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>You’re really best off not trying to lump together your Plex server and your NAS on the same box. Why not? If you are not going to do transcoding, Plex should

by NL807 1y ago

>You’re really best off not trying to lump together your Plex server and your NAS on the same box. Why not? If you are not going to do transcoding, Plex should sit fine on a NAS.

benoau 1y ago
Basically an archaic idea that a NAS has to be only good at one thing which is just file sharing. It's hard to actually buy a computer that bad these days, although Synology still makes it easy lol.
- nottorp 1y ago
  Tbh another archaic idea is that you need to transcode. All you need is one of those sticks that plug into the hdmi of your tv and can run vlc. I use a chromecast. Vlc can play mkvs directly off samba shares. Done.
  - benoau 1y ago
    TBH the only reason anyone talks about transcoding is Synology's absolute dog-shit hardware options make it a problem. Most Intel CPUs and most AMD CPUs and many ARM CPUs and all the discrete GPUs are absolutely fine with munging video and audio codecs. They're just not well-represented in Synology's lineup.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      Can you list things you don’t like about the Synology? I can transcode just fine on a 1821 (though use a separate machine to do it for other reasons). The units seems fine, what am I missing out on?
      - benoau 1y ago
        Fundamentally I guess it feels like they have ground to a halt or even quietly retired the DSM line. Let's look at your NAS for an example (it's actually worse for mine cause I always loved the Slims lmao). DS1821 has no GPU transcoding because it uses the AMD Ryzen 1500B, what you've observed is this processor is just powerful enough to brute force some transcoding but it has no hardware transcoding: https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS1821+#specs https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS1821+#specs DS1821 successor was recently revealed to be the DS1825. So if your NAS died in a few months, that would be your obvious choice for a replacement. They decided to continue using the AMD Ryzen 1500B, which is now seven years old. TBD if they bother releasing it this year. In a few months they could call it DS1826 instead. https://nascompares.com/2025/03/13/synology-ds525-ds1525-ds425-ds1825-and-more-revealed/ https://nascompares.com/2025/03/13/synology-ds525-ds1525-ds4... Meanwhile DSM still lacks support for NVMe volumes, in fact there are still no NVMe-only models at all, you can't even install DSM to NVMe, they cut support for USB drives, they cut support for HEVC, and they almost never update docker and some of the other tools. The hardware's going nowhere and the software's going backwards.
        lostlogin 1y ago
        I would like to use ssds for running containers, this is a good point. The elderly cpu is more than adequate for my needs but as you say, an upgrade, ever, would be nice. I guess I’ve avoided these issues by accepting that solid state storage in a NAS is still too expensive. My ultimate would be the Synology with an Apple silicon heart. One can dream.
        nicolas_t 1y ago
        While it's not officially supported you can use nvmes to run containers. I do this on my own nas and it works great. See https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1gobb14/guide_how_to_silent_your_synology_including_dsm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1gobb14/guide_how... That said, the person you're replying to is right. Synology has mostly stopped supporting their apps, they've removed features in cost-cutting features (media codecs), hardware is now hopelessly outdated and both kernel and docker are completely out of date. It feels like any technical leadership completely disappeared and now only bean counters who don't understand the product or their target market are making decisions.
int_19h 1y ago
Even if you do transcoding, it's still fine so long as it has supported hardware for HW-accelerated encoding. Which doesn't require all that much - even fairly basic Synology models can do H.265.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Some do, but the models with HW-accelerated transcoding have been shrinking - it's only the "prosumer" models that have Intel Quick Sync (with no guarantee that refreshed products will maintain it) - the lower end models have ARM processors without HW-accelerated transcoding and higher end models have Ryzen processors without GPUs.
Marsymars 1y ago
You got different replies from others, but my 2¢ since you were replying me - if you're not doing transcoding, then I agree, Plex on a NAS is fine - it's basically just a wrapper around some shared files in that case. (The post I was replying to did specify that they were doing transcoding.)

by NL807 1y ago

>You’re really best off not trying to lump together your Plex server and your NAS on the same box. Why not? If you are not going to do transcoding, Plex should sit fine on a NAS.

benoau 1y ago

Basically an archaic idea that a NAS has to be only good at one thing which is just file sharing. It's hard to actually buy a computer that bad these days, although Synology still makes it easy lol.

nottorp 1y ago
Tbh another archaic idea is that you need to transcode. All you need is one of those sticks that plug into the hdmi of your tv and can run vlc. I use a chromecast. Vlc can play mkvs directly off samba shares. Done.
- benoau 1y ago
  TBH the only reason anyone talks about transcoding is Synology's absolute dog-shit hardware options make it a problem. Most Intel CPUs and most AMD CPUs and many ARM CPUs and all the discrete GPUs are absolutely fine with munging video and audio codecs. They're just not well-represented in Synology's lineup.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    Can you list things you don’t like about the Synology? I can transcode just fine on a 1821 (though use a separate machine to do it for other reasons). The units seems fine, what am I missing out on?
    - benoau 1y ago
      Fundamentally I guess it feels like they have ground to a halt or even quietly retired the DSM line. Let's look at your NAS for an example (it's actually worse for mine cause I always loved the Slims lmao). DS1821 has no GPU transcoding because it uses the AMD Ryzen 1500B, what you've observed is this processor is just powerful enough to brute force some transcoding but it has no hardware transcoding: https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS1821+#specs https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS1821+#specs DS1821 successor was recently revealed to be the DS1825. So if your NAS died in a few months, that would be your obvious choice for a replacement. They decided to continue using the AMD Ryzen 1500B, which is now seven years old. TBD if they bother releasing it this year. In a few months they could call it DS1826 instead. https://nascompares.com/2025/03/13/synology-ds525-ds1525-ds425-ds1825-and-more-revealed/ https://nascompares.com/2025/03/13/synology-ds525-ds1525-ds4... Meanwhile DSM still lacks support for NVMe volumes, in fact there are still no NVMe-only models at all, you can't even install DSM to NVMe, they cut support for USB drives, they cut support for HEVC, and they almost never update docker and some of the other tools. The hardware's going nowhere and the software's going backwards.
      - lostlogin 1y ago
        I would like to use ssds for running containers, this is a good point. The elderly cpu is more than adequate for my needs but as you say, an upgrade, ever, would be nice. I guess I’ve avoided these issues by accepting that solid state storage in a NAS is still too expensive. My ultimate would be the Synology with an Apple silicon heart. One can dream.
        nicolas_t 1y ago
        While it's not officially supported you can use nvmes to run containers. I do this on my own nas and it works great. See https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1gobb14/guide_how_to_silent_your_synology_including_dsm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1gobb14/guide_how... That said, the person you're replying to is right. Synology has mostly stopped supporting their apps, they've removed features in cost-cutting features (media codecs), hardware is now hopelessly outdated and both kernel and docker are completely out of date. It feels like any technical leadership completely disappeared and now only bean counters who don't understand the product or their target market are making decisions.

int_19h 1y ago

Even if you do transcoding, it's still fine so long as it has supported hardware for HW-accelerated encoding. Which doesn't require all that much - even fairly basic Synology models can do H.265.

Marsymars 1y ago
Some do, but the models with HW-accelerated transcoding have been shrinking - it's only the "prosumer" models that have Intel Quick Sync (with no guarantee that refreshed products will maintain it) - the lower end models have ARM processors without HW-accelerated transcoding and higher end models have Ryzen processors without GPUs.

Marsymars 1y ago

You got different replies from others, but my 2¢ since you were replying me - if you're not doing transcoding, then I agree, Plex on a NAS is fine - it's basically just a wrapper around some shared files in that case. (The post I was replying to did specify that they were doing transcoding.)