Hey guys,
I hope everyone is well atm.
Just a quick question/advice.
I am looking to purchase the new Synology DS1621+ in the near future, however, according to online reviews, due to it’s lack of a GPU or integrated graphics the NAS doesn’t perform as well as other NAS’s on the multimedia side.
Now for the question:
If I do go ahead with the DS1621+, the OSMC Vero 4K TV wouldn’t have any troubles simply reading/pulling and playing media from the DS1621+, or should I go with a NAS with transcoding abilities?
The nas won’t be using DLNA or by anyone else outside of the LAN.
As @sam_nazarko wrote with the Vero 4k you would not need any transcoding on the NAS so that requirement can be excluded from your decision tree. On the otherhand just to serve Files within your LAN the DS1621+ seems quite an overkill so not sure what else you have in mind to do with it.
GPU is only required if you want to do some GUI stuff. And that is something I wouldn’t do on any NAS. NAS == Network Access Storage. Period. It provides storage space over the network.
Some times, some more CPU cycles are required as you add some services running on it. But for display, medias - there are many devices out there. And for Videos, the vero4k+ has been my primary choice. And I’d buy it again if required again!
As darwindesign already said, the iGPU capabilities are only needed for transcoding. If you plan on using the Vero 4K+ to access the NAS and play files, you can ignore that. However, if you want to provide access to your media library to friends outside your network, you’ll need transcoding if your upload is below a file’s bitrate (which it probably is, except you have the god-like upload of 100 or even 1000 Mbit/s of fiber connections).
I’m pretty sure that most NAS devices with Plex support actually allow h/w transcode without the Plex pass. The full story on the topic I think is nuanced a bit more such as subtitles being enabled force transcode as their players don’t support overlay. Hardware transcode also doesn’t really support 4K regardless of platform and plex pass status. Not relevant to this thread but if someone runs across this with that need they should know they are going to have to dig into the weeds for details.
I can only speak for Snyology since I read about all the hardware details before choosing a 918. Its ability to transcode multiple H.264/5 streams was one of the reasons I chose it because I wanted to share my library with friends on remote locations. I felt betrayed when I found out it was only possible with Synology’s own app, Video Station, which leaves quite a few things to be desired, or said Plex Pass. Still think it’s ridiculous not to offer everything the hardware offers to every application but to charge money for it. But that’s the disease of our time. It was a valueable lesson I learned, though.
Having to pay for hardware transcoding is a limitation from Plex not Synology. Any app can have access to hardware acceleration for transcoding. However, only root has access to the video card so you will need to give the app elevated privilege.
Jellyfin is an open source and free alternative to Plex, I have it on my synology (using docker) and can confirm hardware accelerated transcoding works without issue.
Only ever used Synology NAS’s and the lower CPU powered models at that.
Zero problems sharing via NFS to all my media players including the Vero. Use DS416j for 4k shares with HD audio.
Just to reassure you, I run an 1821+ and it is rock solid on serving 4k files to two Veros. Is RAID build is very slow and it slows down file transfers a bit, but I have not noticed any impact servicing the Veros. mainly noticed it moving very large files over the network.
