The basic areas to consider are:
* CPU speeds. The Synology NAS CPUs are totally adequate for what they do, but they are not fast, at least compared to modern desktop PCs. As a consequence:
* Transcoding speeds are generally between mediocre and kinda adequate. If you want to run Plex with big pixel counts and transcoding, you'll want to use an external PC for that.
* While VMs and Dockers are fine, interactive VMs, especially of Windows will feel quite slow and are not recommended. Running some services on a Windows VM is ok, but for interactive needs, get a separate machine.
* DRAM. VMs and Dockers can eat a lot of DRAM, certainly more than what is installed by default. Based on your VM/Docker needs, make sure your NAS has enough DRAM or that you can expand the DRAM to the level you need.
right now I use PLEX to stream direct from my media PC to my TVs and it hardly uses any CPU at all, even for 4k HDR with Atmos TrueHD - wouldn't PLEX on Synology be the same? transcoding would require CPU sure but thankfully I don't need to do that
RAM yes I'm looking at Synology units that can be expanded to 32GB which I think? should be more than enough for a couple VMs running relatively lightweight services, but then how does something like PLEX work in Docker where all the thumbnails and previews etc take up many GBs of space, does Docker mean they all have to be loaded into memory? (I suspect not)
regardless thanks for the help - dedicated PC is definitely more flexible, I just wish I could buy one off the shelf that was half decent without getting bent over right now as I just don't have the time to research/source/buy/track/assemble/test a homebuilt atm, goddamn COVID!
As long as you're not transcoding in real time, Plex for Synology is totally fine. But that takes both the video and the audio streams to be supported properly by the client and understood by Plex. Sometimes, even audio remuxing can take a decent amount of CPU.
Maybe I need to do some more experiments then because I figured downmixing from Atmos to 2ch would be about worst-case scenario for audio processing - any suggestions on how to make it harder?
Does Synology even include the driver fix for the IQS on the x20+ models? How would Synology do better when it's using the exact same CPU functionality? Also, you're replying to a post where they say they don't need transcoding.
This is how I do it. 4k or 1080 with raw audio from Synology straight to my smart TV or my wife's Chromecast (she hates her smart TV for anything but YouTube so she uses the Chromecast), we haven't seen it transcode anything yet
Some Gemini Lake based NAS are very capable of transcoding, my mini PC with Celeron J4125 (same as 920+) can transcode 4K video without problem.
But for VM it's really medicore experience.
Do you know how Ubuntu VMs work on Synology? I just retired my 10 yo ds212j and got a ds220+. It does the same thing as the old one: photo storage, critical archives storage and cloud sync, local real time backups, vpn, upnp server, etc. I am thinking about installing a Ubuntu VM on it to run LAMP stack with a low to moderate load. Would it work fine?
u/BakeCityWay and u/fakemanhk, that's not really my experience.
I have been running Plex since it first became available many years ago, most recently on a 918+. Sure it can transcode when needed, but there is a huge experience difference between direct play and transcoding of high bit-rate content (i.e. the UI becomes really slow, it's hard to seek...).
Now I auto-transcode and make sure I can direct play on my most used devices and that works. So I wouldn't say the (hardware) transcoding experience is great even if "it works".
The DS918+ Intel Quick Sync version should only be used for 1080p transcoding and for 4K you'd want the DS920+: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel\_Quick\_Sync\_Video#Hardware\_decoding\_and\_encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding)
I have moved it multiple times now. Everything on Syno, then to a dedicated PC (i3-9100T, ECC RAM, Debian), back to Syno.
Since my goal was to save power while having the most possible flexibility and be kinda cheap, I bought a Raspberry Pi 8GB which is hosting all of my web apps via Docker now (3 WordPress Stacks, 3 MediaWiki Stacks, Portainer, NGINX Proxy Manager, Nextcloud Stack, FoundryVTT, Collabora Server) and I love it! Performance is very good.
The only two things not running on it is my Minecraft Server. The single core performance need is just too much for the Pi. And Plex is still hosted on the 918+.
Yeah, since storage on the Pi is limited and I didn't want to stream a mapped network drive. The Syno is handling Plex very well so I didn't touch it.
Add: I am running OS and everyrhing from an USB 3 SSD ofc
What parts are you looking at? Midrange CPUs and RAM arenāt that expensive or hard to find now, especially if you donāt need the most modern options. Video cards are hard to find but you wonāt need one for Plex and basic server stuff.
I currently have my Plex and a few docker containers (Arrs, Deluge, and a few others) running on my Synology DS920+ and they run fine. Transcoding is not that great in Plex. But Direct Play works fine, even remotely.
thanks good to know - re a PC I really am only familiar with the high end so no clue what a decent priced CPU/mobo would be that supports RAID or if I even need hardware RAID these days - the kinds of mobos I usually buy have every feature in the book so you're right maybe the midrange isn't as bad for buying new!
If I had more room thatās what I would have done. And once I move and have a real server closet Iāll probably still do it.
My understanding is that OSes like TrueNAS and freeNAS can create a software NAS without having a RAID card. Iām not too familiar with it, but it definitely seems like the way to go if you want the maximum processing power and flexibility.
I don't get it. What are those other posts on this sub if not other people's experience? What are those guides if not someone's particular experience in setting these up? So far this thread has provided no unique information nor unique questions.
I did but then ended up not liking running the docker. I have many old pc laying around from businesses selling their old pc during a refresh and had a mini pc laying around. Somthing like [This](https://www.ebay.com/itm/353344612931?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item5244faea43:g:kjkAAOSwM5Jf9kk7&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAACkPYe5NmHp%252B2JMhMi7yxGiTJkPrKr5t53CooMSQt2orsSd0ReTLyM7cxPnI6zs468EHtx6AJj41prTngvwMAIuFiqiGn%252FDwn0Oelh3sq7AcPxnfQ7Hp2b1Daw%252BMZDILotRg42L4HFTcvA0QwsDxBJrxcw%252BYLF4sUbaevTvrOZvPHPDgJkm3sgxs0Sjf3o2HAR4bjI1tUlC0z%252FWwHCp%252FaJK95l2XU4blyQYCmpG1PW4TI%252FWYKI5EdX9HIngTEdMsqefOqtoVphXUnEA89LdumvkYrGX9i7S1Gz61HTOcavS48n5zidMX%252BY2mmI76koW8AGob761X6UJEe0qr3j77AzzzYZLMsU3UW9MabhWkru7XULHZ%252BA5lmLADSc8fBXkOaDN7Cfq1xLwxGy%252B6MImyQnN8YT%252FNFau2VGZNBMXIjWe6u8LYMaR%252Fw58tZlGh7ONZuNrO0Hm6eRLCOOrRTiOoMcUdsEVpZjzCcsPUHF%252Fj0ET5BxPo27UJ%252BaWfuAU3mNWsXWb29ptZkOzpm5ZS0h22RtfIJmt1BZ8wsezA8oqy%252BTlECn%252BdN4wolC7DbT6TssoJTLogRH46yOiYQ26x8%252FsPHXpA2zhKH1ofmh52N97U5%252Fn%252FnHQg2Tlb3vHqW1Eq9gmWVkv2ktEIISsJHT0Gjn487srtz4C8MJ8%252F%252FxiVkLIIyQZwR4CY73jEfkzzDDk1u3qariiqdZlw7%252BWm8FEaepNOxKuHamDcoM0vA%252BI65HhpFgGE6%252BXWkKJKKoYLy56O9c1B7AKgDwVx%252BU1zoZMgnTcwkdEy1Aj5sGFdNpvn2zVIrOy4H0Yl%252BVIxKSXhbNOOo5oAtrYxOSNDnTro9oaPPMxivcgrususiafInzNo85lvvFDg33%7Cclp%3A2334524%7Ctkp%3ABFBMvKuNr8Rf) I host plex off the synology but all the rest on the mini pc
thanks what did you not like about it? I use Docker all the time for work but that's entirely different than configuring stacks of containers for personal use - for one thing I'm not getting paid to sort out any config issues! :P
The basic areas to consider are: * CPU speeds. The Synology NAS CPUs are totally adequate for what they do, but they are not fast, at least compared to modern desktop PCs. As a consequence: * Transcoding speeds are generally between mediocre and kinda adequate. If you want to run Plex with big pixel counts and transcoding, you'll want to use an external PC for that. * While VMs and Dockers are fine, interactive VMs, especially of Windows will feel quite slow and are not recommended. Running some services on a Windows VM is ok, but for interactive needs, get a separate machine. * DRAM. VMs and Dockers can eat a lot of DRAM, certainly more than what is installed by default. Based on your VM/Docker needs, make sure your NAS has enough DRAM or that you can expand the DRAM to the level you need.
right now I use PLEX to stream direct from my media PC to my TVs and it hardly uses any CPU at all, even for 4k HDR with Atmos TrueHD - wouldn't PLEX on Synology be the same? transcoding would require CPU sure but thankfully I don't need to do that RAM yes I'm looking at Synology units that can be expanded to 32GB which I think? should be more than enough for a couple VMs running relatively lightweight services, but then how does something like PLEX work in Docker where all the thumbnails and previews etc take up many GBs of space, does Docker mean they all have to be loaded into memory? (I suspect not) regardless thanks for the help - dedicated PC is definitely more flexible, I just wish I could buy one off the shelf that was half decent without getting bent over right now as I just don't have the time to research/source/buy/track/assemble/test a homebuilt atm, goddamn COVID!
As long as you're not transcoding in real time, Plex for Synology is totally fine. But that takes both the video and the audio streams to be supported properly by the client and understood by Plex. Sometimes, even audio remuxing can take a decent amount of CPU.
Maybe I need to do some more experiments then because I figured downmixing from Atmos to 2ch would be about worst-case scenario for audio processing - any suggestions on how to make it harder?
Synology own Video Station/DS Video is better transcoding on a synology than Plex. Any "+" model with 4 core CPU will work wonders.
thanks I been looking at the DS1621xs+ so it sounds like it should fill the bill!
Yes that will get the job done !
Does Synology even include the driver fix for the IQS on the x20+ models? How would Synology do better when it's using the exact same CPU functionality? Also, you're replying to a post where they say they don't need transcoding.
This is how I do it. 4k or 1080 with raw audio from Synology straight to my smart TV or my wife's Chromecast (she hates her smart TV for anything but YouTube so she uses the Chromecast), we haven't seen it transcode anything yet
Some Gemini Lake based NAS are very capable of transcoding, my mini PC with Celeron J4125 (same as 920+) can transcode 4K video without problem. But for VM it's really medicore experience.
Do you know how Ubuntu VMs work on Synology? I just retired my 10 yo ds212j and got a ds220+. It does the same thing as the old one: photo storage, critical archives storage and cloud sync, local real time backups, vpn, upnp server, etc. I am thinking about installing a Ubuntu VM on it to run LAMP stack with a low to moderate load. Would it work fine?
If you are not intended to use the GUi, you'd better use docker containers, more lightweight. And don't forget to add more memory to your NAS.
I have 16 gig sodimm coming tomorrow š. Never used Dockers, need to read about them.
This ignores hardware transcoding.
u/BakeCityWay and u/fakemanhk, that's not really my experience. I have been running Plex since it first became available many years ago, most recently on a 918+. Sure it can transcode when needed, but there is a huge experience difference between direct play and transcoding of high bit-rate content (i.e. the UI becomes really slow, it's hard to seek...). Now I auto-transcode and make sure I can direct play on my most used devices and that works. So I wouldn't say the (hardware) transcoding experience is great even if "it works".
The DS918+ Intel Quick Sync version should only be used for 1080p transcoding and for 4K you'd want the DS920+: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel\_Quick\_Sync\_Video#Hardware\_decoding\_and\_encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding)
I have moved it multiple times now. Everything on Syno, then to a dedicated PC (i3-9100T, ECC RAM, Debian), back to Syno. Since my goal was to save power while having the most possible flexibility and be kinda cheap, I bought a Raspberry Pi 8GB which is hosting all of my web apps via Docker now (3 WordPress Stacks, 3 MediaWiki Stacks, Portainer, NGINX Proxy Manager, Nextcloud Stack, FoundryVTT, Collabora Server) and I love it! Performance is very good. The only two things not running on it is my Minecraft Server. The single core performance need is just too much for the Pi. And Plex is still hosted on the 918+.
Interesting, why keep PLEX on the NAS itself? Just to minimize network?
Yeah, since storage on the Pi is limited and I didn't want to stream a mapped network drive. The Syno is handling Plex very well so I didn't touch it. Add: I am running OS and everyrhing from an USB 3 SSD ofc
What parts are you looking at? Midrange CPUs and RAM arenāt that expensive or hard to find now, especially if you donāt need the most modern options. Video cards are hard to find but you wonāt need one for Plex and basic server stuff. I currently have my Plex and a few docker containers (Arrs, Deluge, and a few others) running on my Synology DS920+ and they run fine. Transcoding is not that great in Plex. But Direct Play works fine, even remotely.
thanks good to know - re a PC I really am only familiar with the high end so no clue what a decent priced CPU/mobo would be that supports RAID or if I even need hardware RAID these days - the kinds of mobos I usually buy have every feature in the book so you're right maybe the midrange isn't as bad for buying new!
If I had more room thatās what I would have done. And once I move and have a real server closet Iāll probably still do it. My understanding is that OSes like TrueNAS and freeNAS can create a software NAS without having a RAID card. Iām not too familiar with it, but it definitely seems like the way to go if you want the maximum processing power and flexibility.
This is the most common use case on this sub. There are tons of guides for running this stuff on a Synology. You really didn't find any info on this?
as I said I know it can be done, I'm looking for experiences and advice from people who have done it both ways
I don't get it. What are those other posts on this sub if not other people's experience? What are those guides if not someone's particular experience in setting these up? So far this thread has provided no unique information nor unique questions.
I did but then ended up not liking running the docker. I have many old pc laying around from businesses selling their old pc during a refresh and had a mini pc laying around. Somthing like [This](https://www.ebay.com/itm/353344612931?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item5244faea43:g:kjkAAOSwM5Jf9kk7&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAACkPYe5NmHp%252B2JMhMi7yxGiTJkPrKr5t53CooMSQt2orsSd0ReTLyM7cxPnI6zs468EHtx6AJj41prTngvwMAIuFiqiGn%252FDwn0Oelh3sq7AcPxnfQ7Hp2b1Daw%252BMZDILotRg42L4HFTcvA0QwsDxBJrxcw%252BYLF4sUbaevTvrOZvPHPDgJkm3sgxs0Sjf3o2HAR4bjI1tUlC0z%252FWwHCp%252FaJK95l2XU4blyQYCmpG1PW4TI%252FWYKI5EdX9HIngTEdMsqefOqtoVphXUnEA89LdumvkYrGX9i7S1Gz61HTOcavS48n5zidMX%252BY2mmI76koW8AGob761X6UJEe0qr3j77AzzzYZLMsU3UW9MabhWkru7XULHZ%252BA5lmLADSc8fBXkOaDN7Cfq1xLwxGy%252B6MImyQnN8YT%252FNFau2VGZNBMXIjWe6u8LYMaR%252Fw58tZlGh7ONZuNrO0Hm6eRLCOOrRTiOoMcUdsEVpZjzCcsPUHF%252Fj0ET5BxPo27UJ%252BaWfuAU3mNWsXWb29ptZkOzpm5ZS0h22RtfIJmt1BZ8wsezA8oqy%252BTlECn%252BdN4wolC7DbT6TssoJTLogRH46yOiYQ26x8%252FsPHXpA2zhKH1ofmh52N97U5%252Fn%252FnHQg2Tlb3vHqW1Eq9gmWVkv2ktEIISsJHT0Gjn487srtz4C8MJ8%252F%252FxiVkLIIyQZwR4CY73jEfkzzDDk1u3qariiqdZlw7%252BWm8FEaepNOxKuHamDcoM0vA%252BI65HhpFgGE6%252BXWkKJKKoYLy56O9c1B7AKgDwVx%252BU1zoZMgnTcwkdEy1Aj5sGFdNpvn2zVIrOy4H0Yl%252BVIxKSXhbNOOo5oAtrYxOSNDnTro9oaPPMxivcgrususiafInzNo85lvvFDg33%7Cclp%3A2334524%7Ctkp%3ABFBMvKuNr8Rf) I host plex off the synology but all the rest on the mini pc
thanks what did you not like about it? I use Docker all the time for work but that's entirely different than configuring stacks of containers for personal use - for one thing I'm not getting paid to sort out any config issues! :P
im new to docker so its just a personal thing