Just browsing Black Friday deals and came across this. Cheapest I can find. Hopefully of use to someone. Can be your central multimedia hub. Has a HDMI port and can run KODI.
Asustor AS-304T 4 Bay Desktop Network Attached Storage, Exceptionally cost-effective private cloud storage, Powerful built-in HD multimedia player, Flawless integration of AirPlay streaming, Support for a variety of mobile applications, Designed to reliably protect your data, Energy efficient with quiet operation
All comments (19)
Zephyz
25 Nov 16#1
How does it compare to the HP Proliant and Dell T20?
CaptainSocks to Zephyz
5 Dec 16#7
It's a NAS.
Those are servers.
The servers will have more grunt. But you'll pay for that on your annual energy bill (probably around £40 more if you leave it on 24/7. Even powered down, the servers will still use A LOT more power than a NAS in the same state).
Dizy
25 Nov 16#2
That look good value but I am unsure how it compares would like this myself as a little present but how is plex and transcoding?
hmm dont think an atom would be very good at transcoding multiple streams
lovelybeer to Dizy
5 Dec 16#8
I considered this, but found it was cheaper/easier to ensure that the devices being streamed to, were able to direct play via Plex. Samsung TVs are brilliant with the Plex app (on the Smart platform), even LGs app isn't terrible (not proper Plex, but works just fine). Philips TV in the lounge, wouldn't play ball with my Plex server (Seagate personal cloud - super, super simple), but Kodi - referencing the network locations that the Plex server has - works perfectly well.
There isn't much that you can rip yourself that should "need" transcoding in a lot of instances, but older TVs or even some newer ones, won't like DTS audio, so I understand why it might be a pain...multiple audio streams should help here when ripping.
FlyGuyUK
25 Nov 16#5
Anybody else an expert on these and can advise? I want one for multiple purposes and don't know where to start.
Much appreciated.
pants
26 Nov 16#6
OOS
CampGareth
5 Dec 16#9
A dual core atom isn't going to get you very far. For media transcoding the HP microserver is a better bet and for hardcore transcoding (say h.265 or 10+ streams of h264) the dell T20's an even better bet so long as it's got the quad core xeon.
CampGareth
5 Dec 16#10
Urm, this could be used as a server by the looks of it. Umbrella terms are biting us here. The point is this is intended to be a NAS (i.e. so long as it can sustain 110MB/s that's all it needs to do) and because that's all it's meant to do they've skimped on the CPU so it draws less power. The other boxes mentioned though are multi-purpose so have more CPU power.
Opening post
Asustor AS-304T 4 Bay Desktop Network Attached Storage, Exceptionally cost-effective private cloud storage, Powerful built-in HD multimedia player, Flawless integration of AirPlay streaming, Support for a variety of mobile applications, Designed to reliably protect your data, Energy efficient with quiet operation
All comments (19)
Those are servers.
The servers will have more grunt. But you'll pay for that on your annual energy bill (probably around £40 more if you leave it on 24/7. Even powered down, the servers will still use A LOT more power than a NAS in the same state).
1.6 dual core atom cpu
There isn't much that you can rip yourself that should "need" transcoding in a lot of instances, but older TVs or even some newer ones, won't like DTS audio, so I understand why it might be a pain...multiple audio streams should help here when ripping.
Much appreciated.