As more 4K films and shows and high-res photos and music fill up the average household's collection in this digital age, that number has accelerated dramatically. Keeping these giant files scattered all around your devices leads to a chaotic organization and leaves no margin for error. The answer is a 6-bay Network Attached Storage (NAS) system, a powerful and expandable centralized hub capable of well beyond 160TB of storage capacity.
Not only does this beast centralize your media, but with RAID options, you get enterprise-level data protection, ensuring that treasured memories and entertainment don't disappear overnight. With integrated media server capabilities, this allows streaming of content to any device in your home, and when traveling, the ability to access files remotely. Your library will definitely grow and this system can easily be expanded as your needs dictate.
In this guide, we'll walk you through how to set up your own 6-bay NAS and we'll touch on the key aspects of hardware selection, RAID setup, media server configuration and remote access setup. Whether you're an obsessive media collector or a family archivist, you'll discover how to build this sturdy, scalable storage solution, which acts as the spine of your digital life.
A 6-bay Network Attached Storage system strikes the golden mean between home compact and enterprise storage arrays. While units like its smaller 2 or 4-bay units are too quickly reached their capacity limits, a 6-bay configuration strikes the balance between expandability and manageability for growing media collections. Fully loaded, these systems can provide over 160TB+ in raw storage capacity, with support for drives of up to 22TB each.
The extra drive bays also support more advanced RAID setups than smaller units can provide. For example, you can use RAID 6 with dual-drive redundancy but still have plenty of usable storage, or use separate RAID arrays for different kinds of media. That flexibility comes in handy when safeguarding those irreplaceable family photos along with your burgeoning 4K film collection.
Performance benefits are also clear as six drives can now work in parallel to eliminate buffering when streaming several channels of 4K video at the same time. Having the ability to hot-swap drives and gradually expand storage capacity makes 6-bay systems particularly cost-effective, allowing users to kick things off with fewer drives, and add on more as their capacity needs grow, rather than needing to replace the entire system when storage needs exceed the original limits.
To determine how much storage to allocate for your NAS, begin by taking stock of your existing media and anticipating growth over 3-5 years. Similarly, the storage space for 4K movies is about 50-100GB, whereas several terabytes of data is not uncommon for RAW photo collections. Look for enterprise-class CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) drives rated for NAS systems for best performance and reliability. These drives are also designed to be more resistant to vibration and are meant for 24/7 usage, which are both crucial for serving media constantly.
Your NAS enclosure also ought to offer good cooling with several fans, hot-swappable drive bays, and at least 4GB of RAM to function smoothly. The UGREEN 6-bay NAS chassis comes with these crucial features and more with Intel processors that support hardware transcoding in order to convert media in real-time. Although Gigabit Ethernet works for just about any home environment, a NAS capable of handling 10GbE future-proofs your system for multiple concurrent 4K streams. The chassis needs USB ports for local backups, plus an HDMI port for direct media playback. Test your switches to see whether they are connected with 100 Mbps only; for example, they may need to be replaced. To achieve the best performance, a separate segment for your NAS that is not used for normal home network behavior would be ideal.
When it comes to media server RAID performance, trading off data safety with the storage space you have available can be a tricky balance. RAID 5 is a solid compromise, where one drive cannot be used for storage (but will be used for parity, allowing for one drive to fail), leaving you with ~80% of your total storage. However, RAID 6 offers essentially unrivaled protection for critical media collections, as it provides double-parity, offering protection against two simultaneous drive failures at the cost of a third drive worth of storage space.
RAID 10 (mirroring and striping) is the best option for mixed media workloads and can achieve the best read/write speeds for 4K video streams running simultaneously. While it cuts usable capacity in half (to 50 percent), the performance is a godsend for households where multiple users are simultaneously retrieving various media files. Once you've selected your RAID configuration, install all the drives in your NAS bays, then in your NAS web interface, navigate to the storage manager. Choose "Create Storage Pool" and your desired RAID level, and run through the initialization wizard. If you have spare drives, make sure the hot spare option is configured during this process.
Time for RAID to be rebuilt on its initial array (this can take in the range of 24-48 hours on larger drives). Complete this process and start to monitor the SMART drive and set up the automated email notification for potential drive failure. Setting up RAID static verification on your NAS, as part of your media streaming performance strategy, allows you to do an off-peak compliance on your media with a NAS, by checking arrays on offline segments on a regular basis, i.e. every few days or weeks.
Setting up dedicated server software will turn your NAS into a powerful media center. Start with Plex Media Server, with the most polished user experience and excellent device support. Open your NAS's package center, find Plex, and install it with a few clicks. After installing the Plex software, visit the Plex web interface in your browser and set up your media libraries. Group your content into different libraries for movies, TV shows, and music, so it can retrieve metadata automatically to show cover art, descriptions, and ratings. This allows you to keep your media index up to date without impacting performance by configuring library scans during off-peak hours.
If you want secure remote access, you start with a VPN server on your NAS. Install your NAS maker's VPN server package and generate strong user credentials. Set port forwarding on the router for VPN port (by default it is 1194, OpenVPN), and create client configuration files for your devices. Step 5: After that, download OpenVPN clients on your mobile devices and computers, import the configuration files, and test the connection from outside your network. Smoother authentication, mobile app integration: integrate your media server's mobile apps with your VPN profile for easier authentication. You can set limits on bandwidth to avoid remote streaming from plugging too much of your home internet connection, and you can create various user accounts with customized access privileges for family and guests.
A 6-bay NAS is quite a jump toward a modern home media management system. Beyond unifying your entire digital library, this mighty solution also offers enterprise-grade protection using considerations of RAID. Now that you have selected the hardware according to the guidelines and configured your storage accordingly, you have set a solid foundation for your ever-growing media collection.
Ascertain that all your entertainment is in one place with the best NAS drives for music and TV in 2023 for storing music and videos with redundant storage, media server capabilities, and secure remote access. Whether you're streaming 4K content to multiple devices at the same time or protecting invaluable family memories, your 6-bay system provides the performance and reliability demanded by today's digital lifestyle. With media files increasing in size and number, your scalable NAS solution is ready to grow with your needs, keeping your digital library organized, protected, and available for many years ahead.
