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Mac mini storage considerations
- Thread starter gigatoaster
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What’s the point of transcoding? I just put the file on a SSD connected to the mini and that’s it, no?
Exactly.
The thing with the NAS transcoding is if the device it is streaming to does not support a specific file type. For example if you want to stream to an iPhone.
But if you are connecting the mini directly to a TV/screen, than it will be fine.
For that reason, no need for a NAS. Just a mass storage device. You can even have several individual external HDD that are really cheap to buy with great warranties and simply get a TB3 dongle with multiple USB3 ports on it. For example a dongle with 4 USB3 ports where you can easily connect 4 disks simultaneously. That way if you ever decide to go somewhere and take some of that data with you, instead of carrying a big 4-bay enclosure, you simply take one of the small drives.
The thing with the NAS transcoding is if the device it is streaming to does not support a specific file type. For example if you want to stream to an iPhone.
But if you are connecting the mini directly to a TV/screen, than it will be fine.
For that reason, no need for a NAS. Just a mass storage device. You can even have several individual external HDD that are really cheap to buy with great warranties and simply get a TB3 dongle with multiple USB3 ports on it. For example a dongle with 4 USB3 ports where you can easily connect 4 disks simultaneously. That way if you ever decide to go somewhere and take some of that data with you, instead of carrying a big 4-bay enclosure, you simply take one of the small drives.
Yes, there are only a few that will handle 4K. That's why I mentioned it. There is even a smaller number that will do 4k UHD decoding, but only 1080p encoding. I assume that encoding is involved when upscaling to 4K. The Bladerunner 2014 disk that I am streaming to the Oppo from the PR4100 is HDR, and as I mentioned the PR4100 cpu is barely being used. And it is being downscaled by the Oppo, since my TV is only 1080p. It all depends on the client.
As for your comment about being bitrate dependent, I suppose you are thinking that a particular NAS's incompatibility with higher resolution format is due to their inability to handle the higher bitrates of 4K media. The implication on the chart is that it is cpu dependent, since they include the CPU specs for the NAS.
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Putting streaming media on an SSD is not cost efficient, since a much cheaper hard disk will handle 4K media without a problem. As your media grows you can get terabytes of media. A 4K rip is in the 80-90 GB range. 12 movies and you are over a terabyte. That would cost a fortune in SSDs.
Not sure I understand your question about transcoding. In general that is determined by the client. If the client doesn't support the format which it is offered by the streaming server, the server has to convert it to a format that the client understands.
Ah thanks for the clarification. I was just not sure “classic” HDD would suffice for 4K HDR. Indeed 4 TB SSD is very expensive and I thought was needed for write/read as classic HDD tends to be slow. Am I correct to assume the classic 4 TB HDD would suffice to store 4K HDR movies?
Yes. Even an USB 2 disk, where I measured ~42 MBs for one of my disks, will meet 4K streaming needs. A USB 3 Seagate Backup Plus ran ~80 MBs. You generally need less than 10-15 MBs for 4K. But this is, of course, just for streaming. Totally different story if you are doing video editing.
If the file you are trying to play isn't supported by the hardware/software on the device you are trying to play it on then transcoding will allow it to play.
I run a plex server and it shares content to friends and family outside the home and inside the game we have a variety of devices used to watch video. To support the multitude of devices transcoding is often required.
I also keep the HD audio track which more most devices is transcoded(it plays fine on ATV4k w/infuse or my shield)
As far as drives go, i'm using NAS drives that are slow at 5400rpm and they work just fine. Even for simultaneous streams.
Thanks for taking the time to answer.
I will clarify my use case. The goal is to play 4K UHD HDR on my Panasonic OLED TV, referenced in signature.
Because earlier someone mentioned these files can size 80 GB I believe I need between 4 to 6 TB. I won’t lie: I’m talking about torrent files.
At home, I don’t know if I have Gigabit or classic Ethernet as I can’t test my Ethernet speed. I can tell you though that WiFi speed is 400 Mbps, am I correct to assume I do have Gigabit?
I’ll use either a Mac mini only or if the mini can’t play HDR, I’ll buy an Apple TV 4K with Infuse.
Right now, I’m hesitating between simple 4 TB HDD 5400 RTM or SSD or NAS.
The problem with SSD is that it’s too expensive for 2 TB. I could do 1 TB, maybe?
For the HDD, I’m afraid it’s going to have some issues if I DL directly on the HDD via Torrent. Or I would DL on the Mini & transfer to the HDD but it might take 10 minutes to transfer 50 Gb I guess.
For the NAS, I’m not familiar with speed.
I don’t need transcoding, I don’t need to access my file outside the home network and my priority is to avoid any lags while playing.
Also, I have the 2 USB port taken: one for my DAC & the other for my music, used by Roon.
So based on this, is there a solution for which I could lean forward?
I will clarify my use case. The goal is to play 4K UHD HDR on my Panasonic OLED TV, referenced in signature.
Because earlier someone mentioned these files can size 80 GB I believe I need between 4 to 6 TB. I won’t lie: I’m talking about torrent files.
At home, I don’t know if I have Gigabit or classic Ethernet as I can’t test my Ethernet speed. I can tell you though that WiFi speed is 400 Mbps, am I correct to assume I do have Gigabit?
I’ll use either a Mac mini only or if the mini can’t play HDR, I’ll buy an Apple TV 4K with Infuse.
Right now, I’m hesitating between simple 4 TB HDD 5400 RTM or SSD or NAS.
The problem with SSD is that it’s too expensive for 2 TB. I could do 1 TB, maybe?
For the HDD, I’m afraid it’s going to have some issues if I DL directly on the HDD via Torrent. Or I would DL on the Mini & transfer to the HDD but it might take 10 minutes to transfer 50 Gb I guess.
For the NAS, I’m not familiar with speed.
I don’t need transcoding, I don’t need to access my file outside the home network and my priority is to avoid any lags while playing.
Also, I have the 2 USB port taken: one for my DAC & the other for my music, used by Roon.
So based on this, is there a solution for which I could lean forward?
The ATV4k is your best bet. The mini can serve it just fine. And with infuse there's no transcoding and it doesn't need much power from the mini so it still runs cool. You'll get better image quality from the ATV.
I torrent directly to my hard drives, I serve directly from my hard drives. The slow NAS hard drives work just fine. Even for full UHD disc backups in the 80gb range(but these I stream to my oppo)
For storage I use a drobo that is DAS. I don't use a NAS. You absolutely do NOT need a SSD. I think I have about 25tb of movies/tv now.
Ethernet is ethernet. What determines gigabit is your port on your mini, the ATV, your router, etc. You'll be fine.
If you are considering a NAS, in order to get the best performance over a wifi network or even a 1gb ethernet configuration, and you plan on playing 4k content, you need to make sure the NAS is powerful enough, especially if you need to transcode 4k content on the fly. I found that a NAS with port aggregation and a compatible router was the only way to stream 4k content to my TV with any sort of reliability using PLEX. Even if I played the material native, a standard wifi set up with a basic NAS would barely cut it. It would lag and hang. I used an AppleTV and PLEX to watch my content.
I ended up using a Synology 918+ and a ASUS AC5300 router with port aggregation. What that means is you use two ethernet connections from the NAS into your router. You use built in software in the NAS and router to combine two lines and create one faster line, thus increasing speeds. The router and NAS have to have this feature built in, you can't just do it with any NAS or router.
I also used the same NAS for time machine backups. No issues at all.
As an alternative method, for a time I was using a 2014 Mac Mini with a OWC USB 3 two bay enclosure plugged directly into the mini to stream movies to my TV using PLEX. My Mini is on all the time anyways. Worked pretty well. I turned on file sharing on the mini and could access the external RAID form any device.
Another plus with the NAS is you can set it up to access your files while away from home. I could access PLEX on my iPhone and watch movies on my home network while on the road.
The possibilities are endless.
I ended up using a Synology 918+ and a ASUS AC5300 router with port aggregation. What that means is you use two ethernet connections from the NAS into your router. You use built in software in the NAS and router to combine two lines and create one faster line, thus increasing speeds. The router and NAS have to have this feature built in, you can't just do it with any NAS or router.
I also used the same NAS for time machine backups. No issues at all.
As an alternative method, for a time I was using a 2014 Mac Mini with a OWC USB 3 two bay enclosure plugged directly into the mini to stream movies to my TV using PLEX. My Mini is on all the time anyways. Worked pretty well. I turned on file sharing on the mini and could access the external RAID form any device.
Another plus with the NAS is you can set it up to access your files while away from home. I could access PLEX on my iPhone and watch movies on my home network while on the road.
The possibilities are endless.
Your ethernet speed is (usually) irrelevant since it is way more than you need for 4K UHD. Wifi speed is much more important since it is so variable. Have you run the speedtest app or gone to speedtest.net to determine your internet download speed? Have you tried downloading a 4K UHD disk as a test? Torrents can be really slow. Does your ISP have a data cap?
For streaming 4K UHD SSD is not needed.
Er, why? If the disk is attached to the mini and is mounted you just download to it.
What clients will you be using? Most require transcoding. Most likely lag issues are due to Wifi speed, but then there can be a whole list of other things that cause lags as well.
You might want to test your wifi speed at the locations you will be using. Tamo Soft has a program which can be run on your mac, with clients on iPhone, apple tv, to exactly measure your internal network speed. Speedtest sort of does that, but since it also measures internet speed rate it can be hard to separate the two.
Why not get a USB hub then? Put the DAC and music on it, then use the other port for the disk. Putting slower devices on the same hub can really slow down a disk.
(emphasis mine)
OP's use case explicitly states that his media will be 4K, so going on and on about NASes that, for all intents and purposes, can't handle 4K is absurd. I did some legwork gathering PassMark scores and prices. The cheapest one I could find from that list that says "some" 4K support is $1,025 for a six-bay diskless Netgear RN526X. Again, diskless. Meaning you then have to spend more money to fill it with drives.
And in the case that OP actually needs transcoding, the CPU in that unit won't be able to transcode even one 4K stream. And even if OP never needs transcoding (unlikely), find me a decent diskless NAS for less than a few hundred dollars.
By contrast, the external enclosure I'm using (Mediasonic Probox HF2-SU3S2) is $99 with four bays. That leaves me $926 (from the price of the Netgear NAS) to fill it with hard drives. I could reasonably get about 30 TB worth of drives for $926. And the mini will still literally run rings around the Netgear unit.
I like to work backwards in these kinds of cases. Start with something like this
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p
Put all your media on it and run that way for a month. Figure out what works and what doesn’t. Buy the drives you need based on actual use. Then reformat the big drive for time machine to back those up.
You might have missed my post. Plex lists several NAS devices that support 4K decoding. I stream 4K HD from a not so powerful WD PR4100 NAS with cpu utilization <10%. I do have a special Plex client through.
I would recommend a DAS. I'm not a fan of NAS devices for this application. Sometimes transcoding is needed and a NAS isn't powerful enough. Use a DAS and the mini can handle that.
Someone mentioned Drobo as a DAS. It looked perfect but when you read the reviews on Amazon, there are many issues with disks being not recognized & their support sucks, apparently.
Also, as I mentioned earlier I don’t need transcoding as I’ll use my Apple TV 4K & Infuse Pro. I was under the impression that Infuse doesn’t transcode, is that correct?
In order to better understand what are the benefits of a DAS vs a NAS?
Also, as I mentioned earlier I don’t need transcoding as I’ll use my Apple TV 4K & Infuse Pro. I was under the impression that Infuse doesn’t transcode, is that correct?
In order to better understand what are the benefits of a DAS vs a NAS?
Some are, even for 4K. See the Plex NAS compatibility list.
I have mixed feelings about a Drobo. I have found their support to be good. When my out of warranty and support Drobo 5D failed they offered me a very decent replacement program. Some of the poor reviews related to unexpected ejects. This can be a problem with external enclosures as it can result in disk corruption. It is an issue that occurs on many devices, even an expensive Promise. I see that their latest software release notes say "Fix issue with USB disconnects on certain Mac host systems".
It is software based RAID which is great. I replaced 2 of the 4 TB drives with 10 TB drives and the Drobo just handled it. Other RAID devices usually require drives of the same size and type. It is slower than a comparable hardware solution. I hadn't benchmarked my 5D3 since it arrived and I found BlackMagic values significantly slower than the system it replaced (183/295 vs 253/428). I attribute this to the fact that I have mixed drive types/capacities. So you gain flexibility, you lose speed.
A DAS (directly attached storage) offers you the fastest bus, other than possibly an internal one. A NAS (network attached storage) device may only have a network connection, such as 1 GB ethernet, and if so you are limited to that speed. A DAS is generally only accessible to the computer which it is attached (there are exceptions), whereas a NAS is available to anyone who can access it on the network. Shut the computer down with DAS media and the media is not accessible. Shut it down leaving the NAS running and the NAS contents are still available via the network.
Building your solution based assuming the performance of one software component, Infuse, is a bit risky. I suppose I am somewhat biased since Infuse is unusable on my system. It always throws up the spinning circle, it won't play a video without major minute pauses . I have a powerful system, it is hardwired, but just doesn't work. The same video works perfectly with Plex. But maybe it's a configuration issue since it gets its data from my iMac Plex server.
What happens if a new player comes out that is awesome and you love it, but it requires transcoding? System requirements for streaming are only going to increase. 8K video is starting to appear. When you make a significant investment like this you don't want to find in a year that it doesn't meet your needs. If you can afford it build in at least some spare capacity to meet future requirements. Don't limit your options.
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Drobo is fine. Their support is great. And I had one fail out of warranty and they offered a new one at half price and even shipped it out immediately and included an extended warranty.
I had one die in warranty and it was a quick email and sent it in and they sent a replacement. Drives back in and all was well. NEVER lost any data. I've never had an issue with a disk not being recognized. I've used seagate and WD drives in them.
And now I have 2 drobos.
Infuse doesn't transcode. But if you ever find yourself streaming to a device other than the ATV with infuse you may need it. phones, tablets, smart tvs,etc. With Plex it's very easy to share your library with others which is what I do, friends and family. Transcoding is a must at that point.
Yes, but those ones are rather expensive.
Am I correct in assuming that an SSD avoids all of the transcoding issues that “may” be a factor in some NAS drives?
Put another way-aside from cost-does the SSD make almost no obstacles in playing 4K HDR movies onto most devices? I am thinking about just sucking up the cost and getting the 2TB Samsung SSD just for convenience and ease of use as long as their is no downside aside from cost...
I've been looking at some of the write tests to internal disk and they're saying writing is neutered compared to reading due to throttling issues. E.g. only 1.2GB/sec compared to 3GB/sec reading.
I can't believe how pedestrian writes are to the internal SSD so it makes me wondering if it's useful for anything but a boot drive.
http://barefeats.com/mac-mini-2018-versus-other-macs.html
I can't believe how pedestrian writes are to the internal SSD so it makes me wondering if it's useful for anything but a boot drive.
http://barefeats.com/mac-mini-2018-versus-other-macs.html
No. SSD makes no difference. 4k streaming is fine with slow 5400rpm NAS drives which is what I use. For transcoding it's all about CPU. Don't waste your money on SSD for a media library.
I use SSD for system drive. To hold Lightroom catalogs(but the photos are stored on my slow drives) For drives holding games that I want to load faster. That's it.
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ONLY 1.2GB/sec. Lol, it's fine. Don't worry about it.
1.2GB/sec would be fine if this was 1976 and we were using an Apple 1 to write to tape drives. But it's not.