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Upgrading to New RN

AKLGUY
Apprentice

Upgrading to New RN

Currently, I have an RN316 with 5x 3TB drives inside.

I mainly use to run Plex to my 4 AppleTVs around the house. It is fine up 1080P video

But my videos are starting to struggle with 4K content. 

 

Is it worth upgrading to the RN426?

Model: RN31600|ReadyNAS 300 Series 6- Bay
Message 1 of 5
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Upgrading to New RN

The RN526X and RN626X would be much bigger steps up.

 

Are your Apple TVs 4K ones? Are they using wired ethernet connections or Wi-Fi?

Message 2 of 5
AKLGUY
Apprentice

Re: Upgrading to New RN

Yes 4K Apple TVs

and using Ethernet with Gigabit Switches

Message 3 of 5
StephenB
Guru

Re: Upgrading to New RN

What is the bitrate in your typical content, and how many streams are you serving simultaneously?

 

Streaming 4K over gigabit isn't difficult, and your RN316 should be able to do that easily.  Even at high quality, each stream is about 100 mbits (and usually it is less).  That's about 10% of the throughput of your NAS.

 

Transcoding 4K to a lower resolution (1080p for instance), or from H.265/HEVC to H.264/AVC is another matter - especially on a NAS that has no GPU acceleration.  An RN500 series isn't quite up to the task, it will stutter sometimes.  An RN600 series can handle one stream, but not two.  But your Apple TVs shouldn't need 4K transcoding.  Are the TV plex apps set up to use direct play?

Message 4 of 5
AKLGUY
Apprentice

Re: Upgrading to New RN

Thanks. I will give it another shot and maybe try a different handbrake on the video file.

I was also thinking nice to upgrade too. Get something a bit faster 😉

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