QNAP TVS-873

Review QNAP TVS-873

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Ian

Ian

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QNAP TVS-873 - A powerful 8-bay NAS from QNAP

The QNAP TVS-873 looks a little different from most other NAS products at first glance, and the internal components are quite surprising too. This NAS features a powerful quad-core AMD CPU and an integrated R7 GPU – both beyond the demands of what you would expect from a file-server NAS. As you may have guessed, TVS-873 isn’t designed to function as a simple “network attached storage” device. We’ve used this NAS as a fully-fledged all round server for a month, running several Virtual...
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Looks like a beast. Shame I'm not prepared to spend my savings on it and several other hard drives to populate it. Yeah I get that are build for business and the enthusiast but I want one too :(
 
Hi Ian

Thanks for the good in-depth review.

Two questions...

How does the server handle Plex transcoding? Have you tried it with a few 1080p streams?

Any chance you can share some pics of the foam padding you added to the drives to reduce noise? Or maybe explain how and where on the trays you put it?

Thanks again for the fine article.
 
Hi Kristian, welcome to the forums :).

I've since removed the foam padding and used screws to mount the HDDs (rather than just using the rails alone), this reduced noise to almost zero and worked better than the foam - I'd go down this route.

I've not tried multiple transcoded 1080p streams on this model, as we use our Plex install as a DVR via a TV tuner and only watch 1 TV at a time. From what I understand, there is a hardware acceleration Plex version available in Beta, which would be worth trying if you want to use multiple streams. I've been running several VM servers, Plex, file servers etc... all at the same time, so there's plenty of CPU power available in this model - so I'd guess it would do quite a good job at transcoding higher loads.
 
Hi Ian

Thanks for the answers, much appreciated.

I think I will go ahead and buy the TVS-873. It seems like the sweet spot between performance and price when it comes to NAS servers for Plex. Do you have experience with others you could recommend?

Thanks again.
 
I'm very happy with the TVS-873 (although I'd have liked it in black, rather than gold!) - but at the price, it was better than the alternatives at the time.

I also like the look of the TVS-1282/882, but they were a lot more expensive when I bought. If the price was similar, I'd probably have gone for one of these.

You can run Plex by downloading an official Plex app for QNAP systems or by running it as a Docker container. I'd recommend using the official app, as that'll be the likely route for when transcoding hardware acceleration is added.

If you have problems transcoding to many devices at the same time, there's an option to pre-transcode within Plex, which may help.
 
I see what you mean. But the gold one won an award as you say :)))

The version of TVS-1282 here: QNAP TVS-1282-i3-8G is 33% more expensive than the 873. But is the upgrade from the AMD APU to the Intel i3 worth that extra price? The TVS-882 is 50% more expensive but also has a i5.

Basically I want something proper for Plex with the odd 2-3 transcodes, but I feel like those two options are very expensive and may be severe overkill for my need.

Ah, good to know regarding the pre-transcode. You know anything about when the hardware acceleration is added to Plex and what that will mean performance-wise?

Edit: I guess the 1281 i3 isn't worth it looking at the passmarks cores of the CPU vs the AMD APU

Intel i3 passmark: 5479
AMD passmark: 4875

The i5 882 will be too expensive unfortunately,
 
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In that case, I'd go for the 873 it's good value compared to the 1282/882 :). I imagine it'll transcode 2-3 things just fine.

There's a long running thread on the Plex forums regarding the hardware acceleration version, it's currently in preview (but in an older release). You'll need a Plex pass to view the main thread I think:

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/2...-hardware-transcoding-preview-3-1-6-0-3720/p1

If you're not fussed about NAS features but want a Plex server, the NVIDIA shield may be an interesting option. It's comparatively cheap and works as a Plex server. According to this page, it "will be able to support at least 2-3 simultaneous transcodes".
 
I think I will indeed go with the 873.

Thanks for the link. I will save that for when I get Plex Pass again.

Actually I thought about getting a ShieldTV as well. They are very powerful. But of course I still need the storage capacity, so might as well get the 873 as well and then down the road a ShieldTV perhaps for the extra power (or 4K content).
 
I use the NVIDIA Shield as our Plex client, and it's great - big thumbs up from me :thumb:.

Hope you enjoy the QNAP :).
 
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