I’m essentially looking for a streaming box. I had set up a competing product with 4X4TB WD Red drives, set up the DLNA streaming… and then had some problems. After getting the run-around from the company’s support, they directed me to their forums which then informed me that this was a known issue that they haven’t found a solution to in over a year.
Very unhappy about that.
So: If I were to pick up a 5N NAS, loaded it up with 4 TB drives, then started loading lots and lots of video files (tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of files), will this unit have problems with it?
Defining “problems”: the competing product I have been using will, at an unpredictable point of adding files to it, just “crap out”. DLNA protocol will stop working. When DLNA is restarted, files that had been indexed before won’t show up, or will show up multiple times, etc. That company’s 2 drive NAS hasn’t had that issue for me, but I need the greater capacity.
Any knowledge or insight would be greatly appreciated.
hi sfang,
i only have the das models myself, and there are actual apps (like plex or similar) for the Nas drobos, but do you know if you would be happy with the following end-use case?
having a storage device connected to a computer and simply using the computers playback program (like vlc or similar) actually play the file, which is simply pulled in from the storage device onto your attached screen? (which could be a tv if your computer can output it etc)
if so, then probably a DAS might work well here?
i do something similar without any dlna via a usb cable and it works just great for me, but if you are properly into your media server with screenshots and info and genres etc, then please hang in there for others as they probably have more experience there than me
there are different nas devices, and am not sure how many potentially simultaneous streaming sessions you might be needing, but even in a basic vlc opening a file on a nas it should work fine.
Hi,
I just purchased a 5N a few days ago for that purpose exactly.
So far I’m disappointed, haven’t gotten a solution yet from Drobo support!
5N is connected to a Netgear R6300 gigabit router.
Some folders have many files (movies, tv shows etc…).
throughput seems to be more or less ok, but when accessing the folders, it can take up to upwards of a minute to populate the folder contents.
So when trying to play content via KODI or Plex, it can take a while before the content starts playing. Really frustrating. Previously I had a RAID connected via USB 3.0 to the main computer which shared these files as a server, and it worked blazingly fast.
If I don’t get a solution from Drobo support, I’ll return the 5N for a refund and move the 5 hard drives into a 5D.
it may take 20 seconds or more for idle drives to spin up before the contents are read. I purposely don’t let mine spin-down just for that reason. I also use an SSD in the Accelerator Bay for quicker reads.
I also had an issue running Plex from my 5N. The Plex app would stop running constantly due to a memory swap issue. So I shut Plex down on the 5N, moved it to my 5D connected via Thunderbolt to a Mac mini. Also with this solution, I don’t have to worry about transcoding anymore.
