Qnap 253a or 251?

[ray]

Hi all, would like to seek your collective wisdom!

Thinking of upgrading my Buffalo Duo Station.

Besides storing files I'd like to stream movies to my TV or better yet, have it connected to my TV.

I get the impression that both can do that with their HDMI outputs; but I'm not too familiar with their hardware specs besides comparing their numbers.

So I don't know if the 253a is overkill or will the 251 have problems playing/transcoding video?

 

[thiggins]

on the fly transcoding requires an Intel processor. Faster is better, quad core is better than dual core.

 

[sfx2000]

Better off with the 453a - as Tim mentions, more cores...

451 does have better single thread performance (much higher clock rate on turbo), but the Braswell chip in the 453a has a much better GPU (Gen8-LP) as opposed to the Gen7-LP in the 451's Baytrail-D processor, and this fixes some issues that Gen7 had with HDMI output at certain video frame rates (Gen7 is what the IvyBridge big cores used, and 24FPS video would occasionally skip frames).

There's also some incremental improvements with QuickSync Video on the newer chip - along with more codec support..

The CPU in the 453a also supports AES-NI instructions, which help with AES encryption, which matters to some folks..

 

[ray]

Thanks for your replies.

Both 253a and 453a appears to use the same Intel Celeron N3150 Quad Core 1.6GHz.

I hope this comparison chart works: https://www.qnap.com/en/product/contrast.php?cp[]=211&cp[]=195&cp[]=212&ref=product_overview

With that in mind and if the N3150 cpu is the recommendation, would the 253a be a good option if I'm considering 2-bay?

I'm curious if Plex server will transcode ok because I also read Plex doesn't support GPU acceleration:

"Plex is a user friendly environment consisting of a server service, and various clients/players. Kind of an advantage is the "self-organizing" database, the transparent playback of everything on any devices, including phones, tablets ... however This requires na on-the-fly transcoding ... and because of Plex Server does not support GPU acceleration yet you need a much more powerful NAS to gain the full advantage. "
​

Should I be looking at a different model altogether?

 

[sfx2000]

Transcoding is going to lose a bit of quality - better to have a media player that supports the formats that your files are encoded in natively...

I don't think Plex supports transcode directly - the native DLNA server does if I recall (I don't use my NAS for that purpose...)

 

[ray]

I guess that's what I was hoping to avoid, having another device in-between. I feel very limited by the Apple TV because of the formats it plays and I was hoping a Qnap NAS can fix that.

 

[sfx2000]

I guess that's what I was hoping to avoid, having another device in-between. I feel very limited by the Apple TV because of the formats it plays and I was hoping a Qnap NAS can fix that.

Plex is supported on both the QNAP (as a server and client) and the Apple TV 4 (as a client), but it's always better not to transcode...

Handbrake is very helpful here for some of the media files that might need some tweaking to play at their best..

 

[Ois]

I do a lot pf Plex transcoding - the more horsepower the better
I used to host my Plex server on an Atom NAS, I since moved to an Intel i7, the atom worked for some streams but it was limited.
An N3150 will be better, but you will sometimes have issue with it.

Get the fastest CPU you can afford, is an i3 out of the question?

 

[JemTheWire]

I had a Qnap 253pro. It didn't transcode one the fly well. I now have a TVS-471 and it is great.

As everyone says. Get the best CPU you can afford.

 

[ray]

Maybe I don't have to worry about transcoding at all.

My plan is to connect the NAS to non-Smart TV via HDMI so the TV is a dumb display.

Will the NAS be capable of direct playing to the non-Smart TV?

 

[sfx2000]

Maybe I don't have to worry about transcoding at all.

My plan is to connect the NAS to non-Smart TV via HDMI so the TV is a dumb display.

Will the NAS be capable of direct playing to the non-Smart TV?

Yes - and QNAP has some nice functionality that makes it very useful - more than just media playing...

Do note - there is a bit of fan noise and depending what drives you choose, might get some drive noise - it's not silent, but comparable to a desktop PC at a noise level...

 

[ray]

I've been using a Buffalo Duo Linkstation and PS4 so I think I'm accustomed to a level of ambient noise already!

So just to confirm what I am thinking, if I'm connecting the NAS to a dumb TV for display, a 251+ ought to be sufficient for direct play. Direct play to a TV will not need any transcoding.

 

[ray]

Read a bit more and a new tidbit of information came up. It seems like Plex Media Server can only output to the network and not HDMI?! I had assume I'll be running PMS on the NAS.

[EDIT: Read that KODI or XMBC also available on Qnap can output HDMI, newer versions of possibly Plex Home Theater too.]