Anybody using a Synology DS418Play NAS for 4k transcoding Mavic video?

[Kawboy12R]

I'm looking at adding a better NAS to my home network. I'd love to be able to store my Mavic footage in 4k on the NAS and be able to view it on any device at any resolution at home or away and it seems like the brand new Synology DS418Play should do that nicely. It is supposed to do on the fly 4k transcoding.

Anybody actually tried it yet and have some real-world experience? Just wondering if it can keep up with the Mavic and possibly P4 Pro bitrates.

If you use something else to do the same thing I'd be interested in your experiences with other solutions as well.

 

[Former Member]

Have you had a Synology product before? I have a bunch of their NAS units, and if you are thinking about storing your footage on it, they are are fast and expandable. I would upgrade the OEM memory from 2GB to 6GB especially if you are thinking about letting it do video transcoding.

I try to make sure that every component in my network including switches, modems, routers are all gig compatible, and that all my wires are at least cat 5e or 6.
.

 

[Kawboy12R]

No. My current "NAS" is an external HD plugged into my router. My computer has no expansion bays left and the drives are basically full, plus I've been meaning to improve the backup situation for the laptops in the house so it's looking like a NAS will answer a few needs.

Good tip on memory expansion. My routers and switches by the server are all GigE and most switches are also POE (IP camera system running as well). Cables are up to snuff.

Which ones are you running? Any of them do on the fly transcoding?

 

[Former Member]

An NAS is a good answer to a network backup, but I dont do "on the fly" encoding because it ties the servers up. I usually do my processing locally on a quad core desktop then just store everything on the NAS.

I have 2 1513's, 2 1518's, and a couple of smaller ones for other tasks. I have around 100tb of data mostly stored on Synology NAS servers.

In my 5 drive units, I use RAID 5 which gives me a 20% fault tolerance. If one drive fails, the 4 others will pick up the slack until I put in a new drive. The DS418 only has 4 drives, so if you use Raid 5, you will lose 25% of your total volume of data due to the reserve required by the RAID.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I'm assuming that the 418Play won't crump when transcoding. It claims to be able to do 2 simultaneous 4k streams so presumably 1 stream is under 50% load. I'd been hoping to just save the files and not have to bother even thinking of manually transcoding.

 

[Former Member]

I'm assuming that the 418Play won't crump when transcoding. It claims to be able to do 2 simultaneous 4k streams so presumably 1 stream is under 50% load. I'd been hoping to just save the files and not have to bother even thinking of manually transcoding.

Let us know how it goes. Dual-core 2GHz burst up to 2.5GHz is still gonna be slower than a quad core with the same memory. Youre gonna pay upwards of $1800 for the 418Play with 40tb of storage.

How much storage are you going to be buying? Its capacity is 40tb but smaller drives like (4) 8tb drives will save you some money. Also, look for drives with faster write speeds and RPM and big caches.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I was thinking of getting 2x 4Tb to start and leave room for expansion later. I don't have crazy data needs ATM so anything is a big step up. The 418Play is a bit overkill to start but seems to give the horsepower I want for the transcoding and will allow room for expansion later.

 

[Former Member]

Its' speed is not overkill, maybe its' capacity is.

I would prefer to have a hotrod computer for video processing and a smaller NAS like an 8tb WD Mycloud ($300) since all youre looking to store is 8tb anyway, 25% of which will be wasted if you do RAID 5.

 

[Kawboy12R]

My "server" is a 16gig I7 3770 w/GTX970. On 24/7 running the camera system. I've considered a MyCloud but they've got some serious security problems.

 

[Former Member]

My "server" is a 16gig I7 3770 w/GTX970.

Not sure why you dont just let that do the 4k transcoding

 

[Kawboy12R]

It's usually running around 35% CPU usage. It'd probably be fine but I haven't played with software that'd make it a video server like that, although a friend is running Plex and seems to like it. I'm certainly not against it. Any video it would work on would have to be on a NAS or require a fairly serious local HD upgrade though. My external HD on the router works but is verrrry slow transferring files. That's a router issue with USB attached storage being slow though.

To avoid a NAS purchase entirely, the RAID 0 (2x 1TB) would have to go from the computer and the small drives wouldn't be much use to me after. It's almost due to be replaced anyway for reliability reasons though- about 4 years in RAID 0 running 24/7. Ideally, I'd strip the guts from the microATX "server" case, put it in a real tower case, and put in more bigger drives. Preferably dedicate one drive solely to IP camera storage and another to Mavic video, etc. Ditch the 0 array idea because it's not needed for speed (SSD boot drive now) or aggregating small drives into a more usable volume size.

I'd still like a separate NAS for a number of reasons sooo... Decisions decisions...

 

[Former Member]

It's usually running around 35% CPU usage.

Wow 35% is alot to be continuously running on that high powered of a machine. How many cameras are you running in your system?

My external HD on the router works but is verrrry slow transferring files. That's a router issue with USB attached storage being slow though.

I wouldnt expect much more speed than that from the DS418 even though it will be running through an RJ45 instead of USB. Are you using USB 2 or 3?

It's almost due to be replaced anyway for reliability reasons though- about 4 years in RAID 0 running 24/7.

4 years is a long time for a hard drive. I replace my 24/7 units every 2 years. HD failure rate after 3 years increases drastically due to all the moving parts.

I'd strip the guts from the microATX "server" case, put it in a real tower case, and put in more bigger drives. Preferably dedicate one drive solely to IP camera storage and another to Mavic video, etc. Ditch the 0 array idea because it's not needed for speed (SSD boot drive now) or aggregating small drives into a more usable volume size.

That sounds like a good plan, but youre still going to be using 35% for your camera system. Adding a separate HD for the video work is a good idea, but it's going to increase the load on your chip and RAM to maybe 60-70%.

BTW, how much 4k video are we talking about? A 20 minute 4k video is around 6gb. That should be short work for your server even though it's running at 35% already.
.

 

[Kilrah]

All depends on what the actual hardware included and whether the software can make proper use of it.
If the system incorporates hardware video decoding and encoding engines and the SW uses them then a 4K video can be transcoded with nearly 0% CPU usage, just using the decoder/encoder and the GPU's scaling facilities.

Best is to read actual reviews of people using the same configuration for the same purpose.

And yes a NAS is slower than DAS going through USB3 for obvious reasons.

Since I don't actually need any network sharing all my storage solutions are DAS. Main PC has a 12TB internal volume (2x 6TB drives in RAID0), and I back that up on 2 external USB3 dual drive hardware RAID0 boxes with same drive config (with one offsite and regular rotation). Gets me 2-3x the speed I'd have with a NAS both in regular use and when backing up.

 

[Former Member]

Main PC has a 12TB internal volume (2x 6TB drives in RAID0), and I back that up on 2 external USB3 dual drive hardware RAID0 boxes with same drive config (with one offsite and regular rotation).

I like your configuration and thats what I was trying to explain. How much RAM do you have?

For backing up your 12TB internal RAID0 to the external USB 3 drives, do you use mirroring? I have been using incremental backups. I do all my processing on my desktop, then backup to my Synology NAS's.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Wow 35% is alot to be continuously running on that high powered of a machine. How many cameras are you running in your system?

Eight discrete cams with 3 cloned in Blue Iris with much higher levels of motion alert sensitivity to give me meaningful email alerts with pictures when someone comes to my door or in a driveway. So I think the count is 11 streams ATM.

I wouldnt expect much more speed than that from the DS418 even though it will be running through an RJ45 instead of USB. Are you using USB 2 or 3?

The drive is USB 2 but the router doesn't support much of even that speed. Copying from the computer to the drive gets me maybe 50Mbits/s (yes mega bits) over a GigE router connection with it sometimes tapering down on longer transfers to the teens for no apparent reason. Horrible actually. It's a known issue for the router but even then I think I'm getting crappier results than most. I'd swap it out for a newer one but in all other ways I'm happy with it and I'd have to redo some port mapping, static IP assignments, DDNS setup, etc in the new one to get the network working like it is now.

4 years is a long time for a hard drive. I replace my 24/7 units every 2 years. HD failure rate after 3 years increases drastically due to all the moving parts.

Yep. With two exceptions over the years I have good luck with drives. One was in a RAID 0 array though so I know the pain of failure. That was a Seagate that wouldn't spin up. Add that to a Fujitsu that died in the late 90s when they had a bad run of drives.

BTW, how much 4k video are we talking about? A 20 minute 4k video is around 6gb. That should be short work for your server even though it's running at 35% already.
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Not a ton. I don't fly a lot but I'm so hemmed in by full drives and annoyed by painfully slow ones when I do that it makes a little by some standards seem like a lot. It's just time for bigger, faster, and easier. Somehow.

If I don't get a definitive answer on the awesomeness of the 418Play transcoding Mavic video seamlessly I may just swap out the two RAID drives for an 8TB and put the whole shebang in a tower case with a cheaper NAS hidden away with some storage for scheduled laptop backups and duplicate IP cam footage just in case someone breaks in and steals the computer. They probably won't find a NAS tucked in a ceiling somewhere. I dloaded Plex before I left for work to see how well that works.

 

[Kilrah]

I like your configuration and thats what I was trying to explain. How much RAM do you have?

32GB. But to be clear it's not a server dedicated to data storage, it's my main machine. i7-5960X (OC 4.2GHz), 2xGTX970, 512GB M.2 SSD as system drive.

For backing up your 12TB internal RAID0 to the external USB 3 drives, do you use mirroring?

Yeah mirroring using either SyncBack SE or FreeFileSync. I use the latter once or twice a year with the "compare file contents" option to verify against corruption or catch read errors/bad sectors.

 

[Former Member]

If I don't get a definitive answer on the awesomeness of the 418Play transcoding Mavic video seamlessly I may just swap out the two RAID drives for an 8TB and put the whole shebang in a tower case with a cheaper NAS hidden away with some storage for scheduled laptop backups and duplicate IP cam footage just in case someone breaks in and steals the computer.

Thats what I would do.

 

[Former Member]

32GB. But to be clear it's not a server dedicated to data storage, it's my main machine. i7-5960X (OC 4.2GHz), 2xGTX970, 512GB M.2 SSD as system drive.

That's a really nice setup.

Yeah mirroring using either SyncBack SE

I use it too. Makes things really automated.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Thats what I would do.

Here's what desktop resource usage is like before and after Plex is fired up transcoding 4k Mavic video while viewing it live on my phone at 1080P over LTE. The big spike in yellow for network use is dloading the 4k over the LAN and the green upload (too small in scale vs the dload to really see the graph part but 1.6Mbit/s) usage is sending to the phone. Not taxing the LAN at all and CPU use is quite reasonable although I was expecting less of a jump to tell the truth.

Now balance the fairly substantial Plex license cost vs the built-in "free" ability of the 418Play. "Here", a DS216j is currently $200 (reg $250 they say) on Newegg.ca. The 418Play is on sale from $650 for $550. To use uncrippled Plex, a lifetime license is $160. So, $360 for a 216j 2 bay or $550 for a 4 bay 418Play but the on-the-fly transcoding only lasts the life of the NAS. 5 years maybe? Soo, 418Play is more expandable but still substantially more expensive in the medium and particularly the long run if I don't plan on using more storage than the two bays of the 216j allow. Neither my router nor any of my switches support link aggregation, so as long as I don't do any encryption the 1x GbE 216j will be in the same ballpark in file transfer speeds as the 2x GbE 418Play barring additional future upgrades.

So, it's looking like going the Plex/216j route will save me enough money to pay for more than 4TB of storage for "free" now as long as I don't want more than two drives in the NAS, which I wasn't really planning on. Also, lifetime Plex transcoding is included in that option, assuming that Plex is around that long. Sooo, it's kinda looking like the 216j/Plex solution is the budget choice even considering the transcoding abilities of the 418Play because my i7 is turned on and available 24/7 anyway.