NAS for Storage

[CMJR23 4]

Is it advisable to use a NAS to store media for Emby Server especially if I mainly have more remote connections (5 simultaneous, no 4k, max 1080p quality) and 2 direct play all via SMB?

My current server is a NUC 13 Pro i7 with 32GB RAM and 256GB NVME M.2 running Windows 11 Pro and a 500GB T7 for media storage but kinda running out of space.

I do have an old Synology DS920+ NAS which is used for archiving that has 6TB of free space which is why I was thinking of moving my Emby library to this NAS but concerned that the network connection might be a bottleneck.

[Clackdor 19]

It looks like the nuc has a 2.5Gb port and the Synology has 2 1Gb ports. Not sure what the speed of the switch you're connecting is, but in theory you can enable link aggregation or smb multichannel on the Synology to get more throughput. 

If your switch is only 1Gb, adding another USB nic to the nuc would at least give you 2Gbps max with smb multichannel. 

Transcoding is going to have emby pull as much data from the nas into its cache as quickly as possible, and once it's in the cache you're not pulling from the nas anymore. 

I would think this setup would be fine for only 5 concurrent streams depending on the bitrate of the content. It would probably be worth it to setup a test library pointed at the NAS and try it out while monitoring network usage.

[RanmaCanada 345]

Either a NAS or a DAS will do the job just fine, as long as you have the bandwidth and the horsepower to deal with your transcoding needs.  Many of us use UNRAID to store our stuff, and some use a docker for the server, some of us use an external machine (I use a laptop).  What's your current networking equipment.

[rbjtech 4270]

If you have a choice, it's always better to have direct attached storage, be it SATA disk, USB3 disk etc as a 'network stack' and 'network file system protocols - SMB, NFS etc' always add overhead.    Technically, a 1Gbit network should never be a 'bottleneck' reading lets say a 4K Remux file at 100Mbit - but now add the fact you need to 'Read' at 100Mbit via SMB, process that through the network stack, now convert it to HLS/HTTP etc, now send that to your client at 100Mbit ... all over the same network.   Things start to get busy real quick, especially with chatty protocols. 

Direct Attached storage runs independently of your network, thus in parallel, it's reading the data (theoritcal @ 6Gb/sec), while the network stack is dedicated to 'sending' only - and if using HLS/HTTP, then it's pretty efficient at doing so - 1Gig/sec is more than ample for say 8 or so 100Mbit 4K Remux's or 80 x10Mbit streams ...   

The DS920+ actually has eSATA - so personally, I would connect to the NUC via that if I could - it will be far faster than a network connection...  Alternatively, USB 3.0 is going to be faster than a network connection also.  The NUC has USB 3.2, the Synology only USB 3.0 - but for the price of a cable, certainly better than even an aggregated 2Gb/sec network for above reasons. 

Edited February 17 by rbjtech

[CMJR23 4]

Thanks all.

Very great information which prompted me to do further research - in the end, I decided to upgrade the internal M.2 256GB drive in my NUC to a 2TB Gen 4 M.2 NVME after discovering that the M.2 in my NUC supported Gen 4 NVME drives.

Hopefully it's not a placebo effect but honestly feel that Windows 11 is much more snappier and that my media in Emby loads much quicker.

[visproduction 123]

Just wondering if it would make sense to move any .mp4 / AAC audio media, that does not need transcoding to libraries on the NAS and keep any new recordings or media that would need transcoding on your workstation in the NVME drives?  You still might run into some bottleneck, but any media coming off the NAS would get passed directly to the end user to watch, without  the transcoding step.  You would just be expanding storage, without needed to add drives inside the server.

[rbjtech 4270]

54 minutes ago, visproduction said:

Just wondering if it would make sense to move any .mp4 / AAC audio media, that does not need transcoding to libraries on the NAS and keep any new recordings or media that would need transcoding on your workstation in the NVME drives?  You still might run into some bottleneck, but any media coming off the NAS would get passed directly to the end user to watch, without  the transcoding step.  You would just be expanding storage, without needed to add drives inside the server.

Unless you are using Emby Theatre (via SMB), Kodi (SMB) or AndroidTV using Android 10 (allowing direct SMB access) - then emby traffic will always come from the emby server (in the form of http) thus the emby server needs to get it from the NAS first (in the form of SMB) and then redistribute to the client (via HTTP).

This is why direct SMB access is so much better, because the client connects to the NAS direct to get the media data, ie half the bandwidth required, it no longer relies on the emby server to stream it.

Edited February 29 by rbjtech