ConnectivityGuides and TutorialsNews

How to set up your own NAS server with Plex on a QNAP

In an increasingly interconnected world, simple solutions are sought for problems or needs that are presented to us. Today we watch many series and many movies, as streaming services put more and better content on demand. That is why these streaming services became popular, because it makes it easier for us. For years, nothing has come out for the multimedia content that we download or create, but luckily solutions like Plex have come out, the image and video streaming service between devices over the internet, and that is quite easy to configure to have a media server.

Plex is a service, which, in short, It allows us to broadcast to the devices through the Wi-Fi network or the Internet, the images and the videos that we have in local mode. In this way, we can set up our own private multimedia service, but doing so requires configuring it and understanding what Plex is. Many people are afraid of it, and others believe that they have a magical solution to make it cheap. Well here we have a simple guide to configure Plex on a NAS server.

First of all, what is Plex

First of all, you have to understand that Plex is a service that is made up of two different apps. On the one hand, we have the standard Plex application, which is the one that we download to our computers, smartphones, or even Smart TVs so that they act as a client and allow us to play the multimedia content that is on the server. Really, They can be photos or videos of your own, but its use with series and movies has become popular, especially to share them in a home to download them on a personal PC and watch it comfortably in the living room, or pass it on to friends without having to do a large file transfer.

They also have a selection of their own content, usually movies and series with rights that are easy to acquire or that are in the public domain. It does not mean that it is a good library of movies and series to consume for free, even without having to create an account or register anywhere.

It should be noted that Plex is also connected to the different and most popular video streaming services so that Plex is our link. we can link Disney +, Amazon prime Video, Netflix and even national alternatives like FlixOlé.

Moving on to the server application, Plex Server, it is the one that we must put on our server so that it interacts locally with our multimedia files. The Plex Server application will be in charge of encoding, compressing and retransmitting the data over the Internet or the network. It is important that the device that does it has considerable power and is adapted to it, since the device will be the only one in charge of providing us with a high-quality image and sound.

Technically, we can use Plex without ever installing Plex Server. We will be able to see the catalog that the service offers us and other streamings, but we will not be able to retransmit our videos and photos.

Can I use an old computer as Plex storage?

By proxy, technically you can. It is a very common practice that of maintaining an old computer that is no longer used for less important tasks such as multimedia content. But it can be highly inefficient since the old computers we use are still PCs for office or gaming use all the power of an old CPU and RAM, which are less energy efficient and have to run an entire operating system .

It is possible that using an old computer, this becomes a bottleneck for streaming media on Plex. CPUs and graphics cards come with built-in drivers for codecs and workload types that can be essential for streaming video. One example is the AMD Radeon RX 6400 graphics card, which is designed for laptops that know they're going to be 1080p resolution, so it doesn't have drivers for outputting or receiving 4K resolution content. And this is a graph that came out on the market at the beginning of 2022.

rrr movie vpn india

Over the last 5 years or so, Intel and AMD have been integrating hardware data compression acceleration so processors don't suffer or get too hot with streaming. And it is that the transmission of live video is very demanding and it is not uncommon for streamers to use a PC dedicated to streaming video over the internet and a separate computer to play. Although today, any relatively new simple device can move Plex Server.

This is why the ideal is to use a server, because the server is already designed in both hardware and software to consume what is fair and necessary, and for data transmission. For practical purposes in this case, a NAS is a server intended for data retransmission and has been designed as such.

Do I have to pay to use Plex?

Plex numerous times will send us notices that you have to pay a fee. but streaming between devices can be used completely free of charge. Whenever we access it, it will send us a reminder, but we can say that “not for now“, and will retransmit the content to us as well.

So technically Ples ex is free. But he is going to insist a lot that we pay so that we do not skip that notification for each movie or series chapter that we want to see. There are several payment options, the most attractive being monthly, one for several months, and life. Although the latter is a large payment, it is equivalent to 24 months of payment. With this we remove the constant notification when it is broadcast to mobile devices and the advertisements in the movies and series.

How to link Plex from our NAS to our devices

First of all, is create a user account, which is free, on the Plex.com website. It is tempting to use a disposable email account, but since it is a service that will be recurring and with data that we should keep and not lose, we recommend using the real email account. Of course, using the usual cybersecurity tools and protocols of use strong passwords that are difficult to guess and have not been used on other websites, since at least Plex Server will have access to our multimedia content on our computers from which we broadcast. Remember that any connection is a potential security hole.

As we said, you have to keep in mind the difference between Plex and Plex Server. We will install Plex on our mobiles, our Smart TVs, our HDMI spikes for TVs that are not smart, our PC... But Plex Server will be what we install on the NAS, which in this case, we use the QNAP TS-233 as references. This server model is one of two bays, very compact and silent, which makes it more efficient to be a home server with multimedia options.

Fortunately, the suite of apps that QNAP has in its app store includes Plex Server for download to the server. We simply have to search for it, and download it. Once downloaded, we must configure it with our account, so that the device knows that we are the same user. Once linked, the NAS will ask us where the multimedia files are, which is a folder you'll know is the one to use to stream your photos and videos. In the case of not having it, it is as easy as creating it with the NAS file manager and starting to put all our multimedia content there.

In the event that the NAS is shared by the family or members of the household, it is recommended that private folders be created for each one. If it's a folder they'll use, it's possible to allow multiple accounts to use a different shared folder.

Configuration Notice

A warning that we have to put is that when we configure the quality of the video that we emit, we never put the option “make my cpu suffer“. It is an option that Plex puts in an ironic way, and that we do not understand that they still put it, when many CPUs can deteriorate with its use. It is designed for server range CPUs such as Epyc or Xeon. We should not put that mode if our server is for consumers or small businesses.

QNAP TS-233 NAS Specifications

  • ARM 4-core Cortex-A55 2.0GHz CPU
  • 64-bit ARM CPU architecture
  • Floating point unit
  • Encryption engine
  • 2 GB of non-expandable memory, with some RAM reserved for use as graphics memory.
  • Flash memory 4 GB (dual-boot operating system protection)
  • Drive Bay 2 x 3,5″ SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s drives
  • Drive Compatibility 3,5″ SATA Hard Drives, 2,5″ SATA Hard Drives, and 2,5″ SATA Solid State Drives
  • Hot swappable
  • GbE port
  • Wake-on-LAN
  • Vilaitiya Frame
  • Two ports USB 2.0 port
  • USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
  • Tower Format
  • LED indicators for system status, LAN status, USB status, and HDD 1 and 2
  • Power, reset, and USB copy buttons
  • Dimensions: 188,64 × 90,18 × 156,26 mm
  • Weight of 1.11 kg
  • Operating temperature from 0 to 40 °C
  • Storage temperature -20 to 70°C
  • Relative humidity 5 to 95% relative humidity non-condensing,
  • 65W power supply unit with adapter 12VDC, 100-240VAC
  • 3.43 W power consumption in hard drive sleep mode
  • 10.81 W x power consumption in operating mode, typical 10.81 W
  • 80mm fan, 12V DC
  • System warning
  • Maximum of 200 simultaneous connections

How to transfer files to our NAS to play them on Plex

The process is as simple as the usual process of uploading our files with the manager of our server, and upload them to the specific folder of files that Plex Server uses to choose which files it can stream. The way to get movies and series is already up to each one.

Why saving series and movies on a QNAP NAS is an option to consider

On this website, we always recommend that houses have a NAS for files to share or that are important. Whether it's a home or a business, there are never enough backups of crucial files. The phrase of "The cloud doesn't exist, it's someone else's computer” should not be forgotten, since although we can have our photos and videos in Google Photos, we are at the mercy of Google services, which for many reasons can block our account and with it our files.

Having a local NAS with our photos is a way to ensure that we can access them online and that they are controlled by us physically.

Stream series on Plex as an alternative to Netflix and others

In the case of series and movies, we also recommend having them available locally. With content that is not original and that is licensed from other producers, it is common for the license to be lost and disappear from the streaming services that we pay for. An example of this is The Office and Parks and Recreations, which although they were previously on Netflix worldwide, they lost the rights to series and movies and they went to services like Peacock or HBO Max, which are not worldwide. There is also the case that they are lost forever and are no longer available online, so having them locally is a way of not getting lost. It is not usual that we want to watch a series and we cannot follow it as much as we want and suddenly it is not on our preferred service.

It also allows us to view content without relying entirely on Netflix servers. It is normal for them to have many consumption peaks on the days that they make big releases and on weekends, so we can consume our content without depending on those servers. It is true that we will continue to use the Plex ones, but it is an alternative.

Show more

Benjamin Rosa

Madrileño whose publishing career began in 2009. I love investigating curiosities that I later bring to you, readers, in articles. I studied photography, a skill that I use to create humorous photomontages.

Related publications

A comment

Leave your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

Button back to top
Close

Ad blocker detected

This site is financed through the use of advertising, we always ensure that it is not too intrusive for the reader and we prioritize the reader's experience on the web. But if you block ads, some of our funding will be reduced.