If you’re an audiophile who loves to collect digital albums and songs, you know you have enough confidence to fight to find the media server of your choice and save your music. This struggle becomes more real when you get a free service of your choice, but it suddenly starts charging to use the server, leaving you in trouble.
A caller to Kim Kay recently had the same dilemma. Listeners have thousands of copies of digital songs, but don’t want to save them on a single free service – just transfer them again when the service starts charging.
So, Kim suggested setting a NAS with Plex instead of them. Plex is a popular, user-friendly media server software option, and you can easily set it up to help you save your music files. This way.
What is a NAS? Or plex?
Before we get started, let’s talk about what NAS is. A NAS, or network-connected storage, is an intelligent storage device that you attach to your home or office network to store files. You can use it to save documents, photos, videos or – you guessed it – music, which we will use in this situation.
It may look like a USB drive, but a NAS is different from your regular USB because you can use a web browser or mobile app to access files and access some services provided by NAS over the Internet. To be able to. In other words, it can be like Spotify, you’re not playing it with your media – not a streaming service.
Plex, on the other hand, is a media server that you can use to stream music stored on your NAS. Plex stores all your media – podcasts, music, web shows and more – and makes it easy to access your files on any device.
You will need Plex to set up and run your own personal media server – where you will keep all your stuff. There are many different NAS devices on the market, but not all of them will work with Plex. However, this component is essential if you want to stream and save your audio files.
Which NAS should I buy?
To use NAS with Plex, you need to invest in one of the supported Plex NAS devices, which you can buy from a ton of different sites, including Amazon.
If you want to run your server on NAS, you need to choose a NAS that meets some basic criteria.
There are many different devices available for purchase, but if you are looking for the best NAS that can be purchased online, we recommend Western Digital My Cloud or Netgear ReadyNAS.
The Western Digital MyCloud makes it easy to store all your media files and access them from virtually anywhere through the MyCloud app. The best part about this device is that it plugs directly into your Wi-Fi router, so you can upload, share or access your music and other audio files from anywhere you have an Internet connection.
Netgear ReadyNAS, on the other hand, is extremely easy to use and access, has five levels of data protection, all-inclusive data backup and recovery, and allows you to securely store and access your files in your cloud. Lets create.
Asustor AS6404T is another solid option. This NAS device has a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and the Asustor EZ-Connect allows you to connect to your NAS remotely from any computer or mobile phone. Also, Asustor EZ-Sync turns your NAS into a real-time file sync in private cloud space, and automatic backup means you don’t lose if you crash your files.
How to set up your music server is yours
If you have a NAS device, you need to follow the instructions on your NAS device to plug it in or connect it to the right place.
Once this is done, you can use any machine running Windows 10 or Mac OSX to run Media Server, but if you want to stream your files to your mobile device, you have to pay for Plex, which can be annual, monthly or Bought on lifetime subscription.
It’s probably wise to start with a monthly subscription to see how you like it. If you are a fan of Plex, you can always switch to a lifetime plan.
Once the Plex Server is fully installed on your device, you will have the option to scan your PC or NAS directory for media. You can add a media library based on the type of content and let Plex do the rest — cataloguing, artwork and adding information — everything is automated. You don’t have to worry about configuring your firewall or anything else, because Plex takes care of it at the back end.