My goal is to set up a PLEX media server in my house for my movies, home videos, music, photos, etc. I want to use either the PR2100 or the PR4100 - principally because of the Built-in hardware transcoding and the performance benefits I expect that to provide when video is streamed to various devices (tv, phones, tablets).
I am not concerned about using RAID 5 or 10 mode in the 4100. I will be fine with just using RAID 1. However, I am concerned about my media library outgrowing the initial capacity down the road and thus am considering the 4100 as future-proofing me vs the 2100.
But, not being an expert with NAS, and being unfamiliar with the 4100 I have the following questions for you … If things won’t work the way I hope I will just buy a 2100 …
So, with the 4100 as an example can I do the following?
Drives 1 and 2 are 4 TB each set up in Raid 1 - lets call this DriveSetA with 4TB usable capacity
Drives 3 and 4 are 4 TB each set up in Raid 1 - lets call this DriveSetB with 4TB usable capacity
So can I have 2 different Raid 1 drivesets within the 4100? And do the sizes of all 4 drives in this case have to be identical, or just each Raid 1 pair? Can DriveSetB be 6 TB drives each vs the 4TB drives in DriveSetA?
If I can have two different Raid 1 drivesets in the 4100 , can the PLEX server within the 4100 be used to hold and host movies on both DriveSetA AND on DriveSetB? Or can the PLEX server only have movies coming from one set of drives eg. DriveSetA ? The software based PLEX servers I’m familiar with only let you define ONE path for movies. A different path can be defined for music and home videos and photos but each topic (movies, music, home videos, photos) can only have 1 path defined. I don’t know if the hardware based server of the 4100 lets you define multiple paths for movies and the other topics.
I would expect I can have a different path for music than movies but the key question is whether the Plex server on the 4100 lets you have multiple paths for movies??
If not, can I at least specify that movies come from DriveSetA but home videos, music and photos are on DriveSetB?
Assuming the multiple paths for movies works in Q2 above … Can I start with 2 drives in the 4100 (DriveSetA) now and at a later date, say 2 years down the road add Drives 3 and 4 to create DriveSetB. (again both sets are Raid 1) ? Will DriveSetA be deleted / impacted in any way if at a later date DriveSetB gets created? Or is it safest to start with all 4 drives at once and Create the two Raid 1 drivesets at the same time (less than ideal)?
Ok but can I define two different RAID 1 sets in the 4100?
And more importantly, can the PLEX Server make use of 2 different RAID 1 sets in the 4100? ie. can I define the path to the movies to be on SetA and SetB or can I only define 1 path for the PLEX server movies?
If neither of the above work, then I am better off with the 2100 as the 4100 won’t be of any added use to me … (I think at least if I am understanding things correclty)
I do not know the answers to your questions, but you know what you can do? You can go to WD Support and download the user manual. It is the same one for both devices.
I often download manuals before I buy, and maybe you ought to as well.
I have already read the manuals, and searched this forum as well as relevant forums at Plex - haven’t found any specific answers to my specific questions - hence my post!
Hoping someone might know as I’d love to get the 4100 for expandability down the road, but if it won’t work with 2 different Raid 1 sets, and if Plex won’t find the movies on both sets, then there is no point for me and I may as well save some cash and just get the 2100.
PR4100 comes with 4 HDD unless you buy driverless and put HHDs yourself.
I think it may be possible to have 2 raid 1s, but it’ll be diffucult.
You can select your source files from any folder / HDD in the Plex. Once you can solve the Q2, the other is easy.
You can add drivers later.
I kind of agree with mkilicar You migh want to contact WD rwxh aupport for definitive answers Just be sure you are at a hig support level that the beginning level.
A comment about Raid.:
When I setup my DL2100 I set it up as RAID1, but know now I shouldn’t have. Since the contents on my NAS is my media files which are dups from the original files on other storage drives, I do not need more redundancy, because I can recreate the NAS from the original files.and half the space on NAS to store more media rather than duplicate it on the NAS.
Businesses using a NAS for documents that are ever changing need RAID, but some one like me does not need RAID. I should have set it up as JBOD. Consider this as you make your decision.
Seems like it will be easiest for me just to go with the PR2100.
If I go with mike27oct’s suggestion of avoiding RAID1 (since I will have the media files backed up elsewhere in any case), should I set the 2 drives up as RAID0 configuration to increase speed or JBOD?
You don’t need the extra speed for a media server. Just go for JBOD, no regrets later.
Make sure you have an extra external backup for your family pics.
RAID0 is madness, it only makes sense if you’re an expert and you want to use it for a fast database. But then you’d use SSDs. 1 disk failure in RAID0 and you lose all data on all your disks.
In JBOD you’d only lose data on 1 disk in case of a failure.
And with a simple rsync script you can get multiple copies of a certain directory over several disks.
