NAS for remote video streaming

I have a 12 TB MP4 Movie collection (around 1300 movies, avg 9gb/file). I’d like to move them all to the same NAS, hook it up to a router and be able to access on the net from anywhere in the world. Will use RAID 10. I’ll probably sometimes limited to slowish 3G/4G cellular connections. My home internet speed is 12 Mbps upload.

12TB data will mean you need 4 bay solution. For a Full HD and even 4K video content, you need to consider DS418play or DS918+ from Synology. The router you don’t need to replace, the one from your ISP will most likely work just fine. These NAS models will transcode both h264 and h265 video encoding formats. You can even download these videos on your Apple or Android tablet for watching somewhere internet is not available. Synology NAS will be smart enough to convert video automatically based on internet speed and destinations device limitations. RAID10 is a very protective solution and will lose half of your potential storage space. I would recommend RAID5 instead, losing just 1 drive for redundancy.

 

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What can I connect to a NAS?

Wireless Speaker Sonos

The great thing about Sonos is that you don't need to pay for music subscription service. With the cheapest NAS at home like DS115j or any other, you can have your backups done for all of your devices and still use your network drive as a Sonos music library. Sonos will connect to your NAS via your network and let access your provided music library. If you have little more of IT knowledge, you can even set up your Alexa or Sonos with Alexa built in to play music on your voice commands ("Alexa! Ask DS Audio to Play Music!").

Casting devices

Nowadays it is so cheap to upgrade your old TV and make it smart. All you need is Google Chrome or EZcast alternative plugged into your HDMI port at the back of your TV. Now you have great functionality added to your TV to send a video file directly from your NAS to a TV. No need for wires and chargers and other mess. You can use your phone as a remote to go to your movies or family videos and cast that content on your TV during family or friend gatherings.

 

Apple TV

Amazon Fire TV

You may not have a smartphone, or you just simply prefer to control your content with a remote in that case Amazon Fire TV will be a great addon to get to your TV. It also plugs into your HDMI port and will play content from your NAS to a TV. No wires no mess.

nVidia Shield TV

It gets even better! If you want some more entertainment and all previously mentioned functions - nVidia TV is a great thing to get. You can use it for playing games and watching movies from your NAS. The greatest thing is - shield TV does video transcoding. So even if you have a cheap NAS with a weak CPU, in a combination of shield TV you can now automatically on the fly change video file size and format for a destination device. It is a great way to reduce network load and let older devices to play video content which normally was not supported on the device.