Question Advise me on a NAS for Time Machine and Plex

bishbashboshdj

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So I've had enough of the external raid time machine I've got hooked up to my mac pro..... I've replaced the drives in it twice, its noisy, its slow, and then last night it started causing kernel panics on the mac itself (no idea why).

So I'm seriously considering in a NAS, ideally I'd like to use it for time machine for my 2 macs (and possibly my work one too), but I'd also like to be able to stream my media on it... I'm fully bought into plex, so one that could support a plex media server would be ideal. Additionally as a long shot if it could run a bitsync client to sync folders between my seedbox that would be amazing, but not the be all and end all.

My last issue is that I have no ports left on my router, and I wouldn't want the NAS next to the router.... But I do use home plugs, so where my computer is and is already plugged in via a home plug, could I plug a NAS into the same home plug to give it network connectivity?
 
Check out Synology and Qnap websites for one that matches your budgets and needs.

Yes you could use homeplugs, but don't, not worth the performance drop. Run Cat5e to where you want it located and if you need more ports buy a gigabit switch. Small 5 or 8 port switch are easy to use, it's just plug and play. One cable from your router to the switch for network communication and then the rest of the ports are yours to use for devices. If your router hasn't got gigabit ports then make sure the NAS and important devices plug into the switch as then they will benefit from the increased speed locally (providing they too are gigabit (10/100/1000) and not just 10/100 ethernet connections.
 
Check out Synology and Qnap websites for one that matches your budgets and needs.

Yes you could use homeplugs, but don't, not worth the performance drop. Run Cat5e to where you want it located and if you need more ports buy a gigabit switch. Small 5 or 8 port switch are easy to use, it's just plug and play. One cable from your router to the switch for network communication and then the rest of the ports are yours to use for devices. If your router hasn't got gigabit ports then make sure the NAS and important devices plug into the switch as then they will benefit from the increased speed locally (providing they too are gigabit (10/100/1000) and not just 10/100 ethernet connections.

Ah I'm not running a cable the entire length of my house...... Looks like a NAS would be out of the question if the performance would be greatly reduced by running via home plugs..... what a pain.
 
They do improve homeplugs all the time. But they vary so much from house to house and you'd need to test what actually speeds you can get. Nothing beats running a cable. Can't you go out through a wall and around the house and back in? Or bury it behind skirting boards? Got 100 metres length you can go up to on a cable run.
 
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They do improve homeplugs all the time. But they vary so much from house to house and you'd need to test what actually speeds you can get. Nothing beats running a cable. Can't you go out through a wall and around the house and back in? Or bury it behind skirting boards? Got 100 metres length you can go up to on a cable run.

Nah, the only wall it adjoins is into the neighbours house.

Ill test my connection speed across the home plugs, if I can work out how
 
I use a Netgear Readynas 104, It has the plex app installed on it, and it can be configured as a time machine at the same time. IIRC it can handle up to 16Tb of HDDs in various levels of RAID
 
I use a Netgear Readynas 104, It has the plex app installed on it, and it can be configured as a time machine at the same time. IIRC it can handle up to 16Tb of HDDs in various levels of RAID

I also bought a 4 port switch from Scan not that long ago for less than the price of homeplugs. Why not see if you can rearrange the devices connected to your router to encompass a switch, and then free up a socket for the NAS.

PS the ReadyNAS has 2 gigabit network sockets, I never considered that it might have a built in switch of it's own.
 
PS the ReadyNAS has 2 gigabit network sockets, I never considered that it might have a built in switch of it's own.

No it's not a switch, that is for network failover redundancy (i.e. a port or network cable failure) and depending on the model it can sometimes be teamed to give increased bandwidth from the NAS to other network devices.
 

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