Hey Lon, thanks for the great review! You helped me decide to return the WD EX2 Ultra I recently purchased and get the PR2100 specifically for its ability to transcode on the fly. You even encouraged me to do my own review on both units 🙂Thanks again Lon and I look forward to more of your videos in the future. You got a new Sub for sure!
Seriously impressive on the media trans-coding performance. I ordered a PR-4100 based on your review. Too bad it was out of stock at amazon's warehouse. I would have happily used your referral link. Apparently WD has been discounting the device because there have been some nice sales floating around.
Was considering one of these and this review is very well done and very helpful. Thank you! If I do move forward I will be sure to use your affiliate link. Thanks for your time!
While this may be the first NAS to support hardware transcoding, any high-end NAS (i.e. high-end CPU) can transcode videos. I will say that it is impressive that a NAS at this price point is able to perform as well as this one does, making it a very capable Plex server. As you pointed out, it will be interesting to see what NAS units in the future start to include this Intel transcoding capable CPU. Update: The Synology DiskStation DS916+ uses the same CPU. The QNAP TS-251+ uses the Intel J1900 and claims to support transcoding.
subagon new 418play is amazing for 4K transcoding with native video app, alternatively 918+ if you wanna do plex software transcoding. It's got Apollo Lake Intel J3455 64-bit quad-core.
Great review, Lon. Please don't be too quick to dismiss the new Plex Cloud Server using Amazon or other storage. With that you need to buy NO hardware and will be much simpler and more convenient to many of us. I have Plex Pass, but am still waiting for the cloud beta.
it works. got the 4 bay version so i could upgrade the ram. On a 1080p h264 transcode the cpu goes up to 60% and 10% ram. Steadily goes down over the next minute.
Very informative video, thanks. You are the only person I've come across to actually demonstrate the device's streaming capability. I'd like to know if you still think this is a worthwhile purchase? I'm definitely looking for a stand alone solution for HD video streaming to all devices in my home, including a 65" 4K OLED (which I would connect through the USB 3.0 port in any case). Has something better come along now though? It's been over 2.5yrs since you posted this review. The PR2100 and 2x 4Tb WD Red NAS drives would run me around €550 in my part of the world (which is considerably less expensive than the Synology 1019+). Any info you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Lon. I've watched you since getting my first WD NAS around 7 years ago now. I've just been looking at using the Plex server but my EX2 NAS wasn't able to play MKV files from a Blu-ray disc of mine. The audio wasn't supported. This was played directly from the NAS and not through Plex.
Nice review. Thanks for all the useful information. 1) What hard drives did you run these tests with? 2) Did you mention these drives would "give half the capacity"? Are they in RAID 1? Do you know if you can run this setup without RAID so a second drive can be added later? 3) How hard is it to setup RAID on these devices?
If you buy the pre-populated versions they seem to come with WD Reds, and by default are configured in RAID however it's easy enough to change that in the Web interface if you want to use JBOD or whatever.
I have a Readynas 316. I've had no issues with transcoding. We routinely have 4 streams active on a variety of devices from Roku, Android, iPad, Pi2, and Windows clients. We have a mix of 720p in mkv, mp4, and avi. Some 1080p but those tend to stutter at times. Not sure which file format is the problem. Haven't gotten into it enough to narrow down.
What RAID setup would u recommend for someone running a media server on the PR4100? I've been warned against RAID 5...something about it failing to rebuild a drive...but I really don't want to have to sacrifice 50% of my drive space like raid 1, 6, and 10 require. Is RAID 5 really as bad as people are saying?
Lon, I like your idea of ripping my DVDs and Blu-rays and store them on my NAS, I downloaded makemkv that you recommended in a previous video, unfortunately I get the not as impressive 2x speed out of my 6x Blu-ray reader, from what I understand most Blu-ray readers are riplocked. How do you deal with that crap? Any recommendations for a player that can rip full speed?
Thanks for the review. I'm pretty sure this will be my new Plex/DVR server. How loud is this NAS? I've tried a few of their MyCould EX series NAS systems and they were fairly quiet. I'm looking for something I can put at home that doesn't sound the like PowerEdge systems I used to keep in the closet.
The hard drives will make a bit of noise but generally it's pretty quiet. When it first boots the fan comes up full blast (very loud) but it will quickly revert to a slower speed after it goes through its boot up process.
I have a few questions 1. Can I select the hard drive among the 4 in which I want to store my files? 2. Will the device work if I have inserted only 3 hard drives instead of 4?
I’m still sceptic. The WD PR2100 runs on the N3710 processor wich has a Passmark score of 1859. Wich is about the same as the Qnap TS-251+ NAS device. PLEX states on their website that a passmark above 2000 is recomended as a minimum yet I did see on the NAS compability list at plex website shows that the WD has full hardware transcoding on 480, 720p and 1080p files. It doesn’t add up. Smells wrong... I belive the WD Nas does hardware transcode but poorly.
Lon, great review! Quick question... I'm thinking about pairing a PR2100 with Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro instead of the WD Red Pro, since the Seagate's HDDs have the double of the cache (256Mb). In your experience, is there any incompatibility ? The WD website does include older Seagate HDDs in their compatibility list, but not the new IronWolfs (Pro). Thanks.
hi there Lon, I need a bit of help here if you could, I'd to buy a nas but I am no sure about running plex server I have seen both of your videos of the qnap ts-251+ and now this one, you explained that the qnap it is not properly working for transcoding yet because the cpu went up 99% of usage when you transcoded one blueray video, and in the my cloud it could work just fine as I can see, my questions are, is the my cloud better on cpu for plex?, is it my cloud better that the qnap at least on that side?, what is your opinion between them, I like the qnap because one the advantages like having virtualization on and among others (like control
Great review. Can I use the NAS to run my Plex server and also as a backup for my Macbook Pro? Basically can I split of the space? My guess is yes but I want to be sure. Thanks! I'll be buying my WD today! Just got a promo code from Plex Perks too.
Hi Lon, thank you for this review. I have a couple of questions. I know PMS does not transcode VC1 files. Do you know if this one does? Also, I read some reports on the Plex forums does result in some lower quality playback. Did you look at the transcoded movies on a bigger screen to see how it looks. Finally, is there a way on WD NAS devices to not mirror the hard drives? Especially on the 4 drive version, I think think it would a shame to lose two whole drives because of RAID 1. Thanks again for this review, very interesting device. I hope more NAS manufacturers follow soon.
Thank you for the answers. A comparison might be nice, since these seem to be the most interesting integrated Plex server solutions out there. I'll keep an eye out for a good deal on the WD. I'm still hoping Synology will also support hardware transcoding soon.
Great Video, i am after a Home network drive as all my home videos and photos seem to be scattered on multiple portable drives. I am looking for a home drive that backups my mac laptop, stores all my videos and pictures, and as a bonus i can access from my mobile. I also want the option to back it up one drive for additional backup security. Would you have a recommended this product or is overkill?
Hi Bud, I've enjoyed your channel for several years. Thanks to your recommendations I've had a PR4100 16Tb raid05 with plex viewing and has work out well. However, I'm thinking that I could use the spare capacity to record surveillance footage with a couple of PoE cameras but when I research the options I get mixed messages. I know the PR4100 would store images directly from a camera via FTP setting but I'm after a smarter setup so I can view images on my Q7C via an app and IP coms or from my smart phone remotely have you got any ideas?? Thanks in advance.
Based on this and other videos, and statements on the WD and Plex websites, I bought a PR2100 with two 8Tb hard drives and downloaded the latest Plex server software, expecting Plex bliss. So far, no bliss. My iOS Plex apps routinely report that the server is not powerful enough to transcode my videos, which are blu-ray rips done with MakeMKV. This is true even though I'm only trying to watch one stream at a time. Of course I can create videos optimized for iOS, but the point of buying this expensive NAS was to employ transcoding on the fly. By the way, I've tried transcoding both with and without hardware acceleration. It doesn't work either way. And now in the iOS app I usually can't chose to stream the original quality video. This means that I can't watch my movies on my iOS devices. Others are reporting similar issues. I'm pretty unhappy.
Lon.TV I downloaded the app directly from Plex, and yesterday used the free 3-month Plex Pass to download the latest beta version. Someone from WD on the Plex forum suggested that my MakeMKV rips must contain errors, as shown by the info pane in MakeMKV, but I saved that text and only one disc had read errors. That was not one of the videos that caused transcoding problems. I don't have any problems playing the original videos using a PC and Kodi or JRiver Media Center. Nor do I have transcoding problems using Air Video HD to transcode the same files using my PC as the server and my iPad as the player. Of course my PC has an i5 CPU, but it does fine even without hardware acceleration. I just don't want to keep the PC running all the time, or I would use it as my server. And I like it that Plex has apps for most of my devices. I'll keep trying things, but it's pretty discouraging.
Lon.TV Thanks for the reply, by the way! Maybe I'll try deleting and reloading the app. I'm not sure how to get at the supporting files to make sure that everything is deleted so I can start afresh. I'll look into it. I really want to make this work.
Hey Lon. I got a important question for you. Do remember if you had the cloud access enabled on this device when you recorded this video? I have a Mycloud mirror 8TB 2 Gen and when the cloud access is enabled the device performance is severely affected, it gets really slow and the CPU is always oscillating between 20-80 % usage even when I am not accessing it. The device is almost unusable in that situation.There are dozens of threads about this on the wd community discussion, and it seems like the problems is that twonky (the server behind WDMC) is constantly generating thumbnails for the cloud access in a never ending process. So many people use SSH to kill the thumbnail generation process. So do you know if the PR2100 has this problem too when cloud access is enabled?
This is an issue for folks with a lot of media on their device. I think there's a way to disable the thumbnail generation. I don't think it's related to the external access. I haven't had the issue myself.
Question, what’s good for a small business that has 2 drives and is dependable say 2 10TB drives or in that area? I’m assuming this PR2100 is overkill for me? I’m backing up video files, don’t need to stream usually just store.
Hi Lon, What do you think about using FreeNAS software on home built NAS ? Do you have any thoughts on hardware, cpu power ect? I can definitely do a build for a lot less money, Than buying one. Running Plex on main computer now. Thanks for your great channel
It's difficult to give specific hardware advice, especially without knowing your workload. However if you have any spare PC lying around (even a laptop) then that would probably suffice and be the simplest, cheapest option, and would be more robust than a consumer NAS solution like the My Cloud.
WD PR2100 Lon, I bought a WD EX2100 after watching your WD NAS reviews a year or so ago. I bought it for home use to store family home videos and movie. I am using Plex to serve the media files, as I found Plex interface and features easy for my family to use to play the stored media within the home. However, as you highlighted, Plex struggled when plying video and movies when outside of the home network, so I became interested in the new WD PR2100 when watching your show, as it seems to overcome the transcoding challenge when outside of the home. I have a question. Do you know if you can you transfer WD EX2100 drives containing data to the PR2100 box and be able to run applications and access the media without having to reconfigure the drives? Regards Terrence
How did the drive transfer go? I recently purchased a PR4100 to replace my EX2. I haven’t transferred the drives yet but I assumed that I had to back up the drives to another external device before I swap drives from the EX2 to the PR4100. I’m afraid that swapping them might format and reconfigure the drives.
Thanks Lon. Great video as always. Would you be able to test how many direct play it can handle at the same time? Say the file is an HD mkv with about 10Mbps stream? Thanks
Sucks that you can't just have both drive to store media and have to use the second disk for backing up what's on the first drive. I was looking for something for my parents like this where I can just add more drives if they needed it in the future.
No, you can do exactly that; you can configure whether or not the device uses RAID (and what mode, although this is more relevant with the 4-bay PR4100 model) or JBOD (which is what you're describing.) Also, since you want to be able to add more drives in the future the PR4100 sounds like it would be the better option.
Hi Lon, I'm looking for a NAS to serve as a plex server and was wondering how the WD PR4100 stacks up against the Synology DiskStation DS918+? Specifically, when it comes to hardware transcoding and overall performance. Would you happen to have a comparison video between them?
I don't have either one of those devices but looking at the specs the processor in the Synology is a little more powerful but not considerably so for transcoding purposes. I'd expect them to perform about the same generally so it's really a matter of whether or not the additional Synology software and support is important to you.
Lon.TV thanks. With respect to software experience, would you consider Synology to be superior to WD? Also, the WD can expand up to 16 Gb of ram while the Synology goes up to 8 Gb of ram. Does ram make a big difference for a Plex server?
On the software side definitely Synology has the edge. Incredibly robust applications, backup utilities, etc. You can pretty much recreate Google apps on top of a bunch of other services too with software you have on the box running locally. I don't think RAM is a huge factor, my WD is running with the stock 4 and is not using that much RAM with 2-3 clients connected.
Hi all, I'm curious if anyone knows how to backup the Plex metadata contained on the PR2100/PR4100. I've been using a PR4100 as a dedicated Plex server for about 2 years and was thinking about trying to backup the Metadata files. Sadly, I'm not even sure where to locate these files. Lon, maybe a good for a future video (I've never seen one of these videos done for a Nas device}. I know a lot of people would be devastated if they lost of their Metadata. Cheers, keep up the good work Devon
Is there a plugin for Kodi that you can turn this into a DVR and save the video's to a remote NAS drive on the network and also watch live TV on Kodi? Do you have video that shows how to build a Pi 3 running kodi using Silicon dust extend and a NAS to store the video's?
Ya' got this PR4100 3 years ago and the OS5 went fine a few months ago, but then another auto-update, bricked it, WD said out of warranty, tried the 4/40 reset, and over a week with "tech support" all done with WD, QNAP here I come, Beware WD hardware beyond the drives.
Hey Lon, can you review Gigabyte Bric PC Intel Celeron N300? I am thinking of buying it and I need opinions on it about gaming and such.( and no, I don't expdct new games and such but atleast some recent games like Minecraft, Skyrim and such ). Thanks in advance!
If you're transcoding from lower-complexity sources then it can handle more streams; there's no hard limit (although you can set one in Plex) so if 3-4 FHD streams are possible then at least that many HD or lower streams should be easy. The bottleneck may eventually become the HDDs and their configuration (compounded by any other activity the NAS is engaged in.)
Hey Lon. Can you try optimising those files that you played on all four devices and re play them via direct play? I want to know how much of the cpu it would use while direct playing. I would assume it would be very little. This would help me make up my mind about buying this device. We at my home use plex in every room in the home, usually all together at some point. I optimise all my files and when direct playing there doesn't seem to be much cpu usage on my old Sony vaio laptop. This would be ideal to cut out the laptop. Thank a lot
Thanks for the reply. This would be perfect for me then. direct play is the best way to use plex in my opinion. takes a bit longer to convert files but at least alot of people can view at once without hitting the cpu hard. Thanks again
Why do you say that its the fist device that supports hardware transcoding... I thought Synology had products out since at least the beginning of 2016 with this capability.
+Lon Seidman am not sure that's quite correct. I understood the transcoding issue is with Plex who have yet to adapt their software to include support for Synology devices. If that's true then its not so much that WD is compatible with Plex but the other way around.
Hi Lon, I have a few Synology NAS in my home 8 , 4 and 2 Bay. All getting on in years. I have had no issues at all with my Synology NAS. However, when streaming, being old they struggle. I wish to continue with Synology but want to ensure the next one I but (soon) has this capability. Can you recommend any Synology 4 Bay machines that accomplish this easily. I will go 2 Bay or 8 if I need to. I just want the NAS to be able to do it all. :) Thanks
Thanks for reply Lon. That's a shame. Guess I will need to wait a little longer, just use my Mac Mini for the horsepower. Synology will have to address this soon or get left behind.
Do you have to have the WD PR2100 set up for Raid 1 to Mirror or can you have 2 drives on, I think it's Raid 0, so they are separate drives and you can get more storage capacity our of the NAS?
You can indeed change the configuration; if you don't need RAID1 for reliability (note that you should still backup your important data externally regardless of how your NAS/PC is configured!) then JBOD would be recommended (over RAID0.)
I'm deciding between getting the PR2100 or the PR4100. I'd like to get the PR2100 however I'm concerned about it only having the 4gb of RAM opposed to the PR4100 that can expand to 16gbs. I would be running the Plex server on the NAS and want it to stream video inside and outside of my home network. How has your remote access been on the PR2100 Lon? Most of my video files are 1080p and below. I'm currently running my Plex from my PC and my video files on a 2tb. Netgear ReadyShare drive.
You helped me make my decision Lon. I got the PR2100 along with a new Netgear Nighthawk router and now Wifi...Streaming... and Plex have never been better. My previous Plex server was on my i7 desktop computer pointing to media files located on a USB drive connected to my 6 year old Netgear router. Many times I have turned off my computer not realizing someone was in the middle of watching a movie on my Plex...Oppps! With the server now running on my NAS no more unhappy viewing relatives. Thanks for your help.
You'd only need to increase the RAM capacity if the device is handling a ton of tasks simultaneously (i.e. data transfer from multiple clients.) Plex doesn't take a ton of RAM by itself to transcode, but overall more activity will necessitate more memory, and if you don't notice it being a problem then that's because it's not (for your workload.)
I'm from Asia Pac and this PR1200 costs over 1.3K in my country. May I ask the amount I will pay, what happens when the hardware obsolete after 5 years?
Oh I forgot to ask instead of using plex can I use Kodi on an android shield tv. While transcoding is a nice plus I only need to view movies from one tv.
+Lon.TV Im looking for a NAS to do transcoding on about 4 streams at once. not all streams will be a 30GB+ bluray but some will be all the way down to 480p. Is this still the best device for the job or am I still better off building a server?
@@iaincowell9747 I have an internet modem connected to Velop master node and I connected my cloud to the second port of Velop's master node... So it is wired physically... But I can't see it on the network to complete the setup.
Obviously look up current prices yourself. As far as PMS usability between those two devices the Shield would be cheaper, but the MyCloud may be more reliable especially if you have a lot of video files (unless they fixed that issue with the Shield.) Then beyond that you'd have to determine whether or not the Shield is a better value if you use it for other things like gaming or streaming from different services, or if the MyCloud is better because you could use it as a file server and/or backup for the other devices on your network.
Well the Pi will NOT transcode for sure. The issue as well is the shared I/O (So the boot SD card, the Network port and the USB ports [Presumably you will attach an extra drive to one of these] all share the same USB 2.0 bandwidth). I tried using a first gen Pi as a NAS and it was pretty bad.
can I add a drive that already has media on it? Do I need to create a raid with a new disk first in slot 1 then transfer files to it from (existing media drive) then add (existing) to slot 2
I've played around with my NAS only a little so far, but from my experience you need to let it format new internal drives (it uses ext4) so you shouldn't expect to just add a drive containing media. I may be wrong, however, after more experimentation.
You failed to mention your using plex plus a paid service, the free version is very slow and does not have the same screens ect. So now to use plex cost me monthly
Thank you so much for all of your NAS video's it has helped me a lot, definitely the best out there . They have also got me interested in PLEX, to our area we have a very slow internet connection so I know for a fact that Plex would not be an option when out of the house. However in the house we have Gigabit speeds and use cat6 cables whenever possible. Should we be getting full HD and 5.1 sound within our home network?
Yes, your internal network will easily support direct streaming of any videos you have. Even though you say you have a poor Internet connection, however, Plex can be configured to use less bandwidth (in this case, upstream to clients) so you could certainly make it work to clients out of the house!
The product is filled with errors. If you use the NAS to deliver files to customers via a generated direct link (without forcing your customers to register and login at mycloud.com), the webpage that PR2100 generates are literary unacceptably primitive on desktop browsers. There are no back buttons fx. to step back when you navigate the share webpage. Strangely this works fine when openning the same link on a smartphone... If you store your older Mac files on this NAS, you won't be able to delete some of the folders or files because some of he files when accessing a share containing these files from a desktop will contain information that PR2100 can't handle. If you use custom icons (Mac) for some of your folder on the NAS: those folder will be inaccessible from the smartphone app. You will get the message: No internet connection when trying...
had to watch your video twice because the first time i was only looking at the things on your back shelf. Nostalgia
Hey Lon, thanks for the great review! You helped me decide to return the WD EX2 Ultra I recently purchased and get the PR2100 specifically for its ability to transcode on the fly. You even encouraged me to do my own review on both units 🙂Thanks again Lon and I look forward to more of your videos in the future. You got a new Sub for sure!
Seriously impressive on the media trans-coding performance. I ordered a PR-4100 based on your review. Too bad it was out of stock at amazon's warehouse. I would have happily used your referral link. Apparently WD has been discounting the device because there have been some nice sales floating around.
This is the video i needed to see before biting the bullet. This is awesome. Thanks!
Was considering one of these and this review is very well done and very helpful. Thank you! If I do move forward I will be sure to use your affiliate link. Thanks for your time!
While this may be the first NAS to support hardware transcoding, any high-end NAS (i.e. high-end CPU) can transcode videos. I will say that it is impressive that a NAS at this price point is able to perform as well as this one does, making it a very capable Plex server. As you pointed out, it will be interesting to see what NAS units in the future start to include this Intel transcoding capable CPU.
Update: The Synology DiskStation DS916+ uses the same CPU. The QNAP TS-251+ uses the Intel J1900 and claims to support transcoding.
subagon new 418play is amazing for 4K transcoding with native video app, alternatively 918+ if you wanna do plex software transcoding. It's got Apollo Lake Intel J3455 64-bit quad-core.
Thank you for the thorough review. I just purchased the 12tb version.
we purchase WD-Ex4100 and very good machine working fine
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Great review, Lon. Please don't be too quick to dismiss the new Plex Cloud Server using Amazon or other storage. With that you need to buy NO hardware and will be much simpler and more convenient to many of us. I have Plex Pass, but am still waiting for the cloud beta.
it works. got the 4 bay version so i could upgrade the ram. On a 1080p h264 transcode the cpu goes up to 60% and 10% ram. Steadily goes down over the next minute.
I really like your channel ! You are very professional in your reviews.
Very informative video, thanks. You are the only person I've come across to actually demonstrate the device's streaming capability. I'd like to know if you still think this is a worthwhile purchase? I'm definitely looking for a stand alone solution for HD video streaming to all devices in my home, including a 65" 4K OLED (which I would connect through the USB 3.0 port in any case). Has something better come along now though? It's been over 2.5yrs since you posted this review. The PR2100 and 2x 4Tb WD Red NAS drives would run me around €550 in my part of the world (which is considerably less expensive than the Synology 1019+). Any info you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Lon. I've watched you since getting my first WD NAS around 7 years ago now. I've just been looking at using the Plex server but my EX2 NAS wasn't able to play MKV files from a Blu-ray disc of mine. The audio wasn't supported. This was played directly from the NAS and not through Plex.
I got one of PR4100 and wondering if it's worth upgrading ram to 16gb.
Nice review. Thanks for all the useful information.
1) What hard drives did you run these tests with?
2) Did you mention these drives would "give half the capacity"? Are they in RAID 1? Do you know if you can run this setup without RAID so a second drive can be added later?
3) How hard is it to setup RAID on these devices?
If you buy the pre-populated versions they seem to come with WD Reds, and by default are configured in RAID however it's easy enough to change that in the Web interface if you want to use JBOD or whatever.
I have a Readynas 316. I've had no issues with transcoding. We routinely have 4 streams active on a variety of devices from Roku, Android, iPad, Pi2, and Windows clients. We have a mix of 720p in mkv, mp4, and avi. Some 1080p but those tend to stutter at times. Not sure which file format is the problem. Haven't gotten into it enough to narrow down.
Man the price on this is outrageous! I'll stick my pc until these are cheaper or something comes out cheaper.
very cool in depth detailed real world test review. were you using 2g or 5g wireless on your devices?
What RAID setup would u recommend for someone running a media server on the PR4100? I've been warned against RAID 5...something about it failing to rebuild a drive...but I really don't want to have to sacrifice 50% of my drive space like raid 1, 6, and 10 require. Is RAID 5 really as bad as people are saying?
Great video Lon!
Lon, I like your idea of ripping my DVDs and Blu-rays and store them on my NAS, I downloaded makemkv that you recommended in a previous video, unfortunately I get the not as impressive 2x speed out of my 6x Blu-ray reader, from what I understand most Blu-ray readers are riplocked. How do you deal with that crap? Any recommendations for a player that can rip full speed?
Thanks for the review. I'm pretty sure this will be my new Plex/DVR server. How loud is this NAS? I've tried a few of their MyCould EX series NAS systems and they were fairly quiet. I'm looking for something I can put at home that doesn't sound the like PowerEdge systems I used to keep in the closet.
The hard drives will make a bit of noise but generally it's pretty quiet. When it first boots the fan comes up full blast (very loud) but it will quickly revert to a slower speed after it goes through its boot up process.
I have a few questions
1. Can I select the hard drive among the 4 in which I want to store my files?
2. Will the device work if I have inserted only 3 hard drives instead of 4?
Can you please do a similar test on QNAP with the Intel processor.
I’m still sceptic. The WD PR2100 runs on the N3710 processor wich has a Passmark score of 1859. Wich is about the same as the Qnap TS-251+ NAS device. PLEX states on their website that a passmark above 2000 is recomended as a minimum yet I did see on the NAS compability list at plex website shows that the WD has full hardware transcoding on 480, 720p and 1080p files. It doesn’t add up. Smells wrong... I belive the WD Nas does hardware transcode but poorly.
Lon, great review! Quick question... I'm thinking about pairing a PR2100 with Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro instead of the WD Red Pro, since the Seagate's HDDs have the double of the cache (256Mb). In your experience, is there any incompatibility ? The WD website does include older Seagate HDDs in their compatibility list, but not the new IronWolfs (Pro). Thanks.
The exact HDDs you use won't matter, but ones intended for heavier-duty, NAS use will be more reliable.
Great stuff Lon do you know if this supports 4K video?
I'd also be interest to hear from any other users if the 4K transcoding is smooth?
HDMI would have been nice....
hi there Lon, I need a bit of help here if you could, I'd to buy a nas but I am no sure about running plex server I have seen both of your videos of the qnap ts-251+ and now this one, you explained that the qnap it is not properly working for transcoding yet because the cpu went up 99% of usage when you transcoded one blueray video, and in the my cloud it could work just fine as I can see, my questions are, is the my cloud better on cpu for plex?, is it my cloud better that the qnap at least on that side?, what is your opinion between them, I like the qnap because one the advantages like having virtualization on and among others (like control
Great review. Can I use the NAS to run my Plex server and also as a backup for my Macbook Pro? Basically can I split of the space? My guess is yes but I want to be sure. Thanks! I'll be buying my WD today! Just got a promo code from Plex Perks too.
Hi Lon, thank you for this review. I have a couple of questions. I know PMS does not transcode VC1 files. Do you know if this one does? Also, I read some reports on the Plex forums does result in some lower quality playback. Did you look at the transcoded movies on a bigger screen to see how it looks. Finally, is there a way on WD NAS devices to not mirror the hard drives? Especially on the 4 drive version, I think think it would a shame to lose two whole drives because of RAID 1. Thanks again for this review, very interesting device. I hope more NAS manufacturers follow soon.
Thank you for the answers. A comparison might be nice, since these seem to be the most interesting integrated Plex server solutions out there. I'll keep an eye out for a good deal on the WD. I'm still hoping Synology will also support hardware transcoding soon.
Great Video, i am after a Home network drive as all my home videos and photos seem to be scattered on multiple portable drives. I am looking for a home drive that backups my mac laptop, stores all my videos and pictures, and as a bonus i can access from my mobile. I also want the option to back it up one drive for additional backup security. Would you have a recommended this product or is overkill?
Hi Bud, I've enjoyed your channel for several years. Thanks to your recommendations I've had a PR4100 16Tb raid05 with plex viewing and has work out well. However, I'm thinking that I could use the spare capacity to record surveillance footage with a couple of PoE cameras but when I research the options I get mixed messages. I know the PR4100 would store images directly from a camera via FTP setting but I'm after a smarter setup so I can view images on my Q7C via an app and IP coms or from my smart phone remotely have you got any ideas?? Thanks in advance.
Lon, would this Plex server be able to handle the HDhomerun DVR as well, or must the DVR function pass through a PC based server?
Based on this and other videos, and statements on the WD and Plex websites, I bought a PR2100 with two 8Tb hard drives and downloaded the latest Plex server software, expecting Plex bliss. So far, no bliss. My iOS Plex apps routinely report that the server is not powerful enough to transcode my videos, which are blu-ray rips done with MakeMKV. This is true even though I'm only trying to watch one stream at a time. Of course I can create videos optimized for iOS, but the point of buying this expensive NAS was to employ transcoding on the fly. By the way, I've tried transcoding both with and without hardware acceleration. It doesn't work either way. And now in the iOS app I usually can't chose to stream the original quality video. This means that I can't watch my movies on my iOS devices. Others are reporting similar issues. I'm pretty unhappy.
+yoschmoyo did you download the pr2100 build from Plex? What you are experiencing is not what I am experiencing on mine.
Lon.TV I downloaded the app directly from Plex, and yesterday used the free 3-month Plex Pass to download the latest beta version. Someone from WD on the Plex forum suggested that my MakeMKV rips must contain errors, as shown by the info pane in MakeMKV, but I saved that text and only one disc had read errors. That was not one of the videos that caused transcoding problems. I don't have any problems playing the original videos using a PC and Kodi or JRiver Media Center. Nor do I have transcoding problems using Air Video HD to transcode the same files using my PC as the server and my iPad as the player. Of course my PC has an i5 CPU, but it does fine even without hardware acceleration. I just don't want to keep the PC running all the time, or I would use it as my server. And I like it that Plex has apps for most of my devices. I'll keep trying things, but it's pretty discouraging.
Lon.TV Thanks for the reply, by the way! Maybe I'll try deleting and reloading the app. I'm not sure how to get at the supporting files to make sure that everything is deleted so I can start afresh. I'll look into it. I really want to make this work.
yoschmoyo Have you had any luck making this work? PR4100 here and can seem to get consistent playback here.
I use qnap it has hdmi output, two lan, plex and kodi in top of that it do transcoding but users should select it before run file not automatic
Hey Lon. I got a important question for you. Do remember if you had the cloud access enabled on this device when you recorded this video? I have a Mycloud mirror 8TB 2 Gen and when the cloud access is enabled the device performance is severely affected, it gets really slow and the CPU is always oscillating between 20-80 % usage even when I am not accessing it. The device is almost unusable in that situation.There are dozens of threads about this on the wd community discussion, and it seems like the problems is that twonky (the server behind WDMC) is constantly generating thumbnails for the cloud access in a never ending process. So many people use SSH to kill the thumbnail generation process. So do you know if the PR2100 has this problem too when cloud access is enabled?
This is an issue for folks with a lot of media on their device. I think there's a way to disable the thumbnail generation. I don't think it's related to the external access. I haven't had the issue myself.
Lon, I'm curious if this beats the Netgear ReadyNAS brand.
Question, what’s good for a small business that has 2 drives and is dependable say 2 10TB drives or in that area? I’m assuming this PR2100 is overkill for me? I’m backing up video files, don’t need to stream usually just store.
Hi Lon, What do you think about using FreeNAS software on home built NAS ?
Do you have any thoughts on hardware, cpu power ect?
I can definitely do a build for a lot less money, Than buying one.
Running Plex on main computer now.
Thanks for your great channel
It's difficult to give specific hardware advice, especially without knowing your workload. However if you have any spare PC lying around (even a laptop) then that would probably suffice and be the simplest, cheapest option, and would be more robust than a consumer NAS solution like the My Cloud.
Quick question! if I set a nas storage I do need a computer running plex so I can watch my movies without my computer being on.
WD PR2100
Lon, I bought a WD EX2100 after watching your WD NAS reviews a year or so ago. I bought it for home use to store family home videos and movie. I am using Plex to serve the media files, as I found Plex interface and features easy for my family to use to play the stored media within the home.
However, as you highlighted, Plex struggled when plying video and movies when outside of the home network, so I became interested in the new WD PR2100 when watching your show, as it seems to overcome the transcoding challenge when outside of the home.
I have a question. Do you know if you can you transfer WD EX2100 drives containing data to the PR2100 box and be able to run applications and access the media without having to reconfigure the drives?
Regards
Terrence
How did the drive transfer go? I recently purchased a PR4100 to replace my EX2. I haven’t transferred the drives yet but I assumed that I had to back up the drives to another external device before I swap drives from the EX2 to the PR4100. I’m afraid that swapping them might format and reconfigure the drives.
Thanks Lon. Great video as always. Would you be able to test how many direct play it can handle at the same time? Say the file is an HD mkv with about 10Mbps stream? Thanks
Thanks For the review! What program do you use to get the videos off the blu-ray?
See here! ua-cam.com/video/9uW6XhU9aNA/v-deo.html
Where these streams being transcoded at 1080p ?
How does My Cloud Pro Series PR2100 compare to TerraMaster F2-220 for wireless transcoding?
Sucks that you can't just have both drive to store media and have to use the second disk for backing up what's on the first drive. I was looking for something for my parents like this where I can just add more drives if they needed it in the future.
No, you can do exactly that; you can configure whether or not the device uses RAID (and what mode, although this is more relevant with the 4-bay PR4100 model) or JBOD (which is what you're describing.) Also, since you want to be able to add more drives in the future the PR4100 sounds like it would be the better option.
Hi Lon, I'm looking for a NAS to serve as a plex server and was wondering how the WD PR4100 stacks up against the Synology DiskStation DS918+? Specifically, when it comes to hardware transcoding and overall performance. Would you happen to have a comparison video between them?
I don't have either one of those devices but looking at the specs the processor in the Synology is a little more powerful but not considerably so for transcoding purposes. I'd expect them to perform about the same generally so it's really a matter of whether or not the additional Synology software and support is important to you.
Lon.TV thanks. With respect to software experience, would you consider Synology to be superior to WD? Also, the WD can expand up to 16 Gb of ram while the Synology goes up to 8 Gb of ram. Does ram make a big difference for a Plex server?
On the software side definitely Synology has the edge. Incredibly robust applications, backup utilities, etc. You can pretty much recreate Google apps on top of a bunch of other services too with software you have on the box running locally. I don't think RAM is a huge factor, my WD is running with the stock 4 and is not using that much RAM with 2-3 clients connected.
Lon I know you can attach another USB drive to the WD PR2100 NAS...but do you think you can connect another multi-HDD... BSOD or RAID enclosure?
If the external enclosure has its own onboard RAID hardware, yes it should appear as any other USB drive.
Hi all,
I'm curious if anyone knows how to backup the Plex metadata contained on the PR2100/PR4100. I've been using a PR4100 as a dedicated Plex server for about 2 years and was thinking about trying to backup the Metadata files. Sadly, I'm not even sure where to locate these files.
Lon, maybe a good for a future video (I've never seen one of these videos done for a Nas device}. I know a lot of people would be devastated if they lost of their Metadata.
Cheers, keep up the good work
Devon
Is there a plugin for Kodi that you can turn this into a DVR and save the video's to a remote NAS drive on the network and also watch live TV on Kodi? Do you have video that shows how to build a Pi 3 running kodi using Silicon dust extend and a NAS to store the video's?
Does Plex comes pre-installed if I buy empty box?
Hi Lon,
is it possible to connect the PR2100 directly to mesh system? such as Orbi
Do you recommend this model or a Synology NAS Storage DiskStation (DS716+II)? Thanks Lon!
+Omar Gutierrez my personal preference is the synology (more features) but the WD is a better Plex server at the moment
Lon.TV ok, thanks, but both do support the transcoding? Right, also what kind of extra features does the synology have
Do you think it makes sense to buy it in November 2020!
Hi Lon, I noticed you were streaming x.264, How capable is this of streaming x.265 in mkv at 1080p?
+Victor Zsasz I believe right now this beta only supports encoding h.264
Ya' got this PR4100 3 years ago and the OS5 went fine a few months ago, but then another auto-update, bricked it, WD said out of warranty, tried the 4/40 reset, and over a week with "tech support" all done with WD, QNAP here I come, Beware WD hardware beyond the drives.
mine bricked as well from the firmware update and its getting replaced.
Hey Lon, can you review Gigabyte Bric PC Intel Celeron N300? I am thinking of buying it and I need opinions on it about gaming and such.( and no, I don't expdct new games and such but atleast some recent games like Minecraft, Skyrim and such ). Thanks in advance!
First off thanks for all the awsome reviews. Can this do Link Aggregation. I can't find any thing on line about it.
Yes, both of the My Cloud Pro devices support it.
Hi Lon, if the video format is just 720 or smaller. Can it support more than 3 users?
If you're transcoding from lower-complexity sources then it can handle more streams; there's no hard limit (although you can set one in Plex) so if 3-4 FHD streams are possible then at least that many HD or lower streams should be easy. The bottleneck may eventually become the HDDs and their configuration (compounded by any other activity the NAS is engaged in.)
Hey Lon. Can you try optimising those files that you played on all four devices and re play them via direct play? I want to know how much of the cpu it would use while direct playing. I would assume it would be very little. This would help me make up my mind about buying this device. We at my home use plex in every room in the home, usually all together at some point. I optimise all my files and when direct playing there doesn't seem to be much cpu usage on my old Sony vaio laptop. This would be ideal to cut out the laptop. Thank a lot
Thanks for the reply. This would be perfect for me then. direct play is the best way to use plex in my opinion. takes a bit longer to convert files but at least alot of people can view at once without hitting the cpu hard. Thanks again
great stuff!
Why do you say that its the fist device that supports hardware transcoding... I thought Synology had products out since at least the beginning of 2016 with this capability.
+Lon Seidman am not sure that's quite correct. I understood the transcoding issue is with Plex who have yet to adapt their software to include support for Synology devices. If that's true then its not so much that WD is compatible with Plex but the other way around.
Hi Lon, I have a few Synology NAS in my home 8 , 4 and 2 Bay. All getting on in years. I have had no issues at all with my Synology NAS. However, when streaming, being old they struggle. I wish to continue with Synology but want to ensure the next one I but (soon) has this capability. Can you recommend any Synology 4 Bay machines that accomplish this easily. I will go 2 Bay or 8 if I need to. I just want the NAS to be able to do it all. :) Thanks
Thanks for reply Lon. That's a shame. Guess I will need to wait a little longer, just use my Mac Mini for the horsepower. Synology will have to address this soon or get left behind.
Do you have to have the WD PR2100 set up for Raid 1 to Mirror or can you have 2 drives on, I think it's Raid 0, so they are separate drives and you can get more storage capacity our of the NAS?
You can indeed change the configuration; if you don't need RAID1 for reliability (note that you should still backup your important data externally regardless of how your NAS/PC is configured!) then JBOD would be recommended (over RAID0.)
Hey Lon. Which harddrive series does the nas runs. WD Blue Black or Red.
These devices seem to come with Reds.
I got this and love it but it doesn't seem to work with the Plex dvr.
I'm deciding between getting the PR2100 or the PR4100. I'd like to get the PR2100 however I'm concerned about it only having the 4gb of RAM opposed to the PR4100 that can expand to 16gbs. I would be running the Plex server on the NAS and want it to stream video inside and outside of my home network. How has your remote access been on the PR2100 Lon? Most of my video files are 1080p and below. I'm currently running my Plex from my PC and my video files on a 2tb. Netgear ReadyShare drive.
I’ve found the 4GB to be plenty on mine. I don’t have many people viewing from it, however.
You helped me make my decision Lon. I got the PR2100 along with a new Netgear Nighthawk router and now Wifi...Streaming... and Plex have never been better. My previous Plex server was on my i7 desktop computer pointing to media files located on a USB drive connected to my 6 year old Netgear router. Many times I have turned off my computer not realizing someone was in the middle of watching a movie on my Plex...Oppps! With the server now running on my NAS no more unhappy viewing relatives. Thanks for your help.
Will adding more ram actually do anything though. That ram meter hardly moved. All seemed cpu bound to me?
NickTheGeek yep. CPU is the mother of bottlenecks for software transcoding. Good transcode quality costs pretty penny.
You'd only need to increase the RAM capacity if the device is handling a ton of tasks simultaneously (i.e. data transfer from multiple clients.) Plex doesn't take a ton of RAM by itself to transcode, but overall more activity will necessitate more memory, and if you don't notice it being a problem then that's because it's not (for your workload.)
I'm from Asia Pac and this PR1200 costs over 1.3K in my country. May I ask the amount I will pay, what happens when the hardware obsolete after 5 years?
How do I upgrade my storage without losing what I already have on my drives?
Oh I forgot to ask instead of using plex can I use Kodi on an android shield tv. While transcoding is a nice plus I only need to view movies from one tv.
+Lon.TV Im looking for a NAS to do transcoding on about 4 streams at once. not all streams will be a 30GB+ bluray but some will be all the way down to 480p. Is this still the best device for the job or am I still better off building a server?
4 streams are about the limit for the My Cloud.
Also can it run plex and hdhomerun dvr at the same time.
What's the best way to copy files from "my book live" to "my cloud pr2100"?
The MyCloud has USB ports, you could just connect the MyBook to the former directly.
I just got this and I can't complete the setup connecting it to Linksys Velop WiFi-Mesh! I'm returning this back to the store
You can't connect like that. You need a wired connection
@@iaincowell9747 I have an internet modem connected to Velop master node and I connected my cloud to the second port of Velop's master node... So it is wired physically... But I can't see it on the network to complete the setup.
What's the price on this? What would be of better value the My Cloud or the Shield?
Did you even watch the video?
Obviously look up current prices yourself. As far as PMS usability between those two devices the Shield would be cheaper, but the MyCloud may be more reliable especially if you have a lot of video files (unless they fixed that issue with the Shield.) Then beyond that you'd have to determine whether or not the Shield is a better value if you use it for other things like gaming or streaming from different services, or if the MyCloud is better because you could use it as a file server and/or backup for the other devices on your network.
Could you install a virtualBox on this. Or add a partition ubuntu?
Can you set it to RAID 0 to make it full-size?
You do realize that the unit can be run in a mode that isn't mirrored so you use the full amount of storage but you don't get a back up copy ?
Is a Raspberry Pi 3 sufficient enough to be a plex server if you plan to only stream to one device at a time?
Well the Pi will NOT transcode for sure. The issue as well is the shared I/O (So the boot SD card, the Network port and the USB ports [Presumably you will attach an extra drive to one of these] all share the same USB 2.0 bandwidth). I tried using a first gen Pi as a NAS and it was pretty bad.
Emmanuel Sanders well that might have been with the one but what about the current gen pi?
Juan, it is also the same on the Pi2 and 3
Emmanuel Sanders ok I just wasn't sure if performance would be different on different pi models
No
Hi bro, is it still worth to buy?
explain the 2 lan jacks
Anyone else still getting choppy playback via plex with subtitles on?
How do you do a manual update when you are running plex on the PR2100?
In the Web interface there's a "manual update" option in the "apps" section.
does it work on 3g cell network to stream video
THE 4 DRIVE VERSION can go up to 16 GB RAM. Not 8 GB
Hy, do you need a plex pass for use de hardware transcoding capabilities? Thanks.
Yes
Not for this device, though.
is there something wrong with your camera?
Anyone know if the new M1 macs will have a problem with an Intel-based NAS?
can it handle 4k video?
can I add a drive that already has media on it? Do I need to create a raid with a new disk first in slot 1 then transfer files to it from (existing media drive) then add (existing) to slot 2
I've played around with my NAS only a little so far, but from my experience you need to let it format new internal drives (it uses ext4) so you shouldn't expect to just add a drive containing media. I may be wrong, however, after more experimentation.
Do you know if we can stream from this onto a chromecast?
Yes with the Plex app
Does the 2 NIC ports support port aggregation
Yes they do.
good at long last
PR2100 vs qnap ts-251+?
You failed to mention your using plex plus a paid service, the free version is very slow and does not have the same screens ect. So now to use plex cost me monthly
Thank you so much for all of your NAS video's it has helped me a lot, definitely the best out there . They have also got me interested in PLEX, to our area we have a very slow internet connection so I know for a fact that Plex would not be an option when out of the house. However in the house we have Gigabit speeds and use cat6 cables whenever possible. Should we be getting full HD and 5.1 sound within our home network?
Yes, your internal network will easily support direct streaming of any videos you have. Even though you say you have a poor Internet connection, however, Plex can be configured to use less bandwidth (in this case, upstream to clients) so you could certainly make it work to clients out of the house!
can you add usb drives to it?
Yes, it has USB ports in the front and back.
So, are you still enjoying the PR2100. I'm on the fence between the 2100 and the 4100, and curious if it's still a solid Plex server.
Both work exactly the same, but the PR4100 gives you more flexibility in terms of drive configuration and also it's the only one with upgradeable RAM.
Anybody know how to back-up Plex metadata on one of these?
The product is filled with errors. If you use the NAS to deliver files to customers via a generated direct link (without forcing your customers to register and login at mycloud.com), the webpage that PR2100 generates are literary unacceptably primitive on desktop browsers. There are no back buttons fx. to step back when you navigate the share webpage. Strangely this works fine when openning the same link on a smartphone... If you store your older Mac files on this NAS, you won't be able to delete some of the folders or files because some of he files when accessing a share containing these files from a desktop will contain information that PR2100 can't handle. If you use custom icons (Mac) for some of your folder on the NAS: those folder will be inaccessible from the smartphone app. You will get the message: No internet connection when trying...