Plex requires a solid server to get the most out of the service, though a capable enclosure will suffice. Using a NAS enclosure to run this service is a great way to save money if you already own a vast collection of purchased media. Plex Media Server allows you to configure a single location to host and stream all your music, movies, shows, and more. I think this is pretty important on a little CPU like this.Plex is a popular choice for those looking to set up their own media server at home.
#Best 2018 nas for mac mac#
(I rip all my movies on my Mac so that poor Synology doesn't have to transcode them. And yeah, the slow CPU is starting to show its age: the web interface is super slow. :7)īe wary of the Plex server: I think that I had to go digging on the web recently when I blindly updated it and then discovered that my old, slow ARM processor had been dropped! I found a previous version of the server app, but now I am paranoid. A couple of the shares are filling up now and I kind of wish I hadn't been so inflexible.but I am a server sysadmin and it was habit. I put my four disks into two pairs, and divided those into different shares. But I have no cite for this.) This means that the Synology's music server called DS Audio can see these files, and that has an app for iOS and Android. (I believe that if you try to let multiple Macs use the same iTunes Library file - never at the same time - that there will be crying. I do just have my iTunes Library folder & music on one of the Synology's shares, and I mount that on my Mac to use it. I could be wrong: I gave up using mine that way a couple of years ago (I have a 412j, I think). Thanks! posted by Admiral Haddock to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favoriteĪlso I believe that more-recent iTunes clients (i.e., your Mac) won't use the Synology's iTunes library through the server application. Do you have to set the Synology NAS up like that? Is that the best practice? I had been assuming I would just have one giant 8TB disk where everything was jumbled together-music, Plex server, Lightroom catalog. Lastly-a bunch of the setups I've seen have the NAS divided into different volumes (e.g., separate volumes for videos, music, documents). If I have documents on the NAS, what prevents multiple users trying to access simultaneously? And in particular-can I have something like my Quicken or Banktivity database on the NAS and not mess it up? Does Lightroom work OK with the photos stored on a NAS? I think the actual catalog has to stay on the computer. I don't rip 4K movies, and I assume Plex will run fine, but is this going to stutter and be annoying? does iTunes play nicely with NAS? Should I be moving just the music, or the iTunes catalog? If the catalog, would I share the catalog between my various Macs? What I guess I don't really understand is: have some level of redundancy in a RAID 1 configuration hold my photo library, which I plan to access through Lightroom hold my video library, which I plan to access through Plex
hold my music library which I plan to access through iTunes I plan to get two WD Red 8gb drives two start and have to bays empty.
#Best 2018 nas for mac software#
I am looking at the play version because it has the higher power Intel processor compared to the ARM in the 418 (I know Plex is working on getting their server software running on the ARM, but I'd rather have something I know works out of the box). I understand Synology is well respected, plays well on the Mac, and (arguably) has the best software.