Which NAS do list members prefer?

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Personally I rip movies to a single MKV file with just a single audio stream (best MCH) and forced subtitles (if any). That MKV will be smaller than a full disc backup. Many movies have extras and multiple audio streams which can increase the size of the full disc vs MKV rip by up to 30%.
 
Personally I rip movies to a single MKV file with just a single audio stream (best MCH) and forced subtitles (if any). That MKV will be smaller than a full disc backup. Many movies have extras and multiple audio streams which can increase the size over the full disc by up to 30%.
Good to know! Do you know if you can move the subtitles on a MKV? My Region A player allows subtitles to be moved so I can nudge them down a bit so they're covering as little of the image as possible (or none if it's a suitably widely-shot frame). If not, I can always give it a go both ways to see what works best.
 
Thanks Guy for all your help. Yeah, I've noticed the X800 throw the toys on 4K discs sometimes, usually when I stop the movie a few times rather than just letting it play.

Good to know about the M2TS files containing everything like subtitles - mission critical on non-English flicks!

I think my next steps will be to M2TS the next flick I watch, put it on a 2TB HDD and give it a spin via the X800. If all good, then I'll purchase a 4TB HDD to see if that works. If that behaves, then I'll see what sort of deal I can get on 15 x 4TB HDDs :eek:. Gotta get a new flashed BD drive to rip my 4K discs too.

QQ to the rescue again!
You are welcome. The flashed BD drive is a requirement of course if you want to rip 4K discs. I also use DVDFab to rip the 4K discs. Their UHD suite works well. I have found though that ripping 4K discs sometimes fails on even new discs. Sometimes cleaning of the disc is required a few times to get it to work. I use an LG WH16NS40.
 
Personally I rip movies to a single MKV file with just a single audio stream (best MCH) and forced subtitles (if any). That MKV will be smaller than a full disc backup. Many movies have extras and multiple audio streams which can increase the size over the full disc by up to 30%.

I use mkv for music disc's and Bluray movies but for 4K I use M2TS passthrough as i want the absolute 100% original quality that is on the disc. Using just the best English audio track on the disc (mostly Atmos) as well as only the English subtitles.
 
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MKV is a lossless copy of all the selected streams. There is no loss in quality.

You can select which streams for the original disc goes into the MKV. Only the selected subtitles and audio streams are copied to the MKV.
 
Good to know! Do you know if you can move the subtitles on a MKV? My Region A player allows subtitles to be moved so I can nudge them down a bit so they're covering as little of the image as possible (or none if it's a suitably widely-shot frame). If not, I can always give it a go both ways to see what works best.

I've not seen that but if you use KJodi you can set the subtitle location used at playback.
 
MKV is a lossless copy of all the selected streams. There is no loss in quality.

You can select which streams for the original disc goes into the MKV. Only the selected subtitles and audio streams are copied to the MKV.
So they say. I don't care about the size of the file.
 
Personally I rip movies to a single MKV file with just a single audio stream (best MCH) and forced subtitles (if any). That MKV will be smaller than a full disc backup. Many movies have extras and multiple audio streams which can increase the size of the full disc vs MKV rip by up to 30%.
Same here... Not only is my OPPO able to play the .mkv contained files, my LG television plays them too.

I use mkv for music disc's and Bluray movies but for 4K I use M2TS passthrough as i want the absolute 100% original quality that is on the disc...
MKV is a lossless copy of all the selected streams. There is no loss in quality.
So they say. I don't care about the size of the file.
Indeed "they" do... Because the re-muxed video, audio and subtitle streams are 1:1 copies of the original ;)

Plus you can have 'chapter navigation' with .mkv contained files. Which is not possible with .m2ts contained files...
 
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Running a wired backbone with spanning tree. All NAS storage is wired. I do run two wireless access points, using the same SSID but different channels for a roaming wireless experience for smart phones and tablets. Two smart TVs that can see the Plex servers plus several systems (including the 7.0 HT) that can mount the NAS and run all kinds of software... MakeMKV, an old DVDDecrypter, Handbrake, Foobar, VLC, Cubase, etc, etc..

All the data is on the network. So for that I've been doing NAS since the mid 90s, when we used to buy the hardware PCI cards.... that was the hard way and it used lots of power. Over the years I migrated from Dell desktops to Latitude laptops with eSATA and USB 3.x to host the RAID arrays. Then I got the WDC NASs. Now, I'm migrating the laptops to Dell SFF i5 machines and use a KVM switch.

Currently I'm running two WDC PR4100s with 4 6TB Reds each in RAID5. I have a stack of spare 10TBs to stash in there when I get around to it. I also run three Startech RAID quad enclosures running 4 4TB Reds each in RAID5. The plan is to migrate the 6TBs from the PR4100s to two of those. I also have a stack of 4TB WDC Reds and a bunch of 6TB blacks and greens. Most of those are not hooked up. Except for a RAID0 using two 6TB greens and another with two 4TB blacks. Hooked up to a Windoze 7 pro as well over eSATA.

The PR4100s are on gigE. Running public and private user partitions and a Plex server. the Startech boxes are hooked up on USB 3.1 (or eSATA) to a Windows 7 Pro and exported as several partitions each as well. Those are shared as Samba drives.

I also got various other drives, in RAID0 pairs, over USB 3.1 on two other machines. Plus a Ubuntu with three internal 3TB drives in RAID5. I think the total online is pushing 110TB by now.

Currently I'm experimenting with a Raspberry running USB 2.0. Sort of slow, but fun for this.

I like the PR4100s because they are easy to use and maintain but I can do more with Ubuntu and Raspberry. Windows is nice once you figure out how to do the username/password access for the Samba exports. It's easiest to do with Linux once you figure out the rc files.

Nowadays, I only run the Plex servers in the PR4100s. It's easy to do it in there. They render very nice with the LG smart TV apps. I take that output to an Emotiva pre and that runs the HT. The rest of the systems render in stereo. It feels like I have my own Netflix at home.
 
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Oh, what fun!

I have gone through a couple different iterations. I started just tossing a bunch of disks into a PC running Linux, using Linux software RAID. That worked fine, but the PC itself was large, hot, and loud. Also, I had a power supply die and take a couple of drives with it. Which was no fun. Initially videos were played on an OG Xbox using XBMC (now called Kodi), but the move to HD meant I had to change. (A shame, too; that Xbox was a tank, and XBMC was pretty user friendly for the time.) I then tried a media PC. Windows Media Center lasted about a week, but the UI was just awful. All of my files were pretty meticulously organized so they worked well with XBMC, but stupid WMC just showed me large icons with "X:\Media\Movies\The..." -- I mean, come ON, Microsoft. So I switched to MediaPortal, which was (is?) a fork of XBMC. Much better.

However, it wasn't a scalable solution. I wanted to be able to watch my stuff (or listen to it) from any TV in the house. So my next stop was using Raspberry Pis with Kodi. That worked OK, but I found that the rest of the family wasn't using them.

It was around this time that I discovered Plex, and that was a game changer. Nobody needed an extra box; the kids both had game consoles in their rooms, and I had Rokus deployed in the main family room and my bedroom. That got used (and still does).

Anyway, when the most recent PC (Plex server) died, I was short on funds. So I got a cheap $80 refurbished office PC, put the Plex storage (now just a pair of 16tb drives) in USB enclosures, and ran like that -- without RAID. Needless to say, I was holding my breath.

My financial issues cleared up, and around that time, Newegg had refurbished Synology units. Old ones (DS1815+), but I had no intention of running any applications on it. I ordered one, along with another pair of 16tb drives. I set it up with the new drives (thus giving me only 16tb of space), then migrated all of the data from one of the externals. I then pulled the external out of its enclosure, popped it in the Synology, and expanded the pool to 32tb. Then I migrated the other external and repeated the process, kicking me up to 48tb. I have since added two more 16tb drives, one as space (so now 64tb) and one as a standby drive. Should one of the drives in the pool die, the standby one will get swapped in and the array will rebuild, giving me time to deal with replacing the dead drive. (Hasn't happened yet, fortunately.)

Overall I'm a fan of the Synology. Clean interface, easy to use, easy to manage. I'm sure other brands work similarly; this is the one I've had exposure to.

I'm still using that $80 PC for now, but I will be replacing it with a modern NUC soon. The i3 in the current box does fine for most hardware transcoding, except when HDR video has to be transcoded. I need a newer CPU for that.

Network is GigE for now; my personal "plan of record" includes building a 10g backbone. The Synology doesn't support 10g, but it does have 4xGigE ports that can be combined. I'm not doing that yet (there's really no need), but we'll see how things develop.

Down the road from that, I intend to get a newer Synology and make it primary, while using this one as a backup. Right now the array has no backup, only fault tolerance. I need to budget some cash for that, but I just bought a new 77" OLED TV, so it'll take time. :)
All the data is on the network. So for that I've been doing NAS since the mid 90s, when we used to buy the hardware PCI cards.... that was the hard way and it used lots of power.
I remember setting up drive mirroring on Netware back in the day with separate SCSI (or ESDI) controllers. At least Storage Dimensions sold pre-COMPSURF'd drives...
 
Oh, what fun!

...

My financial issues cleared up, and around that time, Newegg had refurbished Synology units. Old ones (DS1815+), but I had no intention of running any applications on it. I ordered one, along with another pair of 16tb drives. I set it up with the new drives (thus giving me only 16tb of space), then migrated all of the data from one of the externals. I then pulled the external out of its enclosure, popped it in the Synology, and expanded the pool to 32tb. Then I migrated the other external and repeated the process, kicking me up to 48tb. I have since added two more 16tb drives, one as space (so now 64tb) and one as a standby drive. Should one of the drives in the pool die, the standby one will get swapped in and the array will rebuild, giving me time to deal with replacing the dead drive. (Hasn't happened yet, fortunately.)

Overall I'm a fan of the Synology. Clean interface, easy to use, easy to manage. I'm sure other brands work similarly; this is the one I've had exposure to.

I'm still using that $80 PC for now, but I will be replacing it with a modern NUC soon. The i3 in the current box does fine for most hardware transcoding, except when HDR video has to be transcoded. I need a newer CPU for that.

Network is GigE for now; my personal "plan of record" includes building a 10g backbone. The Synology doesn't support 10g, but it does have 4xGigE ports that can be combined. I'm not doing that yet (there's really no need), but we'll see how things develop.

Down the road from that, I intend to get a newer Synology and make it primary, while using this one as a backup. Right now the array has no backup, only fault tolerance. I need to budget some cash for that, but I just bought a new 77" OLED TV, so it'll take time. :)

I remember setting up drive mirroring on Netware back in the day with separate SCSI (or ESDI) controllers. At least Storage Dimensions sold pre-COMPSURF'd drives...

You still have one single point of failure: A single RAID NAS. That's why I double on the hardware. That's why I have TWO WDC PR4100s stuffed with drives. Not only do I have parity ( I always buy ten disks for two four disk enclosures ) but I also have online back up.

Case in point, recently our power went out and the battery in the very old Dell Latitude that was hosting two eSATA / USB 3 enclosures got corrupted and would not boot up... woops!

So, all I had to do was move the cables around to another laptop and change the mount points in our user machines. We use the "F" drive for mounting all our application data and the Plex set up really doesn't care (awesome idea really).

Sure, my efficiency is not much, but my reliability and robustness are world class. Effectively, I'm using 48TB of gross storage in two NAS to support a net 18TB of plex movies and 24/96 audio recordings. (This will go up to 80TB gross for 30TB net). Similarly, our user accounts in the three windows samba "drives" is currently 48TB gross for a net of only 12TB, but this is triple protected ( email back to the 90s, documents, browser configuration, etc...). This is gonna go up to 72TB for a net of 18TB. And the various RAID0s are at 50%...

The only thing I have not yet done is to protect online for quakes/fires/water. I have a SATA drive that I use to make backups whenever I get around to it and I store that in a home safe -water/fire proof. And we're not in a flood zone.

Once we lost three years of digital pictures of my kids and my house being rebuilt (took pictures of EVERY wall so I knew where the romex, water, gas, etc... were). I had a single back up... one disc failed, so when I went to rebuild, the backup disk had a nasty head crash! Never again...

Oh, yeah, those old towers... those suckers used to pump out heat, were noisy and expensive sucking our $$$$ California power!

Not to hijack the thread... we also got the LG 77CX. How does it work with your Roku? I'm thinking of getting a Tablo and three Rokus.

Network... I use link aggregation between my three switches. So, effectively we see 3GigE. I might upgrade to 10GigE for the switches but for the drops into the rooms, simple GigE seems to do very well, and 802.11AC does quite well also, but it's only two of us in the house nowadays.
 
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Currently I'm experimenting with a Raspberry running USB 2.0. Sort of slow, but fun for this.

I like the PR4100s because they are easy to use and maintain but I can do more with Ubuntu and Raspberry....
So my next stop was using Raspberry Pis with Kodi. That worked OK, but I found that the rest of the family wasn't using them.
I currently run an Synology DS212+ which has been most reliable (touch wood). Plus it offers one SD card slot, three USB ports and one eSATA port. All of which I use as I prefer to have my data stored on removable/external drives.

From what I understand the Raspberry Pi's can be configured to run UPnP/DLNA (which is great for my smart TV's) and SMB/Samba media file sharing. SMB file sharing is most important to me as I have an OPPO UDP-203, and it provides access to .cue sheet navigation files and also offers the ability to access my Dolby Vision 4K UHD (AVCHD/BDMV) file playbacks...

Essentially, what I need to know is, how many USB ports (drives) can the current Raspberry Pi's support?
 
I currently run an Synology DS212+ which has been most reliable (touch wood). Plus it offers one SD card slot, three USB ports and one eSATA port. All of which I use as I prefer to have my data stored on removable/external drives.

From what I understand the Raspberry Pi's can be configured to run UPnP/DLNA (which is great for my smart TV's) and SMB/Samba media file sharing. SMB file sharing is most important to me as I have an OPPO UDP-203, and it provides access to .cue sheet navigation files and also offers the ability to access my Dolby Vision 4K UHD (AVCHD/BDMV) file playbacks...

Essentially, what I need to know is, how many USB ports (drives) can the current Raspberry Pi's support?

I have a Startech four drive RAID5 enclosure over a USB2.0 to a Raspberry 4. That unloads the parity work to external hardware. I plan on upgrading it to USB3.0 one of these days.

The Raspberry 4 and 400 have two USB3 and two USB3 ports. The 400 has more robust cooling, but it sticks you with the keyboard.
 
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You still have one single point of failure: A single RAID NAS. That's why I double on the hardware. That's why I have TWO WDC PR4100s stuffed with drives. Not only do I have parity ( I always buy ten disks for two four disk enclosures ) but I also have online back up.
Agreed. And that's why my POR includes getting a newer NAS with drives. All it takes is money... ;)

Not to hijack the thread... we also got the LG 77CX. How does it work with your Roku? I'm thinking of getting a Tablo and three Rokus.[/quote]
I don't use the Rokus anymore. Still have a couple lying around...and in my basement, I'm pretty sure I have a first-gen Roku (with the old filmstrip-style UI). I've switched to Apple TV 4K boxes in the family room and my bedroom, and I also gifted my son and his wife one for their bedroom (they live with me). My grandkids are using cheap Chromecast w/Google TV dongles.

I have the Sony A80J. It just arrived a week ago, and it's still in the box; we're in the middle of a remodel. But I expect good things. I also paid to have it professionally calibrated.
Network... I use link aggregation between my three switches. So, effectively we see 3GigE. I might upgrade to 10GigE for the switches but for the drops into the rooms, simple GigE seems to do very well, and 802.11AC does quite well also, but it's only two of us in the house nowadays.
Right now everything goes back to a single core switch (a Cisco C3560 I picked up for cheap). My plan is to deploy another switch upstairs and run 10G between the two. The Cisco has SPF slots; I will run fiber between the floors. (Networking is my profession, so I'll nerd out on this one.)
 
I use two NAS Synology units, one for audio one for video, and back up to other hard drives. Synology makes a great product. Now I am exploring cloud back up as a third copy and are using backblaze in a trial period. It’s about $70 a year for one PC backup including unlimited data and it covers all the drives connected to the PC. It does exclude NAS drives, but a non issue for me since I have exact copies connected as external drives to my PC.
 
....(Networking is my profession, so I'll nerd out on this one.)

Note, when we rebuilt our home in 00 we put 1500 linear feet of Cat5. Dedicated power and built a "data closet". Why not? Wired is still the fastest and safest way to share data. Heck, I deployed my first 802.11b back in '00, we had NO protection then. I think I was the only residential user in the whole city ( my employer at the time offered us a 70% discount... ). Eventually, as people got into it, they deployed their own. It was fun taking my laptop and browsing the Internet off someone's wireless setup while I waited for my son's guitar classes. The Apple folks were the most clueless.

I'm sure we could tell some stories... I was working on internetworking when we used to write our own stacks... Prof Douglas E. Comer (*), Volume 1, we knew from cover to cover. We used to have five or six of our own routers, plus switches and BSD PCs in our cubicles and we'd throw cables over the wall -or hanging from paperclips in the ceiling, when we needed to build more complex networks for development.

This is before Al Gore could even spell DARPAnet. Nevermind "internet".

We tried to get into the Netscape IPO. Four of us raised a quarter of a mil but it was, for all intents and purposes, a closed IPO. We thought about suing the ba$$tard$$$. It's OK, I bought Cisco stock in the early 90s, sold it before Y2K. <;-0

One day we got a call from IT and Legal in the East Coast. Something about us in the West Coast hijacking the email from GM West. WTH? It turns out we had two alpha routers in our closet ( Marketing thought that if R&D got to use our own alpha routers we'd be more serious about making our releases more stable. Pfftt (**) ). It turns out we had an error and we were publishing a ton of IP addresses on the actual Internet. We had hijacked their mail server for two weeks and were throwing away their email. Since we had the "latest" router design, we were able to overwhelm whatever attempts GM's IT could muster.

Oh, yeah, I can also talk SSDs. ;-) NOTE: DO NOT USE SSDs for parity. DON'T THINK ABOUT IT. As it stands, the Flash Manager layer uses parity to recover bit lanes in the hardware, so don't do it. It will wear it all out. SSDs are fine for data clouds that operate in write once read many, like Netflix.

LOL.... I was involved in media servers also.... once we settled on TCP/IP and multimode fiber hit the vaults. In one of my jobs we had a "demo/development" room with top of the line Infinity speakers and amplifiers and fully custom 9.2 system with a top of the line Sony projectors. The best about that job was that the munchies were free, Coca Cola was part of the funders so we had all kinds of food, coffees, drinks, etc.

On our desks we had a professional broadcast monitor hooked up to our R&D set top boxes... the people in the lab ran a "cable broadcast lab" that we could tune to. One of the channels ran Independence Day non stop. The morons put fake commercials in their channels so I NEVER saw the White House being blown up. Nuts!

I'm running a backbone of three Netgear managed switches... 8, 8 and 24 port. The 24 port also has fiber but I don't plan on using it. The link aggregation is good enough for my needs. I got a cheap router and an eight channel Cisco modem I got from the Cox store (why fight them?.... I had my fights with ISDN and the first gen of cable modems in the 90s and early 2000s..).

That said, spanning tree is a bit of, ahem!, overkill too. ;-)

(*) Douglas E. Comer
(**) I am root, fear me.
 
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I use two NAS Synology units, one for audio one for video, and back up to other hard drives. Synology makes a great product. Now I am exploring cloud back up as a third copy and are using backblaze in a trial period. It’s about $70 a year for one PC backup including unlimited data and it covers all the drives connected to the PC. It does exclude NAS drives, but a non issue for me since I have exact copies connected as external drives to my PC.

There is nothing like PHYSICAL ownership of your data and your backups.

Cloud... sucks.

Get a home safe, fire and water proof. Make backups to a drive, brick, with a simple USB interface in a standard format (NTFS). Keep the drive in the safe.
 
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