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Forum Discussion
Running Plex on a ReadyNAS Ultra Plus?
Hello
I'm a complete beginner when it comes to NAS, but as I have a lot interest in movies and home theater I have decided to try to set up a NAS to run a media server. When looking into it, Netgear ReadyNAS seemed to a be a good solution with a lot of support and forum info if I get stuck. So I a planning to get that.
As RAID-backup isn't so important to me, and I only want a small, unit I was planning to get the ReadyNAS Ultra Plus RNDP200U with 2 slots.
I am a Mac-user (have one MacBook and one MacMini), and I currenty run Plex, so that is what I want to use. So I checked out the "Plex How-to guide" posteded here; http://www.readynas.com/?p=5523 and that seemed straight forward enough.
But the guide raises one question that I would love to get some input on before my purchase.
In the guide it's recommended to get the ReadyNAS Pro 6 if you want to handle HD material as you need a very fast processor. When looking into this it seems that the Pro6 is armed with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz processor, while the Ultra Plus only has an Inten Atom 1.8 GHz processor (with a dual core). I don't know enough about processor performance to judge how much slower the latter would be, so I need to ask here.
Do you think it would be a problem to run HD-movies with the Plex add-on on the Ultra Plus NAS with its smaller processor? The Pro 6 with 6 HDD-slots is a bit too big and too expensive for my taste, but I don't want to get something that doesn't work. In that case I'll rather "bite the bullet" and get the bigger one.
All input is greatly appreciated.
I'm a complete beginner when it comes to NAS, but as I have a lot interest in movies and home theater I have decided to try to set up a NAS to run a media server. When looking into it, Netgear ReadyNAS seemed to a be a good solution with a lot of support and forum info if I get stuck. So I a planning to get that.
As RAID-backup isn't so important to me, and I only want a small, unit I was planning to get the ReadyNAS Ultra Plus RNDP200U with 2 slots.
I am a Mac-user (have one MacBook and one MacMini), and I currenty run Plex, so that is what I want to use. So I checked out the "Plex How-to guide" posteded here; http://www.readynas.com/?p=5523 and that seemed straight forward enough.
But the guide raises one question that I would love to get some input on before my purchase.
In the guide it's recommended to get the ReadyNAS Pro 6 if you want to handle HD material as you need a very fast processor. When looking into this it seems that the Pro6 is armed with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz processor, while the Ultra Plus only has an Inten Atom 1.8 GHz processor (with a dual core). I don't know enough about processor performance to judge how much slower the latter would be, so I need to ask here.
Do you think it would be a problem to run HD-movies with the Plex add-on on the Ultra Plus NAS with its smaller processor? The Pro 6 with 6 HDD-slots is a bit too big and too expensive for my taste, but I don't want to get something that doesn't work. In that case I'll rather "bite the bullet" and get the bigger one.
All input is greatly appreciated.
7 Replies
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iMike74 wrote:
As RAID-backup isn't so important to me
There is no such thing as RAID-backup. No form of RAID provides backup. RAID (except RAID-0) provides redundancy or high-availability, not backup. If you primarily store important data on the ReadyNAS backup that data regularly: Preventing Catastrophic Data LossiMike74 wrote:
In the guide it's recommended to get the ReadyNAS Pro 6 if you want to handle HD material as you need a very fast processor. When looking into this it seems that the Pro6 is armed with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz processor, while the Ultra Plus only has an Inten Atom 1.8 GHz processor (with a dual core). I don't know enough about processor performance to judge how much slower the latter would be, so I need to ask here.
There is no comparison. The Pro 6 is way faster. If you want to transcode (i.e. convert on the fly) video to stream to an iPad get the Pro 6. However if you just want to stream (not transcode) video e.g. to a Mac, then I think the Ultra 2 should be fine.- Thanks for the reply.
There is no such thing as RAID-backup.
Like I said "newbie"... :D But anyhow, what I meant to say was that no important data will be stored on the NAS, so I was planning to set it up without back-up or protection through RAID configurations. Thats why I wanted a smaller, cheaper 2 slot NAS.There is no comparison. The Pro 6 is way faster. If you want to transcode (i.e. convert on the fly) video to stream to an iPad get the Pro 6. However if you just want to stream (not transcode) video e.g. to a Mac, then I think the Ultra 2 should be fine.
This is too bad. As I have an iPad one of the reasons for a NAS with PMS was to be able to watch media on the iPad, also when not at home, but if this isn't possible with the UltraPlus i must either choose a Pro6 or find another solution.
I have been playing with the idea of just getting a HDD-chassi with two slots and connect it to the MacMini and run the Media Server on the computer. This is a cheap and simple solution, but if I want to access media away from home it means leaving the computer on (and logged on) all the time. Even if this might not be the right forum, I might as well ask if you think this would be a problem, as in is it bad for the computer to run 24/7? - You macmini will be powerful enough to run plex - why not use that and an Ultra 2 as storage? Is leaving the mini on 24/7 so bad? Works for me. And if you really feel the need you can have the mini & NAS sleep automatically and use wakeon lan to power them up. Plenty of posts on the forum about doing that, even remotely.
- Thanks for the answer.
If I am to use the MacMini, turned on 24/7 for the server, is there any benefit in using a UltraPlus NAS as storage only compared to just hooking up an externa drive through FireWire? I guess one benefit is simpler access to the files from other computers, but I don't think thats of great importance to me. Any other benefits?
The WakeOnLan seems a bit to advanced for me, unless there is some really simple "how-to-guide" to make it work with a Mac. - If you only want to store media to be accessible to the mini and don't value RAID - then no
- Hello. Check this out http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/top ... e-devices/ in a way defeats the idea of Plex just playing files whatever the format but if you can be bothered to prepare your rips then the Duo Ultra will work fine for you. There is no CPU use if the files are prepared properly.
- I cannot get Plex to do anything...when going to the media manager web front end I click Movies, then click Add to add the location of the media folder on my ReadNAS. I've tried just adding the top level video folder or the more specific directories I have inside of it, for example "HD TV" or "SD TV" but nothing scans and/or nothing happens when I click Add Section.
One thought I have is that somehow (hoping this isn't the case) is that because I have sub-directories in the Video folder and Plex doesn't get it. If this is the case this would be pretty disappointing because I just don't want to have all my different types of video "thrown together" on my NAS. When I was using my iMac as the main store and using the Plex App the media manager and server had no issues with my sub-directory specifics-I just had to have each one added and scanned separately.
I have Radiator 4.2.21 on a Ulta Plus 4 bay ReadyNAS. The version of the Plex add-on is 0.9.6.3.143-4466fb5.
If anyone could shed some light on why it's not doing anything that would be great. Thanks in advance.
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