Recommendation for 6-bay NAS

[justwondering 14]

I'm using a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4 separate WD EasyStore external hard drives attached via USB for my Emby media center. Two of the drives are media libraries and two are backups. It's lazy and ugly but it's been working... mostly. Lately I've been having a problem where one of the HDs will become unavailable until I hard-reset the server. I suspect there may be issues with the power supply and control hardware in the EasyStore drives, so I'm thinking of shucking them and moving them all into a NAS.

My library consists entirely of H.264 encoded MP4 files, so there shouldn't be any transcoding. Most of my library is 1080p although I'd like to be future-proof for 4k, and we're generally using 1 or 2 streams at a time. I doubt I'll ever need more than 4. So far the Raspberry Pi seems to be totally up to the task. And later I can replace it with a NUC or other microcomputer and and leave the NAS alone.

So my system will consist of:

• Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspberry Pi OS (Debian) with Emby Server, ethernet to router 
• 6 bay NAS running some kind of Linux, sharing files with Samba, ethernet to router
• Various clients, wifi to router

I'm looking at a Synology DS920+ 4-bay with 4GB RAM since it seems to have everything I need for pretty much the lowest price.

Is this a reasonable buy for the NAS? Is my whole plan reasonable? I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions you can give me. Thanks!

Edited February 1, 2022 by justwondering
I am a dummy and didn't see that the DS620Slim only holds 2.5" drives.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, the DS920+ looks like a great choice to me.

[rbjtech 5284]

It is probably more efficient if you simply run Emby Server on the NAS itself.

I don't run this configuration, but many people do - Emby is well supported on the Synology Platform.

https://emby.media/download.html

It also has it's own Forum section :

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/forum/153-synology/

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by rbjtech

[justwondering 14]

Makes sense, I'll definitely give that a try. Reading the manual it sounds like I'll have to back up and reformat all my drives anyway, so might as well install Emby on it too.

[Bingie 99]

I built a very high performance 6-bay NAS for far cheaper than any Synology box:

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Bingie

[justwondering 14]

Wow what a journey! Thank you for the fascinating read. I like the idea and it looks like you've built a great server.

I don't think it's for me though: From the thread it sounds like you spent a lot of time and effort trying to get Debian to work without success, so it may not be possible right now. And Windows is a dealbreaker for me.

I ended up buying a used DS920+ super cheap from Amazon. Waiting for storms to let up so they can deliver it and I can see how bad "minor cosmetic damage" actually is. It only has 4 bays, so not as future-proof as I was hoping, but sufficient for my current needs. I'm going to play around with it and see if it works for me. If not then I'll definitely be revisiting your post and maybe give TrueNAS a try.

[FrostByte 5392]

At least with the 920+ you can add the expansion cabinet if needed.

[justwondering 14]

Good to know. That's the DX517 right? Have you used it? Does it pretty much behave like a single unit with 9 bays? Or is there additional complexity and limitations?

[FrostByte 5392]

Yes, DX517.  It would give you one NAS system with two boxes connected by esata.  It will add a separate volume, but that's about you will notice within DSM.  Emby won't know the difference though if you add both to the same library.  It does use another brick, so you have to consider that.