Free NAS or win 10

[FF90]

Going to set up a media server, can reuse a pc that currently has win 10 on it. Or should I use Free NAS ....Need reccomendations, have read that win 10 is a good DLNA server itself? was planning on using Plex add-in.

In either case, to stream to the TV or laptop/tablet. and possibly transferr occasionally to phone for offline viewing. Side issue was a general data sharedrive.

Thanks in advance

[Robotron2k84]

Bandwidth is more important than CPU for a "good" DLNA server. I have one running on my router that serves several TVs. Total throughput of a DLNA server is megabytes per second, hardly in need of anything remotely powerful. If you are looking for automated transcoding for mobile devices, then CPU becomes a factor.

If you are looking for NAS bona fides, steer clear of anything Windows unless your setup relies on a proprietary widget from them.

[Abu Riyah]

I run mine on an old i5 laptop that my old employer sold to employees for like $50 each. I'm running Ubuntu with plex server on it and it works perfectly, even outside my home. I've even streamed content over in-flight wifi to my ipad, though I eventually figured out that plex allowed me to download stuff to my ipad before my trips for offline viewing. I paid like $120 for the lifetime license for plex server and it has been totally worth it.

I use USB 3.0 external drives for my media storage and just add a new one about once a year when I run low on space.

[MrFancyPants]

Your favorite Linux distro and Plex, lightweight and more secure than Windows, if you plan to open it up to the internet for access when you're not at home. I have a private server in Germany which I run Debian on and Plex, as well as other things. You can do the same thing on your LAN for internal access only.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[dscoduc]

If you are planning on streaming files over a file share then Windows will be the better deal. If I remember correctly, SMB speed on Ubuntu stinks compared to Windows.

[Robotron2k84]

Indeed. Caching on SMB under Windows is quite a bit better than a monolithic cache under Samba. You can either optimize for large or small file access under Linux/SMBd, but Windows caches shares much better, as do many IT Enterprise WAN caching and NAS devices.

Samba will always be a hack to get interoperability with Windows and Linux. Better to use native sharing protocols.

[the86d]

Slackware, and make a RAID5 array if she is a one(or two with SaMBa)-trick pony.

You could use a current modern distro, that loads a GUI, and boots slower for no reason though...

[FF90]

whii check it out, thx