Any feedback appreciated.

    • Official Post

    What is the extra feature that a NAS should have for you, compared to the PC?

    It's only purely for the file serving, I would say keep the PC.

    Every today's NAS should be able to serve upto 50 Mb/s (=6.25 MB/s), a properly fitted 100Mb/s cable should enough already.

    Nothing extra that i have in mind ,just me pointing the Nas from Kodi and stream those files is great, the one i am looking has read/write of 100Mb/s as specs.

    I already have every port and cable gigabit capable .

    It's purely for file sharing but I don't like it been on every time i watch TV. Plus accessing my media over network is nice.

    I just don't want to buy a Nas and playback on Kodi been choppy , not sure if it's a noob question probably is lol

    • Official Post

    I used to have a Synology 2-disk NAS. Worked great, but it got a bit loud after a couple of years (an odd 70mm fan), and in the end I preferred more disks which was easier (and cheaper) via a PC. Synology has an excellent 5-year support cycle for its NAS devices, and sometimes beyond that in case of severe security issues.

    thanks for all the responses guys!

    so i did a little test i put the remux file to my internal hdd has read/write of 110MB/s

    Playback the movie to my kodi device and run task manager on my pc to see the load

    The NFS server for Windows(32bit) process takes up to 4% of my cpu load and 1 mb of ram and 80Mbbs of network.

    so now my pc is an old [email protected] with 8 gigs of ram running windows 10

    As i see it, playback the file in kodi doesnt stress the pc at all so almost any nas should be able to do that? i would put wd red's inside the NAS anyway since they have 120mb read/write thts better than my hdd inside the pc. is that right?

    • Official Post

    Upto 120 MB/s is nice, but only handy for handling large files (copying, moving, etc). Normal video play only requires a fraction of that network speed.

    A NAS is designed for disk server usage and low power consumption as it doesn't have something like a full-blown video card, whereas a PC usually uses up much more electricity.

    What I thought is the TV box does most of the work in that case, so the Nas in that case is like plugging an external HDD to it's usb ports , isn't that correct ?

    • Official Post

    There are more ways to Rome than one... ;)

    I myself prefer a total quiet an fanless setup next to my TV. My media is on a PC machine which is in another room but of course connected to the network.

    A quiet PC with USB attached drives is another solution. A proper NAS always has its drives internally connected for the best performances and best cooling.

    It's just comes down to what your best use-case is, and "how much do you want to spend" on a NAS(-like) solution.

    for me i cant see the attraction of a old style nas with noisy vibrating drives.... the price of external usb drives are coming down all the time.... and cloud storage is a give-away.... of course its all according to your setup choice and bandwidth.... but the vibrating drive must have had its day by now ?

    Either buy a Synology NAS if you want something off the shelf or buy a HP Microserver and install OpenMediaVault or FreeNAS on it.

    Stay away from consumer / home NAS systems, typically they have terrible software support.

    so long,

    Hias

    • Official Post
    Quote from m1pnk

    but the vibrating drive must have had its day by now ?

    Technically perhap, yes. But the price per Gigabyte for a traditional HD drive is still much better than for a SSD device. Prices of SSDs are dropping quicker, but I can't see any reasonable customer prices for 2-4 TB SSDs yet.

    A Crucial MX300 2 TB drive now costs € 370,-
    A Samsung EVO 860 4TB drive costs € 900,-