Anything Like Plex For FreeNAS/TrueNAS?

[zunebuggy]

I recently scanned and OCR'd my file cabinet and backed up my CD and DVD Roms to iso and backed up my music, videos, photos etc.

I have them all span onto 12 external drives of various sizes. I wanted to use my older PC with something like FreeNAS/TrueNAS so I can access documents from anywhere and from any device.

I also like using Plex for my music and videos. Does FreeNAS/TrueNAS have anything like Plex (that displays thumbnails) and can be accessed from a Roku or Firestick? Or since FreeNAS is like an OS, can I install Plex on it?

Thank you.

 

[Redcoat]

Or since FreeNAS is like an OS, can I install Plex on it?

Absolutely! And welcome to the forums!

If you describe your "older PC" hardware ini detail here someone will be able to cxoments on its fir for duty as a Plex sever.

Data needed to make a good call would be:

• Motherboard make and model
• CPU make and model
• RAM quantity
• Hard drives, quantity, model numbers, and RAID configuration, including boot drives
• Hard disk controllers
• Network cards

 

[zunebuggy]

Dell Inspiron 1501 or HP Pavilion dv7
AMD64 or Triple Core (both 64 bit)
4GB or 8 GB
Each computer has at least 250GB Hard Drives and I have 12 external drives the smallest is 1TB and the largest is a 14TB
Not sure of the HD controllers
Network Cards are the ones that came with the laptops and I am using hard wired for both

 

[Redcoat]

Oh dear! Laptops. I wouldn't hold out much hope for your satisfaction with running FreeNAS/TrueNAS and Plex on a laptop, except perhaps just as a learning tool. 8GB of RAN is a minimum for FreeNAS/TrueNAS and adding a Plex jail will cause ,ore strain. By external drives I assume you are talking about USB HDD's - these are also potentially problematical, typically not recommended for any other duty than intermittent backup use, not main storage. If the NICS are Realtek that'd be another strike against.

FreeNAS/TrueNAS is a resource-heavy OS - take a look at the guide here https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/ - download it with the orange button at the top right of the page - for some orientation on the topic.

Sorry that I don't have anything encouraging to say, nor do I know where to point you for an alternative for your current hardware.

You might get something from this link, too https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/converting-old-laptop-to-nas.61755/#post-448956

 

[zunebuggy]

That's OK. I'm glad I asked. I am not beyond going out and buying a new PC for the task. Is it possible to get one for under $2000 that will do the task?

 

[Redcoat]

Is it possible to get one for under $2000 that will do the task?

Should be, especially if you would consider, as many of us do, buying used server gear pulled from data centers (I have two such systems). The "pricey bit" is the storage, where best to buy new.

If you tell us what you intended use case and situation is, applications you would like to run, amount of data to be stored and, if you can, some estimate of how much it will grow over a year (difficult ...) , people here will be able to make suggestions on hardware configurations and maybe point you at sources with good track records.

Do see what you can make of the information in the guide - come back and ask questions. There is a learning curve with servers when you come from PC-land - different thinking applies to many aspects.

 

[jgreco]

The "pricey bit" is the storage, where best to buy new.

But you can still get deals.

EasyStore Drive Shucking like a pro ... by a pro

It has been quite common, for many years, for there to be awesome deals on large capacity hard drives by major vendors on Black Friday. The only downside is that they come in a plastic shell and are "external drives." This week, Covidian Black Friday Week, Best Buy is selling their external WD...

www.truenas.com

 

[Hellione]

If you just want to do a little bit of home streaming and network share, and use your mixed sizes set of disks, "unraid" could also be a good alternative for you. You can add disks of all sizes to the running system, and it will expand storage immediately. Whereas in truenas you have a more fixed storage pool from the beginning, ideally with same disks, and plenty of them. You can use one or more parity disks. Boot from USB stick is the only way. But you will have no snapshots, and much slower speeds. It acts like a stripe set with parity. I personally use this solution as a backup for my truenas

 

[no1jam]

if under 2k is your budget, check out the iX systems, they're made for Freenas / Truenas.

If you want to play on roku or fire stick, encode the videos using handbrake with the Roku preset, they're more likely to playback in Direct Play mode instead of transcoding