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Use NUC for NAS/Plex server

Any thoughts on using an Intel NUC with either several USB external drives or inexpensive NAS/JBOD box attached, instead of a fancy NAS with powerful CPU for use as a Backup and my Plex Server for the house? I get a pretty decent discount on the NUC box, so it is much more economical than a NAS that can handle Plex Transcoding.

Plus, I think the NUC is pretty cool....
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

Which NUC model are you considering?

If your looking at one of the newer Haswell models I think I would have been all over it already especially so if there were substantial discounts.

How many USB 3.0 ports in total though?

eSATA,....?

Thunderbolt,.....?

Nah - probably looking at the Ivy Bridge one. I can get i3 with HDMI/USB2 (3 ports) and Thunderbolt for under $200. Can always put a hub on it if needed. The Haswell one isn't on the discount page yet. I don't need huge performance, so Ivy Bridge should be fine. Would be nice if Plex would get Quick Sync support
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

From what I have seen, each NUC has its own pro's and con's. USB 2.0 only omitting USB 3.0 for example.

As long as you find a model that suits your needs you should be fine. I always said I would wait until I found a NUC that has compromises I could live with and the Haswell line looks like it could have a gem among them.

I would rather have everything contained within a single case. What's the point of having a tiny PC if you have to have cords and power supplies and other cables hanging all over the place to run the peripherals. Give me an 8-bay case with everything tucked away neatly inside.

The NUC would make an awesome thin client. I can't see the point of trying to build a server with one.

I get that - but I'm also looking at the cost. A barebones Synology box without drives costs more than I'll spend configuring something like this up, and this would have a full PC OS running on it for other purposes as well if needed. I get the whole cabling issue - my desk is already a mess, and this would add a bit to it. Unless you know of a high quality NAS box, that can run Plex with Transcoding (up to 1080p) with drives for a more reasonable price (I'm open to suggestions )
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

I'm not suggesting that you buy a NAS box. Just build a PC that fits in a single case. What you're describing will become a multi-headed Hydra of tangled cables.

You can easily build a driveless NAS for 200-300, 400 if you want something fancy.

the Celeron G1610 CPU is a fantastic processor cost/power wise. I am using this case which has room for 6 drives. »pcpartpicker.com/part/fractal-de···ode304bl

I haven't had any issues with plex (beyond issues with plexs coding, the hardware works fine) using that processor but I only stream one show at a time.

Something to consider - many cheap external drives (or enclosures) don't have adequate cooling to be used full-time. At least a metal enclosure with close contact acts as a heatsink but there are a fair amount of plastic enclosures or metal enclosures with no direct contact with the drive.

This is especially true for 3.5" mechanical drives which consume more power and give off more heat than 2.5" mechanical drives.

Although the Intel NUC is cool, I would want to put the drives in a properly ventilated enclosure.

I use a NUC for my bedroom HTPC and it's great... however I wouldn't use it for a NAS server, rather I'd use a NAS for a NAS server.