Unless I'm looking at the wrong box it's a Ryzen (so no hardware accelerated transcoding) with a very meager 4584 Passmark? That's really low if you want to actually do anything with it, I mean you wouldn't start building a PC anywhere close to that weak, heck even the ultraportables like Surface Pros are multiple times more powerful than that.
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Hey, if you are planning on doing any transcodes avoid using the 1821 for that task, it has no hardware capabilities and will saturate the cpu leaving no resources for other services on the box. It is more than capable of running a ton of Docker Containers to obtain said media. So you could combine its abilities with a SFF computer with a modern Intel cpu with Quicksync for Plex. Budget willing..
4gb of memory in the stock device is a bit low, and from what I can tell, upgrading the memory will cost a pretty penny since it's not a standard size ram stick AND it only accepts certain speeds.
It just uses regular laptop So-DIMM's. They are cheap and abundant.
But as far as CPU, yeah that's the weak point with Synology NAS's now. I don't know why they bothered with the AMD chip over an Intel with integrated GPU. Even a weak Intel CPU with Quick Sync support could easily transcode 4x 1080p to 480p streams.
The 1821 uses ECC memory. That's what hikes the price up if you want to upgrade to 2x16GB.
These 16GB are $66 each. Not cheap but not horrible either. I bought those for my two DS1819+ a few years back: https://www.newegg.com/sk-hynix-16gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/1X5-0040-001D4?Item=9SIAHZUD035785
The DS1821 runs with Ryzen, so no transcoding capability at all. Anyway, most Intel solutions sell on those prebuilt NAS, don't have good performance, mostly enough for the basic Nas function, and mostly old stuff, without all codec support. You need an Intel CPU, one with integrated iGPU, capable of Quickl Sink.
If you need transcoding power, better go DIY. To give you a perspective, an i5 8400 can transcode around 4/5 4K video at the same time. As 1080p, we are over 20+ at the same time. That's the UHD730 power.
I brought one recently to exactly do this. I got super confused why something that cost me well into 5 figures, still lagged and buffered while playing, then I won an Intel Nuc on eBay, connected it to Ethernet via a switch, installed Plex on it, and pointed it toward my DS1821+ and it solved my problems. The DS1821+ to me just seems like backup and storage rather than streaming at this stage.
Interesting, well thanks for the heads up. I was hoping this was going to be a one stop shop solution, but clearly not.