ilike or others with NAS connected directly to router

quote:

---

What about running media server or Plex?

---

Not sure about Plex but Windows Media Center doesn't support network drives.

Was about to say the same. The only thing you cannot do natively is live record to a network drive in WMC.

quote:

---

Should I get USB3 since router supports it?

---

Yes.

quote:

---

SSD or regular hd?

---

HDD. You won't be able to utilize the SSD to full speed capacity. You won't be able to notice much difference from an HDD. The amount of space you get far outweighs the minor benefit you could see, but USB3 should bottleneck before either drive hits its read/write maxes.

quote:

---

What about running media server or Plex? I'm used to a dedicated brain using a PC..

---

ASUS router has its own firmware. I've not personally used it, so I can't comment on its capabilities/supported file types. But you should be able to map it as a network drive to any PC in the house, including an Android phone. I cannot comment on the ease of "pushing" it to your end-devices. It should depend more on their filetype support, transcoding ability, and your network speed/strength than the router's own firmware.

quote:

---

Disadvantages to having the media connected to router and not the PC?

---

If you had a powerhouse server doing your transcoding on the fly of very large files and sending the decoded stream to the peripherals, you would probably get better results tug an relying on your receiving device (I'm assuming a Chromecast here and other low-powered similar devices) than you will with this setup. If you're talking about smaller video stream files (uncompressed SD, or compressed HD stuff), you can probably do OK with this.

quote:

---

Not sure how I want to handle my next storage solution and unsure if the router attached storage is the best way to go.

---

Router NAS is cheap, convenient, and effective. It works as well as a dedicated network drive from a server.

The disadvantages are, typically, things like redundancy and the ability to transcode large media files effectively. And, of course, the number of drives/capacity, though you can get 4TB usb for sure. You may even get 6TB usb ones (I know you can get them with SATA)

Now, I haven't done it and this is theoretical- it's based on my understanding of what you should be able to do, but I've never seen it happen/written about but it really should work. some routers have esata and I believe a multiplier (I forget the name for this, but it lets you see a higher or infinite number of Sata ports behind the one physical port, so subsequent added drives can be seen individually, not as one giant drive/partition) so you could conceivably attach an esata bay to the router and have whatever the number of drives behind it you want. Don't quote me there, but that should work. Check some more sites for real-world results. And, lastly, there are drives that have Eth ports and multiple USB ports. These can all help with the capacity issue, and to some extent the redundancy. Only a strong on-board hardware transcoding device will remedy your ability to watch 50GB MKV files stored on a router hdd on your ChromeCast though.

Our ReadyNAS at the office has Plex installed on it and is directly connected to our Asus 1200 with ethernet but it's not being used as a media server. Only issue was that I had to back the MTU down to 1472 to get it running the way it should with lan teaming.

quote:

---

but to get a NAS that can transcode 1080p requires a much better CPU than most NAS have

---

what if i'm just streaming that 45GB 1080p movie raw? plex is great if, like you said, the server has enough horespower to transcode on the fly.

eta, follow up question: ilike/etal, what's the best deal in a large storage drive right now? you mentioned something about a 6TB array but i'm scared of hard drives these days. they seem to have gotten shittier over time rather than more reliable.

quote:

---

I do not know much about storage connected to a router but what I have been looking at lately is a NAS. I use plex a lot but to get a NAS that can transcode 1080p requires a much better CPU than most NAS have. To stream 1080p, a NAS will be quite expensive. So I decided to go another route.... I will build a cheap small pc with an i3 processor and also use this PC as my router. My house is wired so I will just drop it on the network directly connected to my modem.

Plex NAS Device Compatibility List

---

Agreed. I was looking for a NAS but it would cost too much for one to transcode 1080p. Thinking about going the pc route as right now my movie collection is on an external hard drive