Question Comparing NAS unit's PLEX Server + Storage

[DrWho345]

Thank you for letting me join this forum, I really need help deciding what to do, and many other forums are not helping me.

I have 156TB over 24 drives (3 are NAS, a few are lightning and others are USB 3 connected)

I am moving files around at the moment in a desperate attempt to free up space on my existing drives
I have recently purchased a 14TB will will help immensely and hopefully eliminate current potentially failing drives
And got a 16TB WD My Home Duo as a gift, that I don't know what to do with

One of my current NAS units is an 8TB Synology DS411J, that I use Plex on, it is ancient and just trying to keep up with the upkeep of bad sectors and replacing hard drives is hard enough as it is. Plus movies continue to get better and better, and some it plays fine, others it can't play properly.

I would like to potentially use the 16TB WD My Home Duo as a new Plex Server, but my questions are

1. Can I even use the 16TB WD My Home Duo as a Plex Server?
2. Can I continue to store files onto the 16TB if I decide to use it as a Plex Server?
3. Does the 16TB have the processing power an aging Synology DS411J has?
4. Transferring files on my internal network, almost uses up my entire bandwidth, while copying files I can't even load a webpage am i doing something wrong?

If any or all of these questions could please be answered I would really appreciate it

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

1. Almost certainly not. Unless Plex server is listed as a capability of that WD, it cannot do it.
2. See #1
3. No
4. That sounds like you have some network issues.

 

[DrWho345]

I saw on Plex's website it lists, the WD My Home Duo

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/htmlview

entry 387, but why doesn't it have the processing power?

 

[USAFRet]

Well, then maybe it does.

 

[DrWho345]

Well, then maybe it does.

so since it does, regardless of potentially unknown network issues, I have no how to fix

can I store files on it, and use it for Plex at the same time? Or not

 

[USAFRet]

can I store files on it, and use it for Plex at the same time? Or not

I would think yes.

 

[USAFRet]

One question - You do have a backup of most or all of this data, right?

 

[USAFRet]

Based on that list you posted, that WD perfromance as a Plex server is only adequate.

Given 156TB drive space, I'm sure you have some 4k content in there?
That WD apparently won't do 4k.

 

[DrWho345]

Right I get it now, sorry took way too long

actually I have very few 4K, mostly 1080p and a few Blu Ray rips, the biggest I have is a 90GB version of Endgame,

 

[DrWho345]

One question - You do have a backup of most or all of this data, right?

Yeah using Carbon Copy Cloner and DriveDX I am always checking if the drives are working properly and when they start giving any kind of error I buy a larger drive and clone it, I don't really have a backup persay, but I keep an eye on what I have and try to keep track of everything as much as I can

 

[SamirD]

This is kinda nuts. With this much storage, you really need to move to an enterprise storage solution. You're spending too much time with the drives if you're constantly having to watch them and they are not reliable enough if you're constantly dealing with failures. It will only be a matter of time before you lose a lot of data.

 

[DrWho345]

This is kinda nuts. With this much storage, you really need to move to an enterprise storage solution. You're spending too much time with the drives if you're constantly having to watch them and they are not reliable enough if you're constantly dealing with failures. It will only be a matter of time before you lose a lot of data.

Believe me I know, I am scared... I have been collecting for years and just brought larger drives (working within my budget) to get larger and larger

Don't get me wrong if Synology drives were the same price as a 10TB drive then sure no problem,

I was considering getting a 50TB at one stage, but to do that the unit is $700, and the way the RAID would be setup I would need 4 12TB drives giving me around 50TB, to do that each drive is $700 if I'm lucky

So it's hard, I know it is a ton of space, I am fully aware, but i ma not Google or Apple I don't need a server or a tower or anything like that

 

[SamirD]

Good--you should be. Unless you're using enterprise drives you have a reason to be scared.

But there are much cheaper ways to go about this if you want to be frugal. One way is with freenas or something like that working with the existing drives you have (you would have to figure out how to clear up space and move drives into the freenas and then copy stuff over and repeat until everything would be on freenas), but another is to simply continue what you're doing, but get drives cheap when they go on sale and simply use those as backups (or convert the originals to the backups). It would only take about 10 14TB drive purchases for you to have an entire backup and if those drives continue to drop in price, you're looking at only $1500 for that solution, which would double your raw storage capacity, but effectively make it a manually mirrored raid 1 if you keep a copy of everything twice. You might also look into snapraid as that seems pretty good from what I've researched so far.

 

[DrWho345]

Good--you should be. Unless you're using enterprise drives you have a reason to be scared.

But there are much cheaper ways to go about this if you want to be frugal. One way is with freenas or something like that working with the existing drives you have (you would have to figure out how to clear up space and move drives into the freenas and then copy stuff over and repeat until everything would be on freenas), but another is to simply continue what you're doing, but get drives cheap when they go on sale and simply use those as backups (or convert the originals to the backups). It would only take about 10 14TB drive purchases for you to have an entire backup and if those drives continue to drop in price, you're looking at only $1500 for that solution, which would double your raw storage capacity, but effectively make it a manually mirrored raid 1 if you keep a copy of everything twice. You might also look into snapraid as that seems pretty good from what I've researched so far.

Thank you I really appreciate it.

I am on a mac so it is harder to know for sure when there is a problem with a hard drive, I mean I have DriveDX but I am not intelligent enough (regardless of having a computer degree) to interpret the messages and determine how serious potential issues are

I have bad sectors on some drives in my NAS units, but then again, frugality aside, keeping up with that is an exercise in an of itself, and unless there is something obviously wrong (eg slow transfer or clicking) then I immediately get a larger capacity drive and clone it using carbon copy and keep going from there

Are there any apps I can use to correct errors, or fix bad sectors on Mac Mojave?

 

[USAFRet]

You have 150TB total drive space.

How much actual data do you have?

 

[DrWho345]

You have 150TB total drive space.

How much actual data do you have?

You mean apart from Movies, TV Shows, Photos, Documents? how do I even begin to answer this

 

[USAFRet]

You mean apart from Movies, TV Shows, Photos, Documents? how do I even begin to answer this

No, not "apart from"...including that.
Knowing that number can help us help you into a plan forward.

150+TB, spread over dozens of drives (some of them in various states of fail) is not a good situation to be in.

 

[DrWho345]

No, not "apart from"...including that.
Knowing that number can help us help you into a plan forward.

150+TB, spread over dozens of drives (some of them in various states of fail) is not a good situation to be in.

Yeah totally

I'll break it down as best as I can

Awhile ago I tried to find the culprit, which I think is Old TV Shows. Stuff that fits into this category is (shows that have been cancelled, didn't make it past one season, and have definitely ended) but only things I like

I calculated wrong

I have just added up all my drives which gives me 178TB

But silver lining, removing 2 blank 14TB and 16TB as well as my Music Collection on a LACIE Thunderbolt and a 4TB Time Machine Backup, gives me 138TB, still spanning over 20 drives is not good I know.

Anyway, I found all the Old TV and figured out that, out of the 136TB, is at least 40TB, with 20TB of Old TV Spread over that 40TB.

I was asking initially about using the 16TB as a Plex Server and whether or not I could still use it as Storage as well, or once I decide to use it as Plex I couldn't use it for anything else, but after finally figuring out that the processing power is not the same as my shitty Synology, I abandoned that plan and will now just use it for Backup and Storage instead (granted everything I have won't fit on it I'm not that stupid) but it will help to offload some drives

Anyway... I decided to buy 2 10TB drives (I have done that already) purchased one 10TB and one 14TB and will use them exclusively for Old TV thus freeing up space and hopefully drives. OK going from 20 to 18 maybe 16 isn't great but it is an improvement and will definitely free up some plugs in my UPS power boards

It is a long process, and without knowing how to improve transfer speeds on a Mac, plus the age of the drives and that mostly all of them are HDD, I am doing the best I can with what I have

 

[SamirD]

Thank you I really appreciate it.

I am on a mac so it is harder to know for sure when there is a problem with a hard drive, I mean I have DriveDX but I am not intelligent enough (regardless of having a computer degree) to interpret the messages and determine how serious potential issues are

I have bad sectors on some drives in my NAS units, but then again, frugality aside, keeping up with that is an exercise in an of itself, and unless there is something obviously wrong (eg slow transfer or clicking) then I immediately get a larger capacity drive and clone it using carbon copy and keep going from there

Are there any apps I can use to correct errors, or fix bad sectors on Mac Mojave?

You're welcome.

Ah macs--lol. Yeah, they just expect you to go to the Apple store and pay them for whatever you need, lol.

"Yes, I need enough storage for all this."

"Do you have a spare kidney?"

LOL!

Okay, more serious now--well, the idea is NOT to have to deal with individual drive issues, and it seems you have some very nicely 'compartmentable' categories that you could literally just put on a drive or set of drives and then those essentially will be read-only from that point on, correct?

And plex seems to be your main application for all the storage, right? You could just build a dedicated plex machine and then connect all the drives/nas units to it for storage. (I don't know enough about plex to know if it can use nas units for storage, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

And I'd post in reddit datahoarder if you haven't already--those guys are brilliant at managing data like this on a budget as many of them have data just like yours.

 

[USAFRet]

(I don't know enough about plex to know if it can use nas units for storage, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

Plex is a built in application on my Qnap.

 

[DrWho345]

You're welcome.

Ah macs--lol. Yeah, they just expect you to go to the Apple store and pay them for whatever you need, lol.

"Yes, I need enough storage for all this."

"Do you have a spare kidney?"

LOL!

Okay, more serious now--well, the idea is NOT to have to deal with individual drive issues, and it seems you have some very nicely 'compartmentable' categories that you could literally just put on a drive or set of drives and then those essentially will be read-only from that point on, correct?

And plex seems to be your main application for all the storage, right? You could just build a dedicated plex machine and then connect all the drives/nas units to it for storage. (I don't know enough about plex to know if it can use nas units for storage, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

And I'd post in reddit datahoarder if you haven't already--those guys are brilliant at managing data like this on a budget as many of them have data just like yours.

Yeah I only use Plex for Movies

 

[SamirD]

Plex is a built in application on my Qnap.

It's built into a lot of NAS units but can also be installed on a desktop, hence my question about if the data it streams can be on any network source or it has to be local.

 

[SamirD]

Yeah I only use Plex for Movies

How many streams do you typically need? And are they typically 1080p, 4k, etc?

 

[DrWho345]

How many streams do you typically need? And are they typically 1080p, 4k, etc?

I don't know how that part works most of the movies are 1080p, I don't think I have any 4k