Best 4K Plex NAS of 2022/2023

Last updated on 23 Nov 2023 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 A Guide to the Best 4K Plex NAS Drives to Buy Right Now
2 What Have All the Best Plex NAS Drives Have in Common?
2.1 Best All Round 4K PLEX NAS Drive – QNAP TS-464 NAS
2.2 Best Low Noise 4K PLEX NAS Drive – QNAP HS-264 NAS
2.3 Best Value 4K PLEX NAS Drive – Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 NAS
2.4 Lowest Priced 4K Plex NAS Drive – Terramaster F4-423 NAS
2.5 ULTIMATE 4k and 8K Plex NAS Drive – QNAP TVS-h874 NAS
3 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

A Guide to the Best 4K Plex NAS Drives to Buy Right Now

If you have been looking at buying a Synology or QNAP NAS drive in 2023 for use as a Plex Media Server, then chances are you are doing this because you are sick of paying for a bunch of online streaming services OR you have an enormous physical library of discs that you own in your home that you want to watch conveniently on an Amazon FireTV, Roku Box or home Console, disc free! It’s not a big ask, is it! Do you remember when watching movies and boxsets from your sofa was easy? You owned a few hundred DVDs or Blurays, you popped in the disc for what you wanted to watch, then you watched it. It had a few extra steps that Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video and Disney+, BUT you owned what you watched and you were in control of what you wanted to see. The dominance of subscription streaming services was unquestionable and for a while, it genuinely felt like it was the best option for ease of access to a huge library of multimedia that you only really wanted to watch once or twice anyway – all for just $5-10 per service. However, it got complicated. We went from 3-5 media streaming services, to suddenly HUNDREDS, with Films/Boxsets appairing on exclusive platforms (in some cases actual tv seasons being divided across different services too). This also led to TV shows being available/featured on a streaming service considerably shorter, due to the show-owner realising that timed exclusivity and switching streamingly platforms is much more lucrative in the long run. So, the streaming services STOPPED being so convenient, stopped being such good value – with most households now having/needing 3-4 different subscription services (so, in most cases Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and the cable TV/Sky provider service) and spending $400-500 a year, and not owning a single piece of media or having control of when things are not available. Add to that the rather bias search abilities of these platforms pushing ‘suggested’ content and you cannot help but pine for those simple days of sitting on the sofa and watching that DVD. It is for this reason that many have made the jump over to Plex Media Server. To find out more about what Plex, a Plex Media Server NAS are and what they do, watch the video below:

A free service that allows you to stream the media YOU own, but still features slick graphics, user-friendly GUI, descriptions, trailers, thumbnails, reviews and more. Today I want to discuss the best three NAS drives for use as a Plex Media Server. There are literally thousands of different NAS devices on the market that can be used for Plex (it is a fairly low resource demanding tool in its smallest form) but the extent to how much you will use it, the number of users you want to share with, the volume of media and the quality of the content (e.g 4K, 1080p, etc) make a HUGE difference to which NAS you should choose for your Plex Media server. So my five PLEX NAS recommendations for 2023 are based on the best Budget 1080p Plex NAS, the best 4K Plex NAS and finally, the Best EVERYTHING Plex NAS for 2023. Let’s begin.

What Have All the Best Plex NAS Drives Have in Common?

It is worth remembering that although there are ALOT of different Plex NAS drives available to buy, they are by no means created equal! With numerous super-budget brands popping up online, it can be tempting to consider these alongside the premium NAS brands. However, all too often they offer solutions righty seem ‘too good to be true’ and then are gone from the web before your warranty even gets cold! So, whether you are looking at the three best Plex solutions that I am recommending below OR are looking at another Plex NAS you saw on offer/recommended elsewhere – the best NAS system ALWAYS include the following software and services:

  • Combined Hardware & Software Solution – That means that you are buying the hardware, but it ALSO includes a web browser GUI, mobile apps and desktop client apps (including backup, media, streaming, surveillance and file management software)
  • All NAS systems in this guide are compatible with (and can be accessed by) Windows, Mac, Android and Linux operating systems
  • All NAS Solutions arrive with between 2-3 years Warranty (with the option to extend to 5 years)
  • All NAS drives can be accessed locally over the network, as well as secure remote access is possible with brand supported services (at no additional cost)
  • The most modern and regularly updated NAS systems will support the very latest 20TB NAS hard drives (such as the Seagate Ironwofl 20TB and WD Red 20TB)
  • All the recommended solutions support multiple drive configurations (RAID) for drive failure protection and performance enhancements
  • All solutions receive regular updates to their security, features and services
  • All recommended NAS drives can connect and synchronize with cloud services (Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive, etc), as well as Business/Enterprise services such as AWS, Azure, Backblaze and more
  • All NAS solutions (regardless of brand) feature the ability to host a shared drive on your PC/Mobile/Laptop systems that are synchronized with the NAS via the network/internet, but is shown in your native operating system file manager (i.e Mac Finder or Windows Explorer)
  • All the NAS solutions listed can be accessed DIRECTLY via an ethernet/network cable being connected from your PC/Mac system, to the NAS RJ45 port for 100MB/s and higher connectivity
  • All the best NAS solutions (regardless of brand) feature backup and sync tools that can be installed on your local client computer and allow regular backups of your files and system data

So, make sure that if you are looking at a NAS solution that is NOT recommended below, that it includes all of the above. As these are some of the clearest areas that brands all too often cut orders to produce cheaper by ultimately inferior NAS servers for home and business. So, let’s discuss the very best Plex NAS to buy now in 2022/2023.

Best All Round 4K PLEX NAS Drive – QNAP TS-464 NAS

0-88TB, 4-Bays, 2x PCIe Gen 3×1 M.2 NVMe 2280, Intel Celeron N5105 CPU, 4-16GB Memory, 2x 2.5Gbe Port, 1x PCIe Gen 3×2 Slot, 1 HDMI 2.0 4K 60FPS, 3-5yr Warranty

Current Price/Availability on Amazon – $550

Hardware Review – LINK

YouTube Video Review – Watch

What I said in my review April ’22:

The TS-464 comfortably arrives with the best hardware in its tier of the NAS market and that is something that QNAP has always been quite good at. Even if you rewind just 5 years, the level of hardware scalability and ease of upgradability that the TS-464 provides is frankly incredible and, fast forward to 2022, is still pretty unmatched. A Desktop 4-Bay NAS (eg Prosumer RAID 5 storage) has always been the next confident step for users who are tired of their hands being tied by subscription cloud services from Google, OneDrive and DropBox, who are looking for their own competent, flexible and fully-featured private server. In the TS-464 NAS, you find a system that is unquestionable the best hardware for your money you can possibly get right now. In software, things are a little less straightforward. QTS 5, although massively software and service-rich, arrives as a complete operating system in your web browser with multiple mobile/desktop clients and hundreds of applications and apps that can be installed at the touch of a button – which can all too often be something of a steep learning curve for many.

Lacking the slightly chewable, user-friendly nature of many of their rivals, QNAP and its software/service still have a tendency to be a bit of an information overload that can quickly intimidate the novice. However, for those that are looking for a system that is completely customizable in how/when/where you want data presented to you, as well as a wide degree of 3rd party support, QNAP and QTS 5 still manages to provide a huge degree of brand-unique service that are simply not available elsewhere. Just be prepared to invest your time wisely in its setup and more time ensuring the system is perfect for your needs.

SOFTWARE - 8/10
HARDWARE - 10/10
PERFORMANCE - 9/10
PRICE - 8/10
VALUE - 9/10


8.8
PROS
👍🏻Very compact chassis design, despite large storage potential
👍🏻A BIG jump in hardware and scale from the TS-453Be and TS-453D, but with a largely identical RRP at launch
👍🏻Easily one of the most hardware packed SMB/Mid-range 4-Bay on the market
👍🏻Up to 16GB of Memory is fantastic
👍🏻m.2 NVMe SSD Bays AND a PCIe Upgrade Slot (no need to choose one upgrade path)
👍🏻8x Included Camera Licenses
👍🏻Includes Anti-virus, Firewall Tool, VPN client tools, Malware Remover, network manager and Security Councilor Tool
👍🏻3 Different Container/VM tools that also feature image download centers
👍🏻10Gb/s (1,000MB/s) USB Ports will be incredibly useful
👍🏻Large range of expansion options in the TR/TL series in 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 Bays
CONS
👎🏻The PCIe Slot is PCIe 3×2 and the M.2 SSD Bays are PCIe 3×1 (likely limitations of all this H/W on a Celeron+chipset
👎🏻QNAP Has had 3 ransomware hits in 2019-2021 (Qlocker, Qsnatch and Deadbolt). Lots of Security app/changes since, but people remember and QNAP needs to win back that trust in 2022/2023

Best Low Noise 4K PLEX NAS Drive – QNAP HS-264 NAS

0-48TB, 2-Bays, Fanless Design, Intel Celeron N5105 CPU, 8GB Memory, 2x 2.5Gbe Port, 2x HDMI 2.0 4K 60FPS, KVM Support, 3-5yr Warranty

Current Price/Availability on Amazon – $549

Hardware Review – LINK

YouTube Video Review – Watch

What I said in my review April ’22:

I think it would be fair to say that QNAP has quite a few different NAS ranges in their portfolio. From hefty enterprise rackmounts and thunderbolt machines, to compact prosumer desktops and modest entry-level systems, the majority of their solutions all seemingly share the same physically architecture – a desktop or rackmount enclosure that has changed really only aesthetically in the last 10-15 years. However, QNAP’s Silent NAS series (started back in 2014/2015) has always been a very different beast and even in its earliest iterations was breaking the rules of what we thought a NAS is supposed to look like and (more importantly) sound like. The QNAP HS-264 is the latest release in the HS NAS series of devices (previously HS-251+ and HS-453DX) that has the bold claim to be ‘silent’! Now, of course, that is not strictly true. It IS a fanless NAS that is designed in a horizontal profile to promote increased heat dissipation into a unit heatsink system (that is how the use of a fan is avoided) along with the physical spreading of the system also dispersing vibration much better. This results in a reported active noise level with traditional NAS hard drives under 8TB to produce a lower rating than other 2-Bay systems in idle/standby (can’t switch off HDD spin and actuator noise). Plus, QNAP state that using SSDs results in the system being genuinely silent. Now for those that want their own NAS service for multimedia, plan on working in close proximity with the system or have a small office where this system will be working hard 24×7 in – the thought of a silent NAS is dream come true. However, hold your horse, just because the HS-264 is going to be quieter than the average NAS/bear, doesn’t mean it is automatically a ‘good NAS’.

Overall you cannot say that QNAP has not been a pinch more mature and sensible (perhaps to a fault) in the design and architecture of the HS-264 NAS. Living slightly in the shadow of the more bandwidth equipped but more expensive HS-453DX, the HS-264 is still a solid entry in the QNAP x64 series and if you are looking for a truly silent NAS that includes all the tools and services that a modern NAS system should feature, the HS-264 is unquestionably a great NAS system. As long as you factor in the noise of HDDs in 2022 (an often overlooked detail I would add), the HS-264 NAS is a system that focuses it’s abilities and power internally, which being by far the most ‘power and heat’ aware system that the brand has ever released in this series. Concerns about QNAP and recent ransomware attacks are always going to dog the brand for a while yet, but nevertheless, that does not undercut the achievement in hardware and design that this system provides. Perhaps if QNAP could have released a modernized version of the HS-453DX, buyers would be fully satisfied, but in it’s absence, the HS-264 and what it brings to the table ticks most of the important hardware boxes for me.

SOFTWARE - 8/10
HARDWARE - 8/10
PERFORMANCE - 8/10
PRICE - 8/10
VALUE - 8/10


8.0
PROS
👍🏻The Silent NAS series has always been impressive and unique
👍🏻
👍🏻Very unique and discreet at just 4.1cm in height
👍🏻
👍🏻
👍🏻8x Included Camera Licenses
👍🏻
👍🏻
👍🏻Includes Anti-virus, Firewall Tool, VPN client tools, Malware Remover, network manager and Security Councilor Tool
👍🏻
👍🏻
👍🏻3 Different Container/VM tools that also feature image download centers
👍🏻
👍🏻
👍🏻10Gb/s (1,000MB/s) USB Ports will be incredibly useful
👍🏻
👍🏻
👍🏻Large range of expansion options in the TR/TL series in 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 Bays
CONS
👎🏻Comes across as a less impressive package than the HS-453DX (though the HS-264 is $200 less)
👎🏻
👎🏻Sustained high power use makes the top panel noticeably hot
👎🏻
👎🏻
👎🏻8GB of Memory Max, despite the CPU and other 64 series QNAP’s supporting upto 16GB

Best Value 4K PLEX NAS Drive – Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 NAS

0-88TB, 4-Bays, 4x PCIe Gen 3×1 M.2 NVMe 2280, Intel N5105 CPU 4-Core Integrated Gfx, 4-16GB DDR4 Memory, 2x 2.5Gbe Port, 1x HDMI 2.0b, PCIe Upgrade Slot, 3-5yr Warranty

Current Price/Availability on Amazon – $579

Hardware Review – LINK

YouTube Video Review – Watch

What I said in my review Nov’22:

The Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 NAS is a respectable piece of kit! Indeed, the hardware here is almost faultless! Unless you are particularly noise sensitive (and therefore the metal chassis adding a few dBa to the ambient sound), there is almost nothing I can fault here on the devices hardware. The scaling up of practically all hardware over the Gen 1 Lockerstor, such as Better CPU, Better Memory that goes higher, HDMI 2.0b, USB 3.2 Gen 2, a 10GbE upgrade option and THOSE FOUR M. 2 NVMe SSD SLOTS – you simply cannot fault how much is getting included here at the price point vs it’s competitors. The software is a little less compelling, with a smaller range of 1st party applications on offer, more of a reliance on 3rd party services and the absence of a few AAA+ features that are present on other devices in the market (AI services, Cloud Bolt on live synchronization, 1st Party SaaS native sync with Google Workspace/Office365, etc).

That said, ADM does run very well, is clear and still quite user-friendly. The addition of choice of file systems EXT4 or BTRFS, flexibility on the use of those M.2 NVMe SSD bays and the Asustor HDMI portal still bring fantastic flexibility to the Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 NAS too. Ultimately, this is a system that is clearly making big waves on it’s hardware more than it’s software, but as long as you keep your feet on the ground and appreciate that this system is more of a 70/30 purchase of hardware vs software, you will come to respect and rely on this Asustor NAS as the backbone of your data storage setup.

SOFTWARE - 8/10
HARDWARE - 10/10
PERFORMANCE - 8/10
PRICE - 8/10
VALUE - 9/10


8.6
PROS
👍🏻Hard/Impossible to find this level of NAS Hardware elsewhere at this price point
👍🏻Those FOUR M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD slots are great and turn this 4-Bay NAS into an 8-Bay
👍🏻2.5GbE by default, as well as the option to add further 2.5/5Gb connections over USB
👍🏻The option to scale up the network connectivity to 10GbE down the line (4 and 6 Bay only)
👍🏻$60 increase over RRP of Lockstor Gen 1, but upgrades practically everything 1-2 levels (New Celeron CPU, Better/High Memory Max, USB 10G, HDMI 2.0b, PCIe Gen 3 Architecture)
👍🏻Includes support for either EXT4 or BTRFS
👍🏻Includes KVM Support with Parallel GUI over HDMI, Asustor Portal
👍🏻ADM is better tha nit has ever been, responsive, clear and intuitive
👍🏻Several different setup and initialization options
👍🏻One of very few 4-Bay NAS drives that still feature a fully functional and controllable LCD Panel
👍🏻Full Support of the traditional RAID levels for this scale (RAID 0-1-5-6)
👍🏻Storage can be expanded with TWO of the Asustor AS6004U 4-Bay
CONS
👎🏻Lack of a fluid RAID System (such as Synology Hybrid RAID, Drobo BeyondRAID or Terramaster TRAID) to allow mixed drive media and easier scaling of storage over time
👎🏻Metal chassis and trays is going to result in an increase of ambient noise (hum/vibration) than other plastic casing/tray NAS systems
👎🏻Some apps (such as the Surveillance Center apps) are long overdue an update in visuals and services
👎🏻ADM is good, but lacks the killer apps/AAA and AI service tools that are being offered by other brands right now
👎🏻They were targeted by the Deadbolt ransomware attack at the start of 2022 and although the linux vulnerability that was used has been reported to be closed and they worked with affected users, this is still going to be on the minds of some buyers

Lowest Priced 4K Plex NAS Drive – Terramaster F4-423 NAS

0-88TB, 4-Bays, 2x Gen 3 x1 M.2 NVMe 2280, Intel N5105 Celeron CPU Quad-Core Integrated Gfx CPU, 4-16GB Memory, 2x 2.5Gbe Port, 3yr Warranty

Current Price/Availability on Amazon – $500

Hardware Review – LINK

YouTube Video Review – Watch

What I said in my review May’22:

Terramaster still continues to be the most affordable fully-featured provider of the whole NAS market and although a number of their solutions have always felt a little rough around the edges, you always got the impression that you were getting a good deal for the hardware that was available from QNAP and Synology. Now in 2022/2023, the same continues to be true but in the F4-423 NAS’ case, you are actually getting some pretty top tier (for the Home/Prosumer) market at a price tag that is really tough to argue with. Terramaster has clearly been watching their bigger competitors and cherry-picked the features that people have been asking for (2.5GbE, USB 3.2 Gen 2, M.2 NVMe SSD bays, etc) for this new generation.

In terms of software, things are a little less convincing and although TOS 5 (currently in Beta at the time of writing) still continues to evolve into something genuinely fully featured and impressive, TOS 4 that the F4-423 includes at launch is usable (if unexciting) platform that provides the base level services that a new NAS user would want, but lacks killer apps that their competitors are offering right now (File Streaming, AI photo recognition, Surveillance, etc). Most of these ARE included in TOS5, but until it arrives much later in 2022 in a full release, the F4-423 feels like a powerful NAS that doesn’t have the software to show off its strengths yet. If you are reading this later in 2022 or 2023, this might well be irrelevant though, as the brand rolls out their bit firmware update to ALL Terramster NAS devices. Overall, I definitely CAN recommend the F4-423 NAS for its hardware, for Plex Media server or as an affordable multi-tier backup solution, but if you are looking for a NAS for more tailored data access or in a much more fully-featured package – hold out a little longer till TOS 5 gets released first.

SOFTWARE - 5/10
HARDWARE - 8/10
PERFORMANCE - 8/10
PRICE - 10/10
VALUE - 8/10


7.8
PROS
👍🏻2.5GbE at the Price of 1GbE
👍🏻Good CPU for the Price Point
👍🏻USB 3.2 Gen 2 is very forward-thinking for local backups
👍🏻Great RAID Options
👍🏻Snapshot Replication
👍🏻BTRFS Support if preferred
👍🏻Supports Plex and all 1080p Transcoding
👍🏻4K Video transcoding natively
👍🏻A large amount of maximum memory supported (16-32GB – TBC)
👍🏻Includes two M.2 NVMe SSD Bays that can be used for storage or caching
CONS
👎🏻Default 4GB memory is 2133Mhz
👎🏻HDMI Currently Unsupported
👎🏻Until TOS5 is Fully Released, TOS Software feels a little empty of Killer-Apps (AI photo recognition, Surveillance, etc)

ULTIMATE 4k and 8K Plex NAS Drive – QNAP TVS-h874 NAS

0-176TB, 8-Bays, 2x PCIe 4 M.2 NVMe 2280, PCIe Gen 4×16 Upgrade Slot, Intel Core 12th Gen i5/i7/i9 CPU, 16-64GB DDR4 Memory, 2.5Gbe Port, 10Gb x2 Prots (Intel i9 Version), KVM, ZFS or EXT4 Setup, 3-5yr Warranty

Current Price/Availability on Amazon – $2000-2500-3000

Hardware Review – LINK

YouTube Video Review – Watch

What I said in my review Dec ’22:

The QNAP TVS-h874 NAS is easily one of the most hardware-capable desktop NAS systems that I have ever seen (as you would expect for £2500+) and has clearly been designed with phenomenal future proofing in mind! If you are concerned about the longevity of this NAS, this hardware architecture will still be top tier 5 years from now, with the added support of PCIe 4 meaning that high capacity and performing micro upgrades throughout its life also ensuring it remains relevant long after. It’s price tag clearly moves this purchase out of the home and squarely into the business market (though likely those that take their media seriously will add it to the cart) and the TVS-h874 will function as a solid solution for Video editing (even at 8K), high frequency and performing VMs, large scale AI powered Surveillance setup, hybrid cloud/on-prem alternative to Office 365/Google Workspace services and as the center point for all your data storage operations. Crucially though, it is that the hardware on offer here will be able to do ALL of these at the same time, therefore maximising the investment for most businesses that want to move aware from their cloud dependant ops. In terms of software,t things are a little less absolute, with QTS and QuTS still getting a little busy at times, with a steeper learning curve than its big rival DSM from Synology. That said, die-hard fans of ZFS (Zettabyte File System) will adore the inclusion of benefits in RAID handling, management and recovery that are exclusive to that platform, whilst enjoying the wide range of applications and service benefits in QuTS that are often restricted to Linux platforms.

8K PLEX TESTS – QNAP TVS-h874 4K PLEX TESTS – QNAP TVS-h874

The slightly conveluded approach to release hardware that does complicate the selection process (different CPUs in the Intel 12th Gen family changing the rest of the system architecture) is something that I hoped this brand would graduate from (for the sake of simplicity), but for many, this level of choice in hardware and budget will be welcome. As is QNAP’s position on the support of 3rd party hardware (drives, PCIe upgrades, etc) and software, something that we have seen a worrying trend in the last few years against elsewhere in the industry but some other brands, to err towards 1st party/proprietary compatibility more and more. There are still lingering doubts by some on the security of NAS, with ransomware attacks on the rise and ALL brands and ALL platforms being targetted (NAS, Cloud ,etc), finding a middle ground between ease of use and depth of security being a tricky tie rope walk indeed. The TVS-h874 arrives with a wide range of Day 1 tools, further rigid defaults in QTS/QuTS in 2022/2023, considerable security settings to configure and multiple system scan tools for recommendations & preventative measures available. The QNAP TVS-h874 is probably the most powerful desktop/tower NAS drive I have ever reviewed and if you are looking for a system that can legitimately do anything server-side, but you are also willing to put in the time to configure it correctly – you will genuinely be hard pushed to find a better system in 2022, 2023 and likely 2024 at this price point and scale.

SOFTWARE - 8/10
HARDWARE - 10/10
PERFORMANCE - 10/10
PRICE - 8/10
VALUE - 9/10


9.0
PROS
👍🏻First Commercial Intel Core 12th Gen i5, i7 and i9 NAS Drive
👍🏻Upto 20 Cores, 24 Threads and High End Integrated Graphics
👍🏻PCIe Gen 4 x16 Upgrade Slot for 10/25/100GbE Cards and 2x PCIe Gen 4 x4 M.2 NVMe Slots for 7GB SSDs
👍🏻No Obstinant 3rd Party Hardware Limitations on Support or Compatibility
👍🏻Much larger support of 3rd Party Software Services than most other NAS Brands
👍🏻10Gb/s USB Connectivity, in Type A and Type C
👍🏻Upto 64GB of Memory and Potential for 128GB
👍🏻ZFS or EXT 4 File System Choice
👍🏻M.2 NVMe SSD Bays can be used for Storage or Caching
👍🏻Volume Encryption, SED SSD Support and WORM
👍🏻Enhanced AI Surveillance Services, with opt to upgrade with $30 Google TPU
👍🏻AI Photo Management Tool (QuMagie) Includes Thing Recognition and works offline
👍🏻ALL the ZFS Benefits, whilst also the GUI and App benefits of a Linux Software Platform in one
CONS
👎🏻Available Versions/Configs of the 4/6/8-Bay are confusing
👎🏻QVR Elite (not QVR Pro) only has 2 Cam Licences
👎🏻HDMI Output is 1.4b
👎🏻10Gbe is ONLY included with the most expensive Intel i9 Model
👎🏻Noisy when in operation when fully populated
👎🏻Too Many licenses on Enterprise Tools (Drive Analyzer, Face Tiger, etc) with too few free licenses

And there you have it. Those are the three best Plex NAS drives available right now at the end of 2022 and going into 2023. thought it is always worth remembering that these systems typically have a refresh (i.e manufacturers release a new version/follow-up) every 2-3 years on average. Therefore although these systems are all still great Plex NAS drives, they might have been upgraded in a newer released version, or recently released alternative Plex’s may have arrived on the scene that provides better pricing, value or features. If you are in doubt about whether to buy a Plex solution from my recommendations, want to check if a newer system has been released recently OR are simply looking for some free expert advice, then use the free advice section below over. Just enter in a few details of your setup, storage requirements and (in the case of buying a new solution) your budget – then me and Eddie the Web guy can help you with your question. This is a completely free service, is NOT provided with profit in mind and is manned by two humans (no bots, no automated replies, etc). Assistance might take an extra day or two (the service gets a lot of visitors) but we do try to answer every message. If you want to support this service, you can find out how to donate HERE. Otherwise, you can still jsut message us for free advice anyway!

 

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      344 thoughts on “Best 4K Plex NAS of 2022/2023”

      4. Hey folks!
        Thank you for the amazing work you are doing!
        A question I have:
        I would like to build a media center based on N100 unit (or alternatively N305, r any other low TDP – feel free to recommend if you could ), but what I am afraid of that it would not be capable to play k4 HDR files with over 90-100Mbps transfer. Majority of tests I saw are up to 50Mbps. I did tests with cheapo – Synology 220j and it worked fine until around 70Mbps.. and then started to lose frames, pixelize etc.
        Could you suggest any decent build for this purpose, without breaking the bank, please?

        To clarify – I need a media center for singular 4k HDR Atmos ~100Mbps media (no transcoding) + thousands of photos storage (RAW quality, each file over 25MB) + additional services pihole, potentially VPN, private cloud etc.
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      5. My enterprise helium drives have super loud heads but the platers are basically dead silent. My consumer air filled drives have quiet heads but the platters sound like laptop fans on full blast. I prefer the quiet idle over the quiet load.
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      6. Video Transcoding was the first thing I disabled on my PLEX to force Direct play. Transcoding always degrades video quality. All my devices can direct play 4k HEVC, AV1 will be a bit of an issue for awhile as only my newest TV can direct play 4k AV1. As for my PLEX share, it’s up to them to get a device capable of playing the files I share and not me to transcode it for them (I’m not running a paid streaming service).
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      9. Thank you for the video, I’ve saved it to reference later as I make my journey in setting up my first NAS. I’m just curious, when and how does an nvidia shield pro come into play and how does that impact what components you require/don’t require in a prebuilt NAS system?
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      10. If the users device cannot play original 265, ie 1080p, it can be made to work by the user changing the resolution, ie to 720p. (Tested with multi TV brands). The only troubles, even with 264, is the audio codecs that were used in movie. Not seemed to narrow down those specific codecs yet.

        Also, for me, 4k is dumb to have if you a HUGE movie library of like 10k movies and tv shows (137tb ????)…in terms of space and hardware work load. Just not worth it until a converter can make a 4k movie at around 2gb…lol.

        But anyway, nice tips as I been thinking about a NAS. But my gaming pc is an absolute work horse, very, very quiet and doesn’t even use a 10th of it’s power. 17 HD’s…????
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      15. Hello, I just ordered the QNAP TVS-h874X-i9-64G NAS. I’m in need of advice. I’m going to install 3 20tb drives and 2 nvme that are 1tb. My original thought was to use the nvme drives as a pool of the apps to live on like Plex. Should I do that, or use the nvme as cash?
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      17. Is all this even a problem anymore, wether you are into google or Apple, most people play their media on a chromecast/Shield/AppleTV right into their flatscreen they all support most of the the latest codecs. Plex is just a way of organizing your Media in a nice way instead of using a simple media player that shows your old school dlna service. You just stream your personal media from the NAS or local computer that holds your files. Sure PLEX integrates with your payed streaming services too, but any simple dlna service that runs on your pc or NAS can do the same as PLEX. The devices we use for playing our straming services still interacts with them technically via dlna. My AppleTV don’t really care if my files on the plex server is in one or the other format unless its some obscure format or homebrewed h.264 or x.265 configurations that isn’t standard. It even plays windows WMV files just fine. No need for a Plex Pass unless you really need to encode to a specific format.
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      18. Thanx m8. What’s so much video on the TS-464 NAS (most of the vids are yours btw). Just ordered it. So great thanx to you.

        Hate seagulls too….so very much.
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      19. So, to cut a long story short. I eventually bought one of these – love(d) it. Yesterday, I went to RAF Cosford for the airshow. I had around 6,500 images to transfer to my NAS via Lightroom ( my images are kept on my NAS along with my music and other documents). I decided to MOVE rather than COPY the images – after all, I’d not had any cause not to. Lightroom finished, reporting almost 3,000 failures to transfer. The NAS had disappeared from the network and locked up- had to reboot from the enclosure. Tried again, same issue. Ended up having to run file recovery on my CFExpress card – I have 4 8TB HDD and 4 NVME sticks in the NAS acting as cache – locking up, the NAS lost the transfer.

        Looking online, it seems to be a known but not acknowledged issue – one commenter mentioned the way the memory is configured to clear data and another BTFRS. This is a significant issue. I don’t know whether it’s an ADM version issue or firmware issue as I have transferred thousands of files on there without any issues, but maybe the speed and continuous nature of this transfer took it over the edge. ASUS are having a bad time of late, especially if you follow their motherboard business.

        Do you have any suggestions – there are reddit posts about this exact issue FYI.
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      20. what a bs about h265, most of my library is h265 and it never needed any transcoding on any of the devices, you just mixing stuff up as plex is not transcoding to 265 due to license but there is no problem with any licensing for direct play of h265 files
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      21. All my clients support x265. My oldest is a TV from 2018. My TV from 2017 also support HEVC. AVC/x264 is totally outdated, terrible efficiency, I wouldn’t recommend it at all!
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      22. my TVS-h874T intel i9 64GB with an additional qnap m2 card with extra 2 x m2 slots and 10G port arrives tomorrow cant wait!! only paid £2500!!
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      23. So you want to have “youtube” server on your home, and watching videos whole day? That is not productive. Instead you could copy few movies that you plan to watch on external SSD and then connect to your tv and keep it for one week or month, or however it taks to watch that movies. But I don’t know why would I watch old movies that I alredy watched, and if it’s new movie that I purcased, then why not watch it when I purcased or near future. People are watching on VHS/DVD.. movies and now you want to complicate things and purchase something expensive that keeps using energy whole day, that produce noise.. I think it all goes down to laziness, if peole didn’t mind to go to store to rent VHS, why it’s hard to take dvd from your home and insert it to watch.
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      25. Plex Media Server (with Plex Pass), running in a TrueNAS CORE jail, streamed from an Apple TV4K with InFuse client… is my solution. Got 4 x ATV4K’s around the house and it’s all flawless
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      27. 24:00 based on your comments about running VM’s on the NVME, I installed a single 2Tb NVME and moved my virtual machines over there. From my Windows desktop, I connect to a Windows 11 pro VM using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection app. The Windows VM on the NAS runs as fast as Windows runs on my desktop. With two monitors, they sit side by side and you’d never know that one is a VM ( what was I expecting ??? ) Brilliant.
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      28. How much does the performance raise primarely with Plex by maxing the TS-464 out with max. ram and a SSD for cache compared to the default 4gb ram Std config without Cache ? just wondering if people think its worth the money, and how big SSD would be optimal ?
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      29. I wonder why you keep leaving the audio at such a low setting?
        I’m looking for a NAS Plex that will play full Atmos & Vision content. Most of my movie library files are 80GB in size, ripped from 4K Ultra Blu Ray as I have a full Atmos solution coupled with an 83 inch OLED C3 TV. Both sound and video are equally important. What is the best NAS for this requirement? Will the QNAP TS-464 do the job?
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      30. Currently using Synology DS 220 J NAS at the moment, but I have realised it may not be enough for what I am now looking at. As much as I like the Synology operating system, the fact that Synology are saying you have to use Synology branded nvme drives and or DDR 4 memory, to make upgrades to Synology NAS you may like are just over priced. QNAP, they give you a list of recommended, and obviously and the hardware in this NAS just standard is very good..
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      34. Hi, thanks for the detailed video, what do you think of the new TS-H1277AXU-RP-R5-16G? the features are more or less the same and it has 12bay, how is it with plex? Thank you
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      38. In my TVS-672N i had installed 2 Samsung 970 Evo mvme drives as cashe installed. They were supported acording the compatibility list from Qnap for this nas.
        After 2 years both drives did die. Theese drives get VERY!!! HOT. I did know that so i installed big heatsinks on both drives but still they get VERY!!! HOT.
        At the same time the nas did die. After shutting the nas off i could not turn it on anymore. No lights, no nothing. When googling for more info i found out that very many people encountered the same problem.
        Qnap did extend the warenty on this nas from 2 years to 3 years witch i am glad they did because my nas was just over 2 years old. Qnap did replace the motherboard of the nas. Now it does work ok.
        Samsung also did replace my 970 Evo drives. I had 5 years waranty on theese drives.
        I think because the mvme cashe-drives wheere SOOOO HOT i think that could be a reason the motherboard did die after 2 years. Also cashedrives are being written very often constantly. I think that it will shorten the lifespan of theese mvme drives very quick.
        So for me NO mvme cashedrives anymore.
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      39. In my TVS-672N i had installed 2 Samsung 970 Evo mvme drives as cashe installed. They were supported acording the compatibility list from Qnap for this nas.
        After 2 years both drives did die. Theese drives get VERY!!! HOT. I did know that so i installed big heatsinks on both drives but still they get VERY!!! HOT.
        At the same time the nas did die. After shutting the nas off i could not turn it on anymore. No lights, no nothing. When googling for more info i found out that very many people encountered the same problem.
        Qnap did extend the warenty on this nas from 2 years to 3 years witch i am glad they did because my nas was just over 2 years old. Qnap did replace the motherboard of the nas. Now it does work ok.
        Samsung also did replace my 970 Evo drives. I had 5 years waranty on theese drives.
        I think because the mvme cashe-drives wheere SOOOO HOT i think that could be a reason the motherboard did die after 2 years. Also cashedrives are being written very often constantly. I think that it will shorten the lifespan of theese mvme drives very quick.
        So for me NO mvme cashedrives anymore.
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      40. How do I *REMOVE* an application, specifically, ‘SoundsGood? I’ve clicked all over hell and back within App Central, and can find no ‘uninstall’ option for it…!
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      42. Have you (or anybody else) tested this NAS (or any other NAS) with DJI 4k drone video? It runs up to 4k 60fps H.265 at up to 150mbps. I’d like to get one to basically transcode my drone footage to my remote cellphone.
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      43. After seeing this video I expected my new f2-423 to be poor at transcoding 4k. Very pleasantly surprised to have it transcoding 3 4k HDR videos at once… down to 1080 on 3 different devices… and the CPU strolling at about 50%. Amazing performance.
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      44. I don’t understand. It says N5105/N5095 – Where do you actually pick which CPU you want? Also why can’t I find out which NICs these are. I’m interested in the 2.5gbe model but only if it’s an intel i226..
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      49. Recently set up a NAS and thought it was a great idea to use the plex application on the NAS and immediately regretted that decision. Basically the processor is too weak to do the kind of transcoding that is necessary for my use, and keeps the processor constantly pegged at 100% for watching 1 4K hdr video.

        Switched plex to be installed on a Ubuntu server with an RTX graphics card and mount the NAS shares for the library and its way better. The only reason to use the NAS server to run plex is if you don’t have another capable, stationary computer on your network. Literally any other computer is probably better.
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      50. I’ve found that when I experience weird troubles with PLEX server, I restart the machine, make sure Windows is updated, make sure my video drive is updated, update the server to the latest version, update the client to the latest version. Restart the machine again.
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      53. So has the 100% CPU issue been fixed with the later OS upgrades? This seems remarkably poor compared to the Synology drives using the older CPUs and less RAM? Also, why when these were played back did Plex not show the video transcoding info line under the movie like it does on all the other NAS/Plex server test videos?
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      54. 1) NAS – is just storage device, what i7/Xeox are you talking about? If collecting TVs with different resolution is somebody’s hobby – just use $20 Android based TV box instead of purchasing 20x times expensive NAS,
        2) it’s impossible to hear noise from NAS in the farthest closet. Wireless interface inside TV is enough (WiFi5 – for 1080p, WiFi6 – for 2160p and 4320p) in most cases, and for spacious estates there’re WiFi extenders,
        3) don’t tell my NAS about that, because it has 512 MB RAM (Plex utilizes less than 1/4 of it), and doesn’t realize that this can’t be done,
        4) converting/transcoding – is client device’s task. Plex has no issue with direct streaming of supported H.264 & H.265 (30 fps/8 bit). If the device is used only for storing and viewing video, it is obvious that it is more economically profitable to convert all the video ONCE into a single format than to warm the house with Xeons every time during transcoding,
        5) instead of a bunch of words: if you wanna access your Plex library with Plex client from the outside and/or you need to manage clients access – subscribe on Pass,
        6) simply think about NAS’ HDMI as management tool for initial setup,
        7) it is a mistake to think that by purchasing expensive NAS with hardware transcoding acceleration, you will be able to use this acceleration without purchasing Pass subscription,
        8) a very realistic fairy tale, but there is a setting to access local Plex for both uses (listening & managing) when offline called ‘List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth’, and DLNA as backup for AppleTV. It’s clear, that you’ll not get pictures & descriptions update, but everything that was downloaded before the Internet was turned off will remain available in the same form.
        Summing up: don’t mix NAS with media station and video editing workstation. If you just need to watch cinemas on your TVs & mobile device, it will be more comfortable pay for multiple subscriptions of popular streaming services instead of purchasing and configuring some powerfull NAS with drives.
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      56. i’d rephrase this very interesting video as “8 ways brands mislead their users”. People spend their hard earned money on stuff when is marketed a certain way and then companies drops some codecs or some software, false marketing products and then we re really here blaming people in the first place ? Cmon.
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      57. I´m in a dilemma of choosing this QNAP TS-464 NAS or should i buy the ASUSTOR AS1104T I would be mostly using it for streaming media to my smart tv ,witch one would be the choice?
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      58. Great video!

        Noobie question 1: Can this be run solely using SSD’s? I’m not a fan of noisey hardware.
        Noobie question 2: Heat. Will the ssd’s need individual thermal pads and heatsinks?
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      59. how many people are watching fricken videos on their phone and flipping out if it buffers?All Synology NAS work fine, like my old 220+ for my needs, no buffering or stuttering and remote play just as seamless and now my 1522+…. could you seriously get off this topic already? 

        ….there seriously tens of thousands of people using their NAS to share their library and expecting 10 for more simultaneous transcoding streams to all their kids or friends or…. customers? it’s lunacy to see all the complaints about this one feature not being optimized with their choice of a new CPU which frankly is so much faster and efficient on every other task I use my NAS for like video and photo editing on the fly, backing up and accessing Synologydrive, music streaming and everything else. And no problem playing and I guess transcoding a stream when needed. My god y’al seem obsessed with being able to have multiple transcoding streams at once, and who needs that? someone who needs to get a life I imagine
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      60. Hi nice informative video. have anyone got experience in running Moodle on ADM? I am trying to run Moodle for a small school. I got it running ok locally, but how do I make it accessible on the internet?
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      61. This products does not include DLNA server. The Multimediia Console does not work. I tried to setup this NAS to backup my music from my Naim HDX music server but I was unable to do this because it does have a proper DLNA server. This NAS was totally useless for me. For the price I paid, I think it’s ridiculous that it does not have a proper DLNA server.
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      62. Thank you for unpacking and the work you do.
        I would very much like to see your video in the F4-423 vs F4-223 comparison format. Why does TerraMaster separate them and make different prices for them??
        Not necessarily full-scale, but something in the format of 15-20 minutes would be great.
        Thank you in advance.
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      63. I know I’m late to this video, hoping someone can help. I have the qnap ts-464. Have installed a Jellyfin server and cannot get hw transcoding to work properly. Anyone able to help.
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      67. Your channel is pretty neat. I initially took note of your video about migrating away from WD nas, because i have decided to do that for a variety of reasons. Ive been looking at Synology, but also asustor especially the AS6704T. I want to migrate toward solid state, but also incorporate hdd’s i already have. Id like to pull the two WD 4 TB hdds from my wd mycloud ex2 ultra and install in a new NAS, and preserve the data. Is that sensible? Current ex2ultra must be using them in some kind of RAID array. Will asustor or indeed any new nas have the abilty to set up these drives in a suitable RAID configuration and preseve the data?
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      68. I use T-Mobile wireless internet which does not have Port Forwarding. I do not have issues with streaming but, If I use the paid Plex Pass services will I be able to use all the functionality of the service without Port Forwarding?
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      70. Hello,
        I am currently using an older Synology NAS. Can a BTRFS formatted Synology HD be read directly by the Asustor NAS by swapping the HDs? Or do I have to go thru a cumbersome file transfer?
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      72. I don’t agree wıth HEVC comments. If we would be talkıng about AV1 then yes. It is a bit of a problem to play natively. But HEVC is very common.
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      73. Add a AMD and Nvidia GPU in there for the heck of it. Perhaps some AV1 testing too even though AV1 is not widely supported yet but would be cool over time to see how things change for that codec.
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      74. What about AV1? Also how about adding in vobsub subtitles as well for the transcoding. I always find my synology is ok until vobsub is used then the cpu maxes out
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      75. I have been looking to upgrade from my Buffalo NAS and after watching several of your videos I made up my mind and went with this Asustor. It just came in today so now I’m rewatching your videos to learn more on setting it up for my needs, but I can already say I’m just blown away by how much more user-friendly the system is when compared to my old system. Thanks for putting out such great and informative videos, it helped me make a solid choice.
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      76. Thanks for again a really great review! It made decide to buy one and this is a great piece of hardware. Not the top notch but good for my usage. I’ve setup Xpenology with 4 4TB MX500 SSD’s and it works great! After activating C states in bios I’m idling at 10 watt with 2 2.5gbe connections and a few basic iscsi and smb shares.
        I also put 2 WD blue M.2 2tb as separate volume but the power consumption at idle climbed to 15 watt. As I dont need so fast storage I took these back out. It is quiet and with 24°c room temperature the SSD’s stay around 27-28°c.
        I have 1 negztive point to mention. I tested the speed of each SSD’s via the integrated benchmark tool of DSM and the 2 first disks give expected speed of 500+ mb/s, but disk 3 and 4 are only reaching 350mb/s. I have no clue why.
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      78. I am looking at buying one of these Asustor AS6704T units soon. To replace a Synology 2-Bay to go RAID10. I like the looks and features of the Asustor better than the equivalent Synology.
        I have two brand new WD Black 1TB NVMe that I can use for cache. The btrfs is a nice feature to guard against bit-rot. I use the NAS as one of four backups as its only purpose.
        I have for years been watching the TrueNAS forums and pricing out ITX Server systems, and I just can’t get anywhere near the price of the NAS boxes or the features.
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      80. Watching the CPU work hard (40% usage) during some of those tests and practically 0% CPU usage during other sections leads me to believe that what you’re actually testing is Plex pulling from its transcode cache and that doesn’t seem like a very useful test. Did you clear the transcode cache before each run? Streaming a pre-transcoded file to the web client is just a matter of network bandwidth.
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      82. THE ONE TRUE NAS to rule them all. But if I ever decide to buy it, it’d go all the way and get the i9 version. Then again, that’s probably never going to happen. Lol. BUT, I CAN see a point in the future when I might…: You see, I own an iMacPro (2017) 27”. Paid top dollar for it. $5,000. When the iMacPro ages enough or gives up on me, then I might decide to replace it with a cheapo client attached to one of these running VMs. Maybe. Tks for the video.
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      83. Just got this and am curious for editing large video files (mostly), storage and back up, and faster speeds, and access when out of town to edit my files…what else would you recommend me getting to add on to it? From what I researched, more RAM(?), at least one M.2 SSD Nvme card, and also the 10 Gbe NIC card…does this sound right (knowing I can add more on as I go)? I have two 20TB Seagate Ironwolf Pros as well. Thanks for the input…I’m new to using a NAS!
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      85. I’ve had one of these in my Amazon basket for a while – waiting until the right time. Now it’s the right time and all the 4-bay Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 AS6704T models seems to have disappeared from existence – typical! Can’t find them on any of your affiliate sites or more generally ‘out there’. Hope there isn’t an issue as I earmarked this after watching a number of your reviews (thank you!). It is certainly time for me to upgrade my Netgear RND312 (which to be fair has served me well…) – hopefully they will re-appear soon…
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      87. I’m thinking of getting this, but I wanted to know more about the ram upgrades on this and if the round is proprietary like Synology or can you use outside ram and NVME’s?
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      88. Dear Friend, First of all, thanks for the amazing review! I’ve bought a TVS-h874-i9 and i see there are some GPU that i can istall on it. My question is if there are other “new” GPUs that i can install on the TVS-h874. I was interested on the MSI GTX 1650 LP .
        Thanks a lot for your attention 🙂
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      89. I just received my TVS-h874 yesterday! I am coming from synology. I have a 920+ and 1821+. Synology has decided to “design out” multimedia Plex users as the 920+ was the last good Plex NAS from them for that purpose. THIS THING IS A BEAST!!!!!!!!!!!!! Intel UHD 770 FTW!!!! On a semi related note, I have a 920+ and 1821+ for sale.
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      90. I have just purchased an Orange pi5 to be used solely as a Plex Server. It has a Rockchip RK3588S 8 core 64bit Processor and 8GB Ram and says it supports 8K video codec, what i want to know is would this cpu work well with a NAS? Operating system i am using Ubuntu on a NVMe. Thanks
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      91. any update on the TOS support to applications?… I hear its not great… Thinking about the TrueNAS Scale that you did a review on… I’m still waffling between TOS and Scale..
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      95. Would maxing to 32gb the ram help with encoding of media? is my memory play tricks but i sort of remember wayback when you could allocate more system ram to the cpu graphics in the bios win95/win98 timeframe.
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      96. If I bought the TVS H874, would I be able to stream full 4K Dolby vision films with 50-100bit rate from plex. 2 accounts using it remotely. What sort of upload and download speed would I need to make this achievable? Or anything else is need?
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      98. Considering the 6-bay as an upgrade for my aging Drobo 5N. I’m a huge fan of these apps, whether 1st- or 3rd-party, because while I’m a programmer, I am NOT a Linux guy. And Docker is even supported here.
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      100. I finally got this excellent baby after following your reviews for over a year. However I am still stumped on how to set up a Virtual Switch to allow a direct Cat 6 connection between the NAS and my PC which has a 2.5 Gbe. I believe Qnap has this function.
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      105. I’ve had Plex for around 5 years now, and in that time, I have yet to find a single device that doesn’t support native h265 support. Almost all my media is in h265 to save space, and the only transcoding I’ve seen is when someone doesn’t change the Plex app’s default to 720p for remote plays. I tell them to adjust the settings to original for remote streams, and no more transcoding. (2Gbps internet upload, so no buffering either)
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      107. That test at the start to show power needs to go. Two vms sitting completely idle, and two video streams with deciding happening on your pc gpu is basically just a test of sending the same file to the same place twice. A raspberry pi should be able to pass this test.
        Not saying it’s not a capable Nas, just that the test has to go.
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      110. I have heard security is not great, also someone said on Amazon that he has found a public website running on the box as well as the management console ? Can anyone verify ?
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      111. I think i might be getting Asustor LOCKERSTOR 4 Gen2 AS6704 for £619 and 2 x Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB NAS for £265 each or would i be better getingf the 6 bay for £200 more with 8 gb memory
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      113. so what i got from your notes on noise there wouldn’t be much difference between this and a DS220+?

        using 2 8TB WD Red Plus (5640rpm) in raid 1 and I was kinda shocked (coming from 1 4TB WD Red Pro) at how loud these drives were in the ds220+ was wondering if it was the…imo crappy cage amplifying the vibrations tried almost everything but it really would give my old 300GB WD Velociraptors in raid 0 or my 4TB WD Black a run for there money in the noise department…almost curious just how loud this thing would be if I went with 7200rpm drives >.>
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      114. my guy plays 36 files but not even one HDR video — im plex pass user but so far have not been able to get hardware transcoding for any HDR content. so not sure this 464 is wac or what cus i have all the obvious settings on and software TS 1080 barely works, and forget abt 4k
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      116. The question is, if you buy the low end i5, could you just replace the CPU yourself? Still gut my “old” i9 12900k after I upgraded to 13th gen and I´m in the process to invest in a new NAS and the H874 is on my short list.
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      118. Fantastic overview. This looks like one of the best 4 Bay NAS options available today (I know software isn’t as refined as others though).

        The only thing holding me back is the SSD setup. It’s a pain that 10GBE would only be available by removing the SSDs. Would love to know if a combined SSD/Network card is compatible.

        Kevin
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      123. I wrote customer service and they said they enabled 3rd party ram now 🙂 They said you just need to update to TOS 5 or 5.1? I hope to get this model now that it’s not ram locked. About damn time.
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      124. This video is exactly what I needed as I am looking to set up a home media server for my family–which will need multiple 1080p streams and 4k in the near future. Alost every device in my house is Apple based (MacBooks, iPhones, iPads). So I am wondering how Apple compatible this unit is?
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      126. you can shut up, they took my money ;-). Pulled the trigger and ordered the I5 version. It is going to be overkill for my needs now, but will be able to handle anything I need for years to come. Great- long but great – review. I love your channel. Always great info, understandable for the likes of me that have limited understanding of IT and networking.
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      127. Nice one! Never been an owner of QNAP still, as I was always thinking the CPUs were way too weak to power VMs (coming from the Enterprise level with huge NetApp, EMC, Oracle and other powerful SAN-Storage brands), but now it seems the game is changing! That opens the door for smooth inline source-side block base depulication! …and true, indeed logic about the higher fan noise on that new range, as there is obviously never smoke without fire. 🙂
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      130. Stupid question, but is there a noticable speed benefit to installing to nvme over hdd?
        Thanks for the informative video – very helpful in my decision making (deciding between Qnap TS-464 and this, coming from TrueNAS)
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      131. While I appreciate your test, i don’t trust the browser and it’s capabilities. A better test would be to stream from an Nvidia Shield Pro and see if the results are some. Thanks for the great content. Appreciate it
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      132. Just come across your channel as my HDDs pretty much failed in my Netgear RN312 (which has served me well to be fair) – so thought, why not look to upgrade it all! Like your presentation and the detail – you’ve just taken about 8 hours of my life and I only found you about 3 days ago (but that’s good ????). My question to you if you’d accept it – I’ve watched you review of this and the Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 – I’m going to have RAID 5 most likely across 4x8TB Ironwolf Pro drives (the new NT version) – which one would you choose if the cash is not the factor (I liked the TS-453D and TS-464 as well but don’t think they are the ones). Mostly about file protection and eventually YouTube video creation and photography with Lightroom. Appreciate your content.
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      134. Robbie – any idea who will be selling the i9 version? I can only find the i5 on UK websites. There are two websites in the USA selling so may have to purchase there and ship back to the UK
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      135. It’s great that these days we’re talking about 10Gb speeds. But the reality is, most homes that might use a shared NAS for bulk storage are accessing it over Wi-Fi. Sure, for a few lucky ones, this NAS server could be located right next to a dedicated desktop PC plugged into a dedicated 10Gb Ethernet jack. Still, for all the other devices in the home, in all the other rooms, including the TV/Media area, data transfer will be dropped by more than a factor of 10. As of today, even if folks are lucky enough to own one of the fastest Wi-Fi mesh routers w/ satellites (such as the latest Orbi units) they’re still only running at dual channel 5GHz speeds of 1200 + 2400 Mbps. Far less than 10Gb. So…. I’m not quite sure what the attraction is to these hyper fast network speeds unless you have stuff plugged directly into it, which is not practical for “whole-home” use.
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      136. Just picked up this as my first nas. Loading it out with 4 16tb drives and 2 1TB m.2 drives. Might run it with Qtier. Or just might use the SSDs as cache. Haven’t decided yet.
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      137. Just got a replacement TS-464.
        The first one I had for 3 hours before it didn’t see any drive I popped in it anymore. Sent that back to B&H Photo for a replacement. Now that everything has migrated over to the new one, I have Plex, Some extra RAM, and a bunch of other stuff running on it, It’s handling my Plex library like a dream. I was running on a Nuc8i5 plus a QNAP that did not do any video work. Gotta say I’m impressed so far, especially for the price. I’m still trying to break the mentality of Celeron = Bad and this is helping so far.

        I would say the issue you had was likely just Plex being Plex. I always have some weird playback issues, especially on my Apple TV and a friend’s roku where it just decides to hang up for seemingly no reason. Or if I have a video paused for a while, or if i need to skip around, it plays a few seconds and just stops. When that happens I have to close out of the plex app and reopen it and it acts like nothing happens.
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      138. would be ideal if you would show how to upgrade the RAM inside of the 6704T, the chip that is inside, not the easy access one. I havent found a video showing how to get at the chip on the front of the MB, only the simple easy one on the back.
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      139. What I’m not seeing is whether this is actually transcoding. Just because it’s playing doesn’t mean it’s transcoding. If you’re playing from a recent PC, it likely can play these natively. This would mean you’re either direct playing or direct streaming. You need to be showing the top of the dashboard, where it indicates HOW it’s being played. You could be only transcoding audio at this point…
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      141. This memory issue seems to be a dirty industry practice to make it seem like they aren’t screwing over their customers by selling their units with a low amount of slow memory. If you Google the spec sheet for the processor, it says Max Memory Size 16GB. A few lines below that it says Max # of Memory Channels 2. It also say that it runs at 2933mhz. So they are basically giving us a small amount of slow memory and using deceptive marketing tactics to cover it up. Synology is guilty of the same thing. My DS1821+ was the same way. slow memory. Synology says max was 32GB total. The processor and the board said 32GB x 2 as does the processor spec sheet.
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      145. Has anyone thought about adding a SilverStone Technology FX600 to the TVS-h874 and then installing a powerful video card? Ideally I’m looking at a Plex Media Server and Gaming System All In One for the living room.
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      146. Put a sticker with the purchase date on the hdd, then x many years down the line, you know when the warranty runs out and time to get a new one.

        I would rather they save on the brown box and not save on putting cheap hardware in.

        I like the look it’s more unique than the others but would look funny in my rack lol.
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      148. Touching on transcoding and Plex pass, have I interpreted it fought that if I don’t pay for Plex pass, the benefit of the Celeron over the Ryzen is irrelevant?!
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      150. I’m still very new to the NAS space, but I’ve been slowly upgrading my system for about 2 years now, I built it for cheap and it’s been running excellently.

        -I used my first gaming PC, AMD a10-5800K. It’s an unimpressive processor but has pretty decent graphics for the age. That’s paired with my 16gb of ram from the same machine.
        -I went with a corsair carbide 100R case (old PC cases are your friend. They’re cheap and have lots of drive bays).
        -I got a 700W bronze power supply (wildly exceeds my power consumption needs, but it’s very efficient and has plenty of power for drives at a low cost)
        -For storage, I bought 3x 3TB WD red drives running in RAIDZ, and an old 2TB for extra storage of non-critical files. I went with Truenas, which is a bit daunting to work with, but once you’re up and running it’s pretty easy to manage.

        Truenas also supports a direct Plex plugin, which took all of 5 minutes to set up. My process now is ripping DVD’s directly to my NAS using an SMB share.

        All in, I think I spent less than $300 for the whole system using my old parts. I couldn’t put it in a closet or attic, so it’s in my dining room. By selecting a case with a lot of fans and good noise dampening, I’ve managed a quiet hum from the system. you can hear it’s there if you listen for it, but it’s quieter than my AC or a house fan.

        If you’re interested in getting a NAS and using plex, my main advice is to view it as a project and a learning experience. It will take time, you will feel out of your depth, and you will have a lot to learn. But, at the end of the day you’re learning a lot of valuable skills, owning your media, and you can venture into other projects like running your own VPN, game servers, and lots of other projects.
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      151. Would you still recommend gen 1 for 2023 purchase? Will the software get updated down the road? I’m finding some at great prices locally.
        Need to emphasize one of the use cases will be Plex Media Server with max 2 streams at any moment.
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      152. 1:14 1:CPU VS Graphics. The right CPU isn’t always powerful. GHZ/Cores
        2:14 2:Ambient noise and distance. The “bigger” the NAS the higher the potential volume
        04:12 3:Future proofing your memory. 2gig min. 4gb recommended. 8gig ideal.
        06:44 4:HVec/H.265 multimedia will very rarely play natively. Needs conversion
        12:18 5:Plex Pass do you really need it? pros and cons before you buy.
        14:56 6:HDMI NAS & plex issues in 2021 Nowhere near as simple/supported anymore
        16:55 7: Transcoding and do you really need it? Are you spending money on a feature you’ll never use/need?
        20:38 8: Plex media server internet connectivity. Plex still needs intermittent internet access.
        ADDED BY ME 9:Using the right NAS HDD. Use a hard drive rated for NAS usage and not just an off the shelf computer hard drive. Spend a little extra now and your plex will last longer.
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      153. Is there a limit of length of cables between the NAS and TV’s or Laptop/computer, where length MAYBE will lower the throughput between the units? And if storing the NAS in an enclosed drawer/cabinet where maybe the heat can’t get away easier, can that temperature be to high for the NAS so you’ll have to install a fan to extract the heat from that cabinet?
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      154. This video is so underrated. Answered exactly the issue I was battling. Going with TS-453E-8G based off the 253 recommendation. thank you so much! Also, subbed????!
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      155. I’m considering the AS6706T at some point in the future if I can justify it. I have a Synology DS918+ in RAID 10 with four WD Red 12 TB drives in RAID 10 at the moment, but one of those drives just died a couple months ago, and while I replaced it, I’m now paranoid about the other three… but I don’t want to mix and match drives. So while I’m not exactly hurting for capacity, I’m kind of using it as one justification for an upgrade, as I could then reinitialize the Synology in RAID 5 and use it as an on-site backup, I guess.

        The AS6706T seems the way to go IMO as it comes with the 8 GB RAM in the internal slot standard – meaning you don’t have to take the whole damn thing apart to upgrade to 16 GB RAM – and it also has an internal power supply, because I absolutely hate power bricks and wall warts in terms of cable management.

        The trouble is, I can’t really justify it at the moment because:
        1. I don’t really have a good place to put it – particularly if it’s going to be louder than the DS918+ (and I’m assuming most of the noise would come from using Seagate 20 TB Iron Wolf Pros, which are 7200 RPM and much denser compared to my four WD Red 12 TB drives, which are 5400 RPM)
        2. My network is only 1 Gbps at the moment. Just as I don’t really have place on my desk for another NAS, I don’t have a place on my desk for a 2.5 Gbps / 10 Gbps switch, and my house is not wired for ethernet.

        Ideally, I’d put a rack in the basement and get the house wired for ethernet with a patch panel, then put in a rack router and use PoE 10 Gbps switch and APs, then I could put the NAS anywhere I damn well wanted and just run a cable to it, but that’s harder to justify than the NAS.
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      156. Thanks for the PLEX review. It’s what we.mainly use our TVS-872X for.
        I’m very annoyed on the lack of the 10Gbe on the i7/i9 models without having to spend more $$$, and, and, use up a precious slot. I was looking to upgrade just because I’ would’ve liked to have the latest version of the TVS-h87x-i7 model and am sure I’m not alone on this, but QNAP’s sales dept just gets in their own way out of greed, in my humble opinion.
        PS: I’m a current owner of the QNAP TVS-872X-i7 with 32GB RAM with onboard native 10Gbe.
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      158. Would be nice if the tests included subtitles on/off as well. My TS-453D can stream and convert 60 mbps 4K 7.1 TrueHD as well, but if PGS subtitles are enabled it’s game over.
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      159. I wonder why your CPU says up to 4400mhz and mine says up to 3200mhz. I just purchased this model. Same processor. Only thing different is the firmware version I’m on a later one.
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      160. Truly the king of NAS… but at that price point I feel like you could probably get a used Supermicro rack chassis and probably build something more powerful, then put TrueNAS Scale on it and end up with something much better.
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      163. Beyond NAS, do you think I could use this product to spin a small windows vm unfortunatedly some things i need require windows only programs (ms office modules). Having this running in a VM in a nas would make more sense than having a stand alone small machine.
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      164. I have everything on a network rack in a separate area, so noise is not an issue. I have two servers running Proxmox. I use one of them for both Plex and OMV, but they are VM’s.

        I wanted both the OMV and Plex to be on the same “physical” server instead of trying to read video files from a separate server, but I didn’t consider the transcoding. I was more concerned with having the source files (OMV) and the plex server on the same physical server to avoid network congestion. I also split the libraries onto separate drives, so that multiple user may not even be using the same drive. For example, Moves 1, Movies 2, TV Shows, Kid Movies, all on separate physical hard drives. All of them are backed up too.

        If I put Plex on a dedicated phsycial intel system, and the video libraries are still on the separate OMV server, will it still be better because of the hardware transcoding? Which is worse? Multiple viewers streaming over 1gig or this lack of hardware transcoding?

        I’d love to upgrade to 10gig between the two servers but it’s just not in the budget right now.
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      165. Nice review, thanks!
        I have bought the smaller 4 bays version (TVS-H474). I would love to upgrade the CPU (Pentium Gold G7400) to an Intel Core. Looking at your video, it looks like this is the exact same cooling system you have with your much more powerfull Intel Core i5-12400. Therefore I have the feeling my unit would be able to cool down the same CPU but I might be wrong. How were your CPU temps under heavy load? How fast was the very little fan spinning under these conditions? I am afraid this upgrade would turn my NAS into an airport. Thank you!
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      168. Robbie, you really need to get over your obsession with plastic and foam in packaged products. Most reputable manufacturers are moving to paper/cardboard packing, as it helps prevent plastic waste gushing out into our biosphere. Plastic recycling is a myth. Proper packaging techniques (double-boxing, molded pulp inner frames, etc.) help protect products during shipment. Same goes for metal vs. plastic enclosures. Metal is readily recyclable. If a device is noisy as a result, then the manufacturer needs to take steps to dampen sound. Help your viewers become responsible citizens of the planet.
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      169. it would be great if you dig into the tvs-h474 just because of how different it is. I think a lot of users would be trying to decide between that and the tvs-472xt, especially us creators who want to edit off of it but might be wanting scalability because their creative studios may grow
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      170. Great video! I wanted to know if the 4SSD bay can be used to store parity for raid 6. Let’s say I want to use 4x4TB spin drive and 2x2TB m.2 SSD to achieve 5x4TB raid 6? and use the 2 remaining m.2 for caching?
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      171. A quick question.. with Asustor supporting BRTFS. is it using the brtfs raid or is it the old trusty mdadm with just btrfs as a filesystem on top of it? thinking about the RAID 5/6 issues with the btrfs raid..
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      173. I’ve had a Synology 920+ for over 2 years. Wanted a newer model for my house but looking at Synology’s line up I can’t help but feel they are locking many features out of their lower end models and for what gain? I love DSM 7, it’s rock solid with the occasional SMB service stopping and needs a reboot. The software is mature. However 1 GbE feels extremely dated and to see it on their higher priced models makes me laugh a little. There’s a spare M.2 slot on my 920+ which I can’t even use for storage? While the Lockerstor can, heck the 10 bay model has two 10GbE ports future proofing the thing by alot. Some of Synology’s newer models 923+ don’t havea GPU either, occasional transcode or VM hw acceleration goes along way. Torn at the moment. Asustor looks extremely tempting, when the time comes if their software has mutured I think it’ll be a no brainer. Not to mention the endless possibilities of Gen2 USB like maybe running an external GPU? Amazing stuff from Asustor and I could soon be a customer when the price drops a little more.
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      175. Can I use any type of thunderbolt cards or anything to connect to my with just thunderbolt. I see the 2.5, 5, and 10gbe adapters but I dont want to use them if I dont have to
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      178. Maybe a noob question, but why does the System Ram (Plex Graphs)always show near 100%? I noticed it also on the earlier Plex tests video for this Qnap TVS-h874. Other tests for different units showed the Ram not being maxed out.
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      183. Instead of buying a new NAS, I’m thinking of buying a NUC 12 to support my DS2413 (yep, still kicking). Does anybody know if the integrated graphics in NUC 12 is the same as the desktop variant?
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      186. SUGGESTION: This is a bit off-the-wall, but perhaps you could do a video on using a phone as a NAS. My NAS recently died, and while trying to figure out what to do with the data stored on it (that’s all we used it for — archival and secondary storage), I realized we had these new-fangled phones with 128GB of storage (each) sitting on the network. So, I copied the essential data back to a folder on our computer, used (use) Robocopy to backup any new data from our computers to that folder, and Syncthing to keep that folder automatically synced to the phones. All my sensitive data is already encrypted (hopefully) as are the phones, themselves. So, we should be ok if the phones fall into the wrong hands. My normal backups of the computers should handle backups of the synced phone data (since the data is still on the computers). It’s not the fastest storage in the world, it requires space on the computer drives, and I doubt someone could decently run using either apps or data from the phones. But, it seems like a decent use of storage that was sitting unused and already connected to the network.
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      187. Another great video! On my ipad and tv, i notice the videos are stuttering a bit. If I installed this nas on my network, would the stuttering appear on my 4k tv (with or without hevc native on the tv), or is this a you tube driven issue?
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      190. I have recently installed a TVS-h874 with 8 18TB HDDs and 2 2TBNVME, with similar read speeds to your install in the video (Raid 5 or 6 tested) for individual drives, however, the true transfer speed to the shared folders is 25MB/s write and 275MB/s read. The write speed is very slow without SSDs in QTier to help. Thus, this device has all this power to process data, but is very slow at moving it around if using HDDs. I may have to revert to QTS versus QuTS Hero to see if QTier helps improve the transfer speeds.
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      198. Thank you for a very comprehensive and albeit a long video, but you covered so much material in that time.

        I watched it as I wondered if it would have been a better choice to my TS-h1290FX.

        Fully agree with you about the open architecture and software on the QNAP NASs, that to me is a huge plus and the reason I went for QNAP 11 years ago, and my old 659 Pro NAS is still running now; I’ve also found their products to be extremely reliable.

        You mention the h874 is noisy. Ironwolf Pro 14TB drives are very very noisy, I’m using 8 x 7.68TB U2 NVMe drives in mine, and it is very very quiet. I agree QNAP were penny-pinching with only providing 2.5Gb NICs, I’m using a dual 10Gb card with PiHole and that gives me 20Gb bandwidth and editing 4k video on the fly is instantaneous.

        My 7.68TB NVMes do not get hot like the stick ones; I checked the SR of one of mine in a RAID 6 and I got 2.8GB! Plenty fast enough for gen 3 NVMes!

        You mentioned Plex, I just use the inbuilt DLNA server and somehow ISO blu-ray and DVD images transcode and play flawlessly on local TVs via the LAN. I really struggled with Plex, so I let local devices including TVs just navigate the folders to play the ISOs or video files. I have no use for HDMI sockets (mine does not have one).

        You didn’t mention QPhoto is not available on QuTS hero so tagging of photos can’t be done locally, but the tags can be analysed by QuMagie; the solution to this is tag on a QTS NAS and copy them over; I’ll be semi-automating this process soon on our system soon.

        QVR Pro is plenty good enough for me, don’t need QVR Elite, but it needs more horse than a TS-873; mine now runs well on a TVS-EC1080+.

        I’ve not sure how you get QNAP Club, I don’t see that on mine.

        Also noticed you use Classic Start Menu too; I do on my 64GB Win 11 Pro machine; I’ve used that ever since Windows 7!

        Thanks again for a very complete, informative and comprehensive video, much appreciated. I made the right decision for our needs.
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      200. @NASCompares What is the source of most of the noise? Drives or fans? Without giving much away how less noisy is the QNAP TVS-h674? Also, sorry you didn’t demonstrate or go more into add in cards. For example is an add-in GTX 1650 better than the onboard CPU or GPU re Plex?
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      201. A top review! And the device is actually top-notch. If it weren’t for QNAP’s unspeakable licensing policy with QTS Hero. Here there is only QVR Elite for camera monitoring, which you have to buy through expensive monthly additional subscriptions. A NOGO for me. Overall, QNAP is going completely in the wrong direction with its camera monitoring solution and licensing. This should be included in the price of such an expensive product. I look forward to the next tests of the device.
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      202. awesome, i knew you would like it, i love it, i bought the 6 bay i5 [8 including SSDs] been waiting for this review, think I would cry if you didn’t rate it, think this range will have some following maybe reaching cult status, it is a paradigm shift, have you seen the guy who modded/cut in a Quadro P2000 GPU, search YT, upgrading my network now, really interested in any future content, it is expensive and like a comment on here already there is always an argument to build your own, I could have done that but it just works no faffing about and you get a 3 year warranty now, plus optional 2 year extension……
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      203. I was going to bin my little old TS-453D because I couldn’t run Proxmox without using a USB drive. After a year of utter frustration, I just discovered that I can indeed boot from the two drives on the RHS nearest the power switch. I wish someone had posted this info somewhere that google search could find (ie; not here).
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      204. Great video!! I like very much how thorough it is. One thing that I would love is if you mentioned how to attach the unit directly to a PC ( I know you have a previous video about that) and how to configure the static IP addresses on both.
        One question. Do you have any information about price and availability of the i7 and i9 chips models? They are mentioned on QNAP’s website briefly, but there are impossible to find anywhere else on the internet.
        Also it would be fantastic if you can actually test performance transfer rates with different configurations.
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      206. Any idea why, if we decide to use Google pay to say thanks, they charge tax ? And thank you very much for the non-stop education. And just to prove that I haven’t missed a single lesson… ROOTER, ROOTER, ROOTER…
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      208. Thank you! I was looking forward for a Qnap TVS hx74 review for a while. ????
        Just strange, at Qnap Germany you can find currenty no i7 nor i9 variant of it.
        Only h674 i3, h674 i5 and the h874 i5 are shown on Qnap Germany…
        Hope the other variants will be available in Germany too ????
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      212. I have my NEW QNAP TVS-H874 NAS sitting here next to me to be put together and set-up! So glad you did this. I will watch it soon and set up my FIRST NAS! THANKS!
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      213. Very nice array indeed. But a bit too overpriced. I decided to check quickly for prices of components to build DIY SAN/NAS appliance. Without disks we can build solutions for nearly 50% of qnap price, and it’s all built using brand new components. I don’t think qnap software is worth additional 2000€. There’s no doubt it’s very convenient package to just plug and play, but if someone was to put a bit of effort (assuming necessary hardware/software skills) into building it themselves, they can save bucks.

        Intel Core i5-12400 – 200€
        Motherboard ASRock Z790 STEEL LEGEND – 340€ (3 * PCIe4.0 x16)
        Kingston Fury Beast Black 32GB DDR5 RAM = 150 * 2 = 300€ (for 64GB RAM)
        Lenovo ISG TS Intel X550-T2 Dual Port 10GBase-T Adapter = 700€ (could pick up used card from ebay for less than 200€)
        Phantek enthoo pro eATX case (6 internal 3.5 disk bays) = 150€
        ToughArmor MB608SP-B Rugged 6 x 2.5″ SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Mobile Rack Enclosure for 5.25″ Bay = 170€
        LSI 9300-16i SATA/SAS HBA (used from ebay, PCIe 3.0) = 300€
        SAS cabling = 100€

        Hardware total cost (without disks): 2260€

        Hardware total cost without disks (with used dual 10Gb NIC): 1760€

        Disks:

        Seagate IronWolf Pro ST14000NE0008 14TB = 370€ x 6 = 2220€
        SSD 2TB disk (consumer-grade) = 200€ x 6 = 1200€

        Total cost with disks: 5680€

        Total cost with disks (used 10Gb NIC): 5180€
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      214. Very nice array indeed. But a bit too overpriced. I decided to check quickly for prices of components to build DIY SAN/NAS appliance. Without disks we can build solutions for nearly 50% of qnap price, and it’s all built using brand new components. I don’t think qnap software is worth additional 2000€. There’s no doubt it’s very convenient package to just plug and play, but if someone was to put a bit of effort (assuming necessary hardware/software skills) into building it themselves, they can save bucks.

        Intel Core i5-12400 – 200€
        Motherboard ASRock Z790 STEEL LEGEND – 340€ (3 * PCIe4.0 x16)
        Kingston Fury Beast Black 32GB DDR5 RAM = 150 * 2 = 300€ (for 64GB RAM)
        Lenovo ISG TS Intel X550-T2 Dual Port 10GBase-T Adapter = 700€ (could pick up used card from ebay for less than 200€)
        Phantek enthoo pro eATX case (6 internal 3.5 disk bays) = 150€
        ToughArmor MB608SP-B Rugged 6 x 2.5″ SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Mobile Rack Enclosure for 5.25″ Bay = 170€
        LSI 9300-16i SATA/SAS HBA (used from ebay, PCIe 3.0) = 300€
        SAS cabling = 100€

        Hardware total cost (without disks): 2260€

        Hardware total cost without disks (with used dual 10Gb NIC): 1760€

        Disks:

        Seagate IronWolf Pro ST14000NE0008 14TB = 370€ x 6 = 2220€
        SSD 2TB disk (consumer-grade) = 200€ x 6 = 1200€

        Total cost with disks: 5680€

        Total cost with disks (used 10Gb NIC): 5180€
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      215. Amazing review Robbie!! Many thanks for all your efforts in covering everything. If only Synology pumped out a NAS with these specs… ????

        I’ve been on the fence from switching to this exact NAS, (from a DS1621+) but I also have concerns about the UHD graphics not being UHD770. There are several retailers in the US that still show it having the 770. The jump to the i9 version is a lot of $$$.
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      216. Good to see that some brands still know what’s what, and know what to focus on, while others have become a proprietary circus act, defecating all over their customers.
        Btw. the audio/video sync is really out of whack on this one ????
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      221. Just bought the 674 with the i5-12400, but might send it back. When it was announced there the graphics Even for the i5 was the uhd770 but now ist just the uhd730. You can still find pdf with the old Info.
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      222. Hi, this is really a great NAS. Especially you can run other OS on it without losing the QNAP software.
        The SoC has only 8 PCIe Gen3 lanes so they didn’t have much choice in extendability. The split-up is:
        1.) Gen3 x4 for the SATA controller (which is an custom-sized add-on card actually)
        2.) Gen3 x2 for the add-on card slot
        3.) Gen3 x1 for the first M.2 slot
        4.) Gen3 x1 for the second M.2 slot
        Did you test the memory modules? Is it stable with >16GB memory? The SoC should actually support dual-channel 2933Mhz memory.
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      223. *Note* Regarding Length and Sound – Yep, this is a *LOOOOOOOONG* Review. However, for many users working in the Video Production and SMB market, this is likely to be their FIRST NAS after relying on cloud for years and years, so I have to cover *EVERYTHING*, as well as why PCIe4 in NAS is such a big deal! There will be a much, much shorter ‘Before you Buy’ 15min video on the QNAP TVS-874 NAS Soon. Additionally, this is my 2nd attempt at uploading this video and both times, the YT processing seems to dislike the recording (with audio syncing in/out at times). I am in discussion with YouTube over this, as these sync issues are not present in the original production before it was uploaded! Apologies for this and hopefully it will get straightened out soon.
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      224. was undecided between the 6604 and the 6704 to replace my Netgear RN214. went with the 6704 as i thought it was the best option. should receive it next week. a big plus for me was future option to use 10gbe, but now it seems i have to choose either NVME or 10GBe?
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      226. I came across your amazing channel today, Thank you for the good information! I am looking for a 4-6 bay hardware RAID 5 or 6 external enclosure for storage and backup. I was looking at DAS, but I like this Asustor NAS system. Is this Asustor NAS use a hardware level raid controller or does it use internal software to address the drives? As a comparison I was looking at the QNAP TR-004 the Yottamaster FS5RU3, or the Syba SY-ENC50118. Price concern but I rather have better reliability if i can keep the price reasonable. Thanks for any advice in advance
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      227. Thank you for a thoroughly informative review. I own this NAS with 4 Seagate 8TB ea. RAID 5, and upgraded the RAM to 16GB. However there are 3 as of yet unsolved issues for which any advice would be appreciated:
        1. Using Chromebook OS on Asus CX5400, EZsync does not work, it’s for Windows pcs. What’s a good alternative?
        2. Backup App, no option to backup Chromebook to the NAS or even external USB drive. Is there an alternate app?
        3. WOL works using AiData on Android phone. But using the Chromebook WOL using AiData doesn’t work. Other two functions, sleep and power off do work. Asustor Tech Support is trying to resolve this issue.
        Thanks for any advice and for all the informative videos.
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      228. Just a warning for anyone looking to purchase this NAS. According to the terra-master forum, terra-master has disabled support for ALL third party RAM for this model after the TOS 5 update. They are only allowing their “officially supported” RAM modules that just so happen to cost 4-5 times the price of equivalent third party RAM. I just found this out after purchasing the NAS and think I will have to return it. Third party RAM is usable if you install another OS like TrueNas so they are disabling support in their software.
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      229. Question for you guys. Say I wanted to give my friends/family access to my Plex and I’m using a run of the mill Synology or QNAP. How many people could stream from it simultaneously before my NAS can’t handle it anymore?
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      233. Hello Robbie! Really enjoy all of your informative videos and product reviews! You keep it interesting as I enjoy the conversation. Grateful how you guys encourage others to participate in the forum – which gives back to the community.
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      235. Went to look at this and noticed something which you would need to correct in your review. If you upgrade to the 10gb nic then you have to remove the M.2 card. You have to go into the settings and switch from M.2 to PCI 10gb card so the NVME drives can’t saturate the 10gb nic since they can not exist together. Unless you can find a card that does both and maybe get it to work. Love your reviews keep up the excellent work
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      238. Solid information, thank you. I’ve been looking for months and still haven’t made up my mind; but every video you drop fills my head with the information I need to think through my purchase well.
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      239. I went with a 4-bay Asustor NAS based on best value and it works very well for my needs. After owning it 6 months, I learned I did not follow best practices when i set it up to guard against ransomware attacks so I went through the trouble of starting over. Glad I did because those best practices I implemented during setup prevented me from surfing the pain others did when the ransomware attack Deadbolt hit. I was away from town at that time but slept soundly knowing I shored up every vulnerability the attack targeted. I can’t thank NASCompares enough for these type of videos that helped organize my digital life with a NAS.
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      246. What is the problem then? It seems worse than the DS920+, even though it has a better cpu? I don’t understand why it peaked at 100% cpu utlization even on h264 files… its mad…
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      247. @8:07 – @11:15 HEVC just means h.265, it does not mean it is an HDR file. The fact these are 8bit, not 10bit, files should mean it is SDR in rec 709 color space, not HDR with Rec 2020 color. This is going to make a difference in processing power as it is just converting the resolution and audio. With HDR/WCG, it will also have to map the brightness and color and this should take a bit more processing power.
        @14:26 – This is a 10bit file and how badly it struggles vs even the much higher bitrate content probably indicates that it is a HDR file.
        Also note “IMAX” doesn’t mean anything in terms of the file format or content relevant for the test. Just a brand name that usually just means it includes the some or all of the aspect ratio show on IMAX screens theatrically.

        If you really want to test the capabilities of these for folks using it as home server for their movies, I recommend doing tests with actual Blu-ray and UHD blu-ray files. This is what those of us running home media servers of our owned movies do. A few folks will put in the many many hours of effort to transcode movies to lower bitrate but the samples you showed here is good enough to cover the use case for them.
        For both the UHD and standard Blu-ray, I would also have the title ripped with PGS subtitles included and test both with turning that on. The reason this is important is that Plex can’t just display PGS subs, it has to re-encode the entire screen. That shouldn’t make a difference here when you are transcoding on the fly anyway but would be relevant if you were testing Direct Play/Direct Stream functionality.
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      250. What if you only us a Synology NAS for Plex and you want to sleep without hearing HDD noises all night? Is a scheduled power on/off the only option. The fans don’t bother me, but the drive activity does. I’m forced to have the NAS in my bedroom until I rewire the house for networking.
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      251. Im looking for a compatible 10gbe network card for this NAS. Would you be able to provide a model # / link for it? I see Qnap says that QNAP QXG-10G1T is but it’s a PCIe gen3x4 and the ts-464 has a gen3x2. Would that affect the speed?
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      255. I’m looking to update/upgrade my NAS. I use it solely for Plex. I have purchased Plex Pass. What I’m looking for in a NAS is
        The ability to build on the storage, to be able to play 4K content and torecommend,
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      258. Still building out the full scope of my TS-664 but it’s already being used as a Plex server and home surveillance which so far has been stellar in the performance category. Waiting for that video to see if the TS-x64 can be unofficially upgraded past 16GB of memory.
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      259. IMO, for anyone who is wanting long term storage and can play 4k videos you need to build your own NAS. why?

        Not enough drive space.

        Looking at both Synology and QNAP, whether its the 2 or the 4 NAS drive bay devices, it’s just not enough space, especially if you are using RAID meaning at least 1 bay will be a duplicate. So you have to get a high volume HDD which can costs $200-400 per bay. Sure you can use external HDD put I don’t like the idea of buying a full product and then adding externals to it. I’m looking for a NAS that will serve me 5-10 years down the line and I’m assuming other people are wanting the same life span.

        Building your own NAS can check all people check marks: Long lasting, better CPU, better graphics, 2-20 hard drive bays (that’s WAYYYYYYY MORE BAYS), and if something fails you can replace any parts. The space for more drives will more than double or triple the value of any of these 2-4 NAS devices as you won’t have to buy another NAS for at least 5 years (considering you’re not running a company).
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      260. What’s your opinion on the n5105 vs the v1500b? On paper, they are pretty close benchmark-wise. I would be running a tesla p4 so cpu transcode performance doesn’t matter as much.
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      263. Anyone installed the app on mobile phone for this device.?
        I’m trying to do this after following the full guidelines on setup , and for over 24 hrs I’m trying to add to my phone and see the Nas, but can’t login.
        On my Pc and sharing on my network is ok, i can see and connect, but once I’m open my app on phone, i can’t login.
        I’m using my user name and password,but on last option said,, PLEASE INPUT TNAS ADDRESS “. That’s the problem i just can’t understand,what do i need to add there.
        Any help or advice will be really appreciated.

        Thank you
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      265. its not a cpu problem , is a web browser problem ,do the same using plex app and you will notice it work flawless i own the as6604t and it can transcode 3-4 movies from 4k h265 HDR to any format flawless… AT THE SAME TIME
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      266. I enjoyed this video. The five good points were all well made. But frankly I feel you’re clutching at straws if your downsides are that it’s in a plastic chassis or that the extra PCIe slot is only 2 lane when most NASs don’t have one at all. Same with the nvme slots – by the time you include OS overhead on clicks and the fact that you always have to do something else whilst downloading large files even if you’re getting these things delivered by a true file server, in 2022 and over the way Synology doesn’t give you any options on what to do with the slots except use them for cacheing, I think their presence at all is very much better than their absence.

        These days, with the TS-464 only 60 quid or so more expensive than the last generation, it’s an easy choice. Well done for trying to find faults with it and erm… not doing so well! 🙂
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      268. I use a 208 Mac Pro 8 core with 32 gigs of ram and 3 8tb hard drives. the old Mac Pro has 2 Xeon processors in them. i bought it used for pretty cheap. its also alot more quite than a Dell server / NAS. i installed Proxmox virtulization host as the baremetal hypervisor, and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server for the NAS / Plex OS. in the VM i have 4 cores alotted and 16 gigs of ram from the computer to manage the Plex server.
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      269. Plex still hasn’t fixed the lack of hardware transcoding on this processor. Why didn’t the author show the control panel where it is noted what type of transcoding is currently active? This processor can transcode 8 streams with its GPU.
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      271. Dull packaging? Good! I don’t need to be entertained by the box my gear comes in. Entertainment comes after it’s installed. Packaging needs to tell me what’s inside if it’s a spare sitting on the shelf waiting to be used, and protect the stuff inside. That’s it.
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      272. Buy an old enterprise server from ebay or an auction. That’s what I did.

        I got a Dell PowerEdge T430 with dual 8-core Xeon E5-2620v4 2.10GHz, 96GB DDR4, PERC h730 raid controller, 7×1.8TB 10K 2.5″ SAS drives, iDrac8 express, dual PSUs, 2 built in NICs and additional 4 NICs on a PCI board. I added a 10Gb SFP+ card, 256GB SSD for OS and boot and 6x 2tb 2.5″ SATA drives from my old server (+2 new for a total of 8). Both raid volumes are configured as raid6. This thing is a monster and it was cheaper than my Synology 1819+ without drives.
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      275. Thanks for all the helpful content.
        Quick question
        Even though you state it is not noisy.
        Can the fan be swapped for something higher end, maybe a Noctua fan AND is the motherboard PWM adjustable?
        Thanks again for your time and effort
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      278. While HEVC requires more transcoding, HEVC reduced the size of my library by ~2TB which on the backup side (Backblaze B2) saves me over 10$ every month. Compared to those savings the extra power consumption of transcoding with Intel QuickSync is a rounding error.
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      282. the value proposition to me from terramaster, is low cost basic option for NAS. As someone else mentioned who bother’s with the vendor provided apps.
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      283. I am new to all of this, hopefully you can help me out & inform me if I am understanding all this correctly for the reasons why I am wanting to have a NAS in the first place….
        First, I have a massive music video collection (over 15 tb). Spread throughout multiple external hard drives. I am wanting to have all of my music & future digital media all in one location that way I can access it anywhere without any problems streaming it. (I’m basically wanting my own Spotify streaming service with my own music).
        I am thinking on purchasing the Synology
        NAS Diskstation DS1520+ (Diskless), 5 – Bay, 8gb DDR4 from Amazon that is currently priced at 699.99, along with 5 16tb iron wolf SSD’s, (unless there’s another brand that’s better, and I am only mentioning this brand specifically because thats what popped up on Amazon in relation to this NAS)….
        Now from my understanding, this already comes with the memory of 8gb, however I have to purchase my own SSD. From what it looks like in the specs there can be 5× 16tb SSD’s that I can have that totaling 80tb of storage within just this one unit. However I can expand later on down the road if I need up to 15 more bays, which will allow for me to have grand total of 108 tb of total storage space with additional storage bays (ie Synology DX517), later on down the road.

        Is what I have said correct & accurate or am I missing something?
        ….if I missed something on the specs above I found this item on Amazon if you wouldn’t mind checking it out and informing with any inadditional info that I may have misunderstood please!
        Oh and one last thing I also play to purchase the Plex Lifetime Subscription, for the simple fact that it just seems to be the most popular amongst the videos I’ve watched.
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      285. Touching on Plex running native vs Plex in Docker would have been very helpful. Getting the Transcoding working with Plex in a Docker is an arcane art, with the only advantage being that it restarts automatically if it hangs.
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      289. When reading about the requirements to run Plex, and the hassle to make it work as it should, Plex should pay people to want to use it instead of making them pay to get the full shebang.I’ve been using Kodi for many years now, it’s totally free and has also a learning curve, but once configured it simply works, and keeps running, on many platforms, even on 10 year old Nasses. ( btw , very interesting your dual conversation, but take care to level out the audio, the speaker in the right window sounds louder than the other one….I have constantly to adapt my volume on my laptop.
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      290. Great to see. The more competent competition the better. Keep Qnap and Synology on their toes 🙂
        Not that this is a “Synology Killer” I certainly hope it wakes them up!
        If Synology doesn’t have competitive x22/x23 models before the end of the year they are going to have a notable gap in both their new and returning customer base.
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      291. LOL… You reminded me that I bought a Lifetime Plex Pass subscription way way way back when nobody even knew who Plex was yet. I bought it for nearly nothing back then and I figured that I was jumping on a sinking ship. Funny how that works out, huh? ????
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      292. Can you PLEASE mount your mic off the desk. Every time you move it sounds like someone hitting a bass drum and adds so much unnecessary noise to your audio.
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      294. Nice review, as always! I really wish the microphone was not mechanically coupled to the desk. Every time something is moved on the desk, a nasty rumbling noise distracts me from what you’re actually saying. Never mind if I’m just overly sensitive with the musician/sound engineer part in me and the fact that I’m listening through decent headphones. In either case, thank you for the great job.
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      296. I suspect that one thing that keeps their costs down and upgrade timeline moving faster is that they don’t have the relatively huge array of apps to update like Synology and QNAP. I have a NAS made by all three of these companies and Terramaster’s app selection is far smaller. But it does have a few really good ones like cloud sync for Google Drive and Onedrive. They are also far simpler and therefore easier to use although there are a few places where you need to guess what to do next when using them. But, overall, for people with more basic needs, the Terramaster will be great and far less painful to setup.
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      301. Hey nas Great videos,… I commented on another video that was about the playstation 5 m.2 SSDS. does the FireCuda 530 without a heatsink need thermal pads on the bottom if I use the elecgear heatsink?… I know that’s very specific lol
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      302. What kind of dedicated GPU could be used to allow a NAS to play those monster files wihtout a problem? There are some NAS from Synlogy and Qnap that do have PCIe upgrade slots as far as I know. Or is GPU transcoding at this level not as good as having a powerful CPU to shoulder the load?
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      304. top content, top quality as usual, great advices 🙂 i’m a happy ts 251d user, but i do always looks for each things, news in the market, to stay update as enthusiast 🙂 you guys, make an awesome job in each of those videos, and on the website as well. thanks
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      307. I am kinda confused because it seems HS-453DX looks like a better product with m.2 SSD slots? I can add 2 HDD and use SSD as cache, while keeping it quiet.
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      308. Why are these units so expensive? They need to make a few base units…and stop. The more the tinker, the more expensive they become. Needlessly.

        Water-cooling is going to be a thing soon.
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      309. I love the NAS product. It allows me to have small form factor machines that don’t take up all the space a tower does. But…..I get power anxiety when it’s on but not being used.
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      312. Hello sir, I had this question in my mind. Does a LTE Advanced SIM Router has better significance than LTE SIM Router in an area with LTE only?
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      313. really no reason for 10 GbE connections; with a single drive (or pair in RAID 1) you are not exceeding 150 MB/sec on typical reads, anyway, so, 2.5 GbE x 2 (can they be bonded?) is plenty for this device.
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      314. In my experience there have certainly been some hard drives that are happy to spin along 24×7 without any active cooling… The old WD Green series drives ran pretty cool for an example… but are they not few and far between unless you go to SSDs? I always made sure to keep my *data* “cool” because it is common knowledge that heat can kill hard drives… Heat in general can destory electronics and/or reduce lifespan. There is probably a direct corellation to spindle speed also. 7,200 drives without any cooling are likely to get warmer due to physics. For example the Seagate Constellation ES.3 drives that run at 7,200 RPM will literally cook eggs if left running without active cooling… even in an open USB -> SATA reader they will sit there and bake. They get so hot that you cannot even touch them. These are indeed enterprise drives and better cooling would be expected… *but* I guess knowing that your average person buying one of these units may not *_REALIZE_* that they could be placing their data at risk if they choose the wrong drives. I would suggest that fanless solution like these should have very clear warnings that SOME hard drives REQUIRE active cooling… and possibly even publish a list of tested drives. This seems like a potential disaster for the unaware….
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      316. Hardware review and he just teardown the whole system :), now we are sure that the memory is not upgradeable. I would like to see how it will perform with SSDs, not HDDs, thanks for the video.
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      318. Quick Notes! This was recorded in an empty room in QNAP’s UK offices (only way I could get my hands on one of these so soon), so apologies if the sound is a little echo’d in places. This is the hardware review, but a software review, noise testing, temperature testing and Plex Media Server tests will be coming very soon. What do you guys think of the HS-264 NAS? And if you got the HS-453DX in the last few years, does this seem better or worse to you? Let me know in the comments.
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      324. Its a pity that your channel always begins with techno-speak! Have a listen – please simplify the language so fist time or average users can actually understand most of it…..
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      325. I know this is an old video now, but I’ll ask anyway ????

        I already have a really powerful server which I bought a couple of years ago when I was contracting, mainly to serve at that time as a development environment of virtual machines. It has 2 Xeon processors and 128GB RAM.

        I have a VM that I am using as a “media” server and was looking to get some more storage, as I want to start replacing things like Google Drive and backups on to here. Also, I want to start using it to store all of our pictures and DVD and Blu Ray collection. I have purchased Plex Media Server and that is installed.

        But….what I don’t really know a lot about is networking, particularly NAS and I keep seeing these pop up in my recommended items.

        If I already have this kit, should I really just be buying additional disks (obviously specific to NAS storage), or is there something special about a NAS that would still make that better?

        To my basic brain, I just see it as a way to have the storage available on the network with some additional processing power to run things like conversions, but if I am leaving my server on all of the time, will a NAS actually be more beneficial?

        I don’t want to spend the money (not saved up yet!) if everything I would have in a NAS is already sitting on my desk in a server.

        Hope that makes sense.
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      327. Guys, do you know how to make “diasble bitrate limiting” to a default? On my Tv i have to keep ticking that option. certain movies must have that option off to play properly. Regards
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      329. The guy on the left is hard to hear. Problem with YT is everyone has a different camera/mic setup. Easy to tell when someone uses quality equipment to post YT videos. Short of that, viewers don’t stay around long.
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      330. The last point is why I gave up Plex and moved to Emby. I had no idea this was the cause of the repeated headaches and infuriating reinstalls! Thanks for solving the mystery. Great video!
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      334. I have the TS-653D as Plex media server only with around 2500 movie and 260 TV shows alot in 4k HDR and have no issue with transcoding-. Usually not more than 2-3 people watch so transcoding from 4k to 1080p is no issue and the CPU is at around 60-70% of usage with 3 users and I have the J4125.
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      335. I run mine on a Hewlett Packard Proliant gen8 server. It has bays for 4 4tb drives. I run esxi and run virtual computers, I still run plex using a virtual windows 7. Now I normally use windows 10 but windows 7 takes less memory than windows 10. Now a proliant gen8 is very quiet, and is designed to stay on all the time. It is not too noisy, and I keep it in a separate room
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      337. I love your videos, but please, improve your audio quality. Too soft and you fade in/out. This applies to nearly ALL your videos, terrible audio quality.
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      339. Thanks for the info. I heard that my ISP could throttle me if I was seen to be streaming. Is this true? If so is there any way I could run plex through my ipvanish?
        I only plan to share between a couple of family members and use it myself whilst on holiday.
        Many thanks ????????????
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      340. Thanks for the tips! Tbh I was going to get a high end NAS (the Synology DS920+) for Plex even though I am only really going to use Plex locally. But I thought I may decide to use a NAS partition for my own Cloud backup as well and just know that that would be able to handle everything I COULD want to do. Last thing I would want is to buy a NAS and discover I bought one that was not powerful or efficient enough. So any drives up to 8TB are fairly quiet? That is really good to know. I thought the NAS had to be plugged into the router via Ethernet so did not realise there was an option to have it in a different room (i haven’t bought one yet so haven’t been able to play about with it). If you have a NAS with 2 bays, can you have Bay 2 be a backup of Bay 1, as opposed to a RAID1 setup? Please can you expand on a NAS that would very capable of Plex, and possible simultaneous cloud backup facilities (i am just talking phone backups, not PC) so I do not make the mistake of paying too much for a NAS I won’t fully utilise? I would much rather spend the money on the storage instead, of course. Thank you.
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      341. Man oh man…You’ve been around long enough here and you still have terrible audio on your videos!
        Your buddy next to you have loud clear audio. Your’s is suck and weak on your other videos too.
        Can’t you notice it man?! Fix that them thing do something about it I have to turn my volume up
        to max to hear you than the ad comes in blasting and blowing my speakers out! How could you
        do this kind of thing for so long and I’m not the only one to complain about it either!
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      342. My LG c9 has the plex player and I’m streaming 1080p blu-ray ripped, with srt subtitles x264 and x265 no problem and has direct play/stream. Buuut, if I try with the same files on ps4 pro or even my ps5 then its crazy transcoding going on.

        Qnap ts-251 4gb ram
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      344. For a weeks I’ve felt like a kid in toy shop with my finger on the buy button for new a DS1621+ along with 6 iron wolf drives to store all my 5.1 movies probably in MKV format ( been told it’s the format) that will be viewed by 2 OLED TVs on a fully cat7 network 16 port 1 gigabyte switcher I’m not into watching on table or phone so do I need still need to think about transcoding ? Or will the ds1621 be a good purchase and I’d be happy to install the maximum size of both MVES the only other think I’d use the nas for would be for hosting basic website while I’m teaching myself to build to save hosting cost
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