Cheaper alternative to DS3617xs PLEX NAS server

I would like to dump all of my media files onto it and serve it all up on Plex Media Server. At present, I have all of my media loaded onto the NAS, but, as you’re well aware, the device is simply not up to the task of running Plex. So, my Plex Media Server currently runs on a PC (which doubles as a gaming machine), and the media is stored on the NAS. This is not ideal, though. I would prefer to have PMS running on the NAS.

The recommended DS3617xs seems like a perfectly reasonable path to take, but clearly, it would be a big financial bite to take, if I were to fully load it with drives. You mentioned in your synopsis that you might put a single drive in the box to start off. I think I would likely try to put at least 5 in, so that I can get RAID for backup protection, though.

I currently have 5 x 3TB drives in my DS1511+, and I’m using all but about 500GB of that space. Given what I’ve told you (feel free to ask questions, if you like), can you give me a recommended starting point and how you might go about adding drives in the future to accommodate my growing collection?

Another powerful alternative to DS3617 we have come across is TS-877 with Ryzen CPU. Benchmarks tests are putting this processor right to the comparison charts. Similarly like DS3617xs, it is so powerful that it can transcode simply using CPU power as it has no transcoding engine.

but what I can recommend is to keep costs down – PR4100 WD Plex NAS or DS918+ as they both feature transcoding engine and therefore doesn’t need as powerful processor to do transcoding. But if you mainly want to transcode 4K files on the PLEX then you need to look at Qnap x82 series,  x77 series or DS3617xs. It requires i5, i7, Xeon or Ryzen processor for such task.

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