NAS recommendation for Zidoo Z10 Pro

I just ordered a Zidoo Z10 Pro that should arrive in about a month. I am looking for recommendations for storage. I know the unit has a space for a hard drive, but I assume a NAS drive attached to the gigabit ethernet port would make more sense. A couple of questions:

1. Should I use SSDs instead of spinning disks?
2. I assume I should at least mirror two drives for redundancy?
3. Which NAS products are reliable at a fair price?
4. The device can support 14 TB, but I don't have any content yet. What minimum size should I get?

Thanks!

 

Moved to the products forum

 

All depends on what kind of contents you want to put on your NAS, pictures, documents, musics, movies? If movies what kind of resolution are you looking for, Divx, AVI, 480P, 720P, 1080P, 4K? 4K movies takes more space storage for sure (30-80Gb) hence bigger TB drives, and NAS with more HDD slots.

1: If movies, I'd go with spinning disks, larger drive and cheaper per TB, but some NAS can do both at the same time.
2: Yes you should.
3: Qnap & Synology are descent brands.
4: Both these brands supports up to 16TB per slot (not the old models). It's hard to determine the minimum size you need, it depends on your needs and what you want to put on your NAS.

Here's some example of descent NAS, in the one below you can put up to 4X16 TB=64TB with no redundancy, or if you want redundancy 2X16 TB =32 + 2X16TB (for redundancy)

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-451-...d=1&keywords=qnap+4+bay&qid=1607045104&sr=8-2

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Dis...ild=1&keywords=synology&qid=1607045626&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay...ild=1&keywords=synology&qid=1607045670&sr=8-3

This one 9 bays with SSDs and spinning drives:

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-932P...d=1&keywords=qnap+4+bay&qid=1607045439&sr=8-6

If you want to build BIG collection of movies (1080P, 4K), then you can go with a bigger NAS, it depends of your needs.

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-832X...1&keywords=qnap+ts-1677&qid=1607045550&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-1677...1&keywords=qnap+ts-1677&qid=1607045600&sr=8-3

 

Thanks, Prometheus. This is EXTREMELY helpful. I'll need some time to review and digest this information and the links. Additional questions in bold.

My primary goal is to support error-free 4k video playback and 5.1 audio (i.e. SACD). I would also like to host all my iTunes files. I don't have much content yet, so I probably don't need a huge NAS, but I guess I can always replace the drives with larger ones down the road if needed.

The Z10Pro can support 14TB. Do you know if that threshold only applies to the internal drives and drive bays?

I can't imagine the NAS would be limited. Is there any reason to use the drive bays in the Z10 itself instead of, or in addition to, a NAS?

I need to look at your links in more depth, but I saw that one of them transcodes. Do I need a NAS to transcode or does the Z10 perform that function? Would I prefer the NAS or the Z10 to perform the transcoding function?

Are there certain drives or drive specs that are best for 4k video streaming, like I/O or latency?

I assume I should get a gigabit hub and hang the NAS, the Z10 and my cable modem on it?

I'm sure I'll have more questions, and I REALLY appreciate your help.

Paul

 

This looks like my leading contender:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S5HZBW...&colid=8GMQMKIRZO9I&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

 

If the NAS transcodes, what function does the Z10 play between the NAS and the receiver?

Can I just run the NAS and Plex?

 

At the end it might be cheaper to pay for the movies you want to watch

 

Maybe, but it feels so great to have your own Netflix library, and have all your collection in one place.

 

Don't online streaming services compress the audio and video? If so, is the degradation significant? And if you stream across the internet, don't you get occasional glitches and freezes and distortion? Also, I've already been through three 4k Blu-Ray players (Sony and Panasonic) and none of them can reliably play a 4k disc from start to finish without problems.

I'm looking for high quality audio and video, and once I start a movie, I want it to play through to the end without interruption. I'm not married to any option as long as that is the end result. And I don't necessarily need to have my own personal Netflix. In fact, I will only buy a title if I plan to watch it more than once. Otherwise I'll just rent it.

 

bump

 

I bought the QNAP TS-451D2-2G and 4 Seagate IronWolf 4TB drives. I chose the D2 model as it is designed for 4k. I should have the NAS and the Zidoo Z10Pro set up in a few weeks. I'll report back how it all works.

 

I am interested in using a NAS also...and am new to the game. How did your adventure go?

 

I am building a NAS too. Just ordered a Synology 8-bay DS1821+ and three 20TB Seagate Ironwolf Pros. Everything arrives tomorrow. I'll set up Synology's SHR RAID system with BTRFS formatting and use one of the drives for redundancy.

Right now, I just have my content sitting in a shared folder on an SSD drive in a laptop. Hooked up to my Gigabit ethernet. The Zidoo loads everything perfectly. I can't wait to see what kind of performance I get from the NAS.

 

Keep us updated.

 

I've been using an UnRaid server since 2010 (very fun to build). I started out with (5) 2Tb drives, plus (1) 2TB Parity drive, and (1) 1TB cache drive. About three years ago I replaced all the (2)TB drives with 8TB drives. So now it's a 40TB server.
It's pretty much been bullet-proof since the beginning. Their method of RAID is different. Might be worth at least checking out. I can't post links yet, but it's unraid.net

 

Update on my NAS journey:

1. I am running everything on a 1 Gbps ethernet network.
2. Installed the three 20TB Seagate Ironwolf Pros and put them into the SHR Raid format as described above.
3. So far, the NAS runs great. I have no doubt the NAS is running as it should. I've loaded over 200 titles with a combination of 3D Blu-ray, UHD Blu-ray and a few standard Blu-rays (and I'm still ripping my disc library).
4. For any 4K videos that are getting around 100 Mbps data rates, the video gets VERY stuttery on the the Z9X Pro. It's unwatchable. For example, the final episode of Game of Thrones hits 100 Mbps+ (it's over 50 Gigbytes for a 73 minute episode). This episode is not playable across my network for some reason. I have to troubleshoot what's going on. 1 Gbps = 1,000 Mbps. So, a 100 Mbps show shouldn't be causing problems. That's only 10% of the bandwidth. It makes me feel like I'm only getting 100 Mbps somewhere in the chain.
5. HD and 3D HD seem to play flawlessly.

 

Found out that the Orbi satellite wasn't hard wired via ethernet to the main Orbi router. I thought it was, but it was connected via WiFi. This caused the stuttering in high data rate video. All wired up now and everything is running buttery smooth.

 

Is the stuttering occurring on a Zidoo that is connected via WiFi or is it wired?

 

See the post right above yours.

 

My NAS arrives this week. When I add my media to it, how do I maintain the matching data? In other words, how do I make sure that my movies and TV shows stay matched in HTt4 as they currently are on my directly-connected HDDs? Is there was way to save that data and restore it? Or is there another way to handle this so that I don't have to manually fix incorrectly matched shows when the new source (the NAS) is added?

Thanks!