arnprasad
Well-Known Member
Hi All,
My current home setup has multiple computers and currently most of my media files are on a WD My Cloud EX2 NAS. When I bought the WD, I just wanted a two drive setup to auto backup for any drive failures since it included 20 years of invaluable home videos. Apparently it is also a NAS - I never tried to understand what all smart things it can do since I have a tough time using it as a dumb drive since most of the time, the damn NAS is so smart - my computers cannot identify it and map it as a network drive.
What do I have:
(i) a desktop at first floor which recognizes my WD Ex 2 NAS and I am able to map it as Z drive
(ii) A desktop at ground floor which cannot map my WD as a network drive
(iii) A laptop which earlier was able to map the WD has a network drive but after I upgraded my router to a dual band - this too does not recognize
(iv) Various other mobile devices like phones and tablets
Goal of my project:
Make sure my media files currently on the WD Ex 2 is accessible to all my computers and if possible even on mobile devices and even better if I can access it outside my home network. Currently apart from my first floor desktop if I want to play a file from my WD drive - I use a pen drive to copy.
Also within my home network, I want to play the media via Ethernet or Wifi and do not want to waste internet bandwidth
What I have learnt so far:
Setup a Plex media server on my first floor desktop and point it to the Z drive for media files. Use a browser on my other computers, logon to plex.tv and access my media files.
Limitations of the above process:
For this to work, I need to have my desktop on all the time.. While not a big deal in terms of power consumption, I know that Plex can be setup directly on my WD EX2 thereby saving few units of electricity.
Questions that needs clarification:
This is what I have I think
I have watched the following videos and hence have the following questions
(i) Is there a need to have Plex plug in on Kodi or can I just get rid of Kodi. I use Kodi as software to play my media files. I dont use much add-ons and all that. So should I use Plex on Kodi or only use Plex?
(ii) At around 10:00 min on the first video above - it talks about NAS servers being able to transcode and my WD Ex2 has NO all across. Why does my NAS needs to transcode? Is this a limiting factor and does that mean Plex on my NAS is useless and I stick to the Desktop Plex server?
(iii) Whether WD NAS or Desktop - how do I access my files on other computers using home network and not via internet as my understanding is that if I access Plex on browser on other computers - I use my internet bandwidth?
(iv) Plex is compatible with Alexa and it will be great if I can ask Alexa to play a movie - that will impress people. Hope it works in my current set up
(v) Assuming my WD NAS option works - do I need to have a static IP - currently I dont have any static IPs from Hathway
Tomorrow I will go ahead and try and setup following instructions from the above three videos.
Please guide me as I feel pretty dumb that in 2020 I dont even use Windows network feature to access files within my home network and have to use thumb drives!!
My current home setup has multiple computers and currently most of my media files are on a WD My Cloud EX2 NAS. When I bought the WD, I just wanted a two drive setup to auto backup for any drive failures since it included 20 years of invaluable home videos. Apparently it is also a NAS - I never tried to understand what all smart things it can do since I have a tough time using it as a dumb drive since most of the time, the damn NAS is so smart - my computers cannot identify it and map it as a network drive.
What do I have:
(i) a desktop at first floor which recognizes my WD Ex 2 NAS and I am able to map it as Z drive
(ii) A desktop at ground floor which cannot map my WD as a network drive
(iii) A laptop which earlier was able to map the WD has a network drive but after I upgraded my router to a dual band - this too does not recognize
(iv) Various other mobile devices like phones and tablets
Goal of my project:
Make sure my media files currently on the WD Ex 2 is accessible to all my computers and if possible even on mobile devices and even better if I can access it outside my home network. Currently apart from my first floor desktop if I want to play a file from my WD drive - I use a pen drive to copy.
Also within my home network, I want to play the media via Ethernet or Wifi and do not want to waste internet bandwidth
What I have learnt so far:
Setup a Plex media server on my first floor desktop and point it to the Z drive for media files. Use a browser on my other computers, logon to plex.tv and access my media files.
Limitations of the above process:
For this to work, I need to have my desktop on all the time.. While not a big deal in terms of power consumption, I know that Plex can be setup directly on my WD EX2 thereby saving few units of electricity.
Questions that needs clarification:
This is what I have I think
I have watched the following videos and hence have the following questions
(i) Is there a need to have Plex plug in on Kodi or can I just get rid of Kodi. I use Kodi as software to play my media files. I dont use much add-ons and all that. So should I use Plex on Kodi or only use Plex?
(ii) At around 10:00 min on the first video above - it talks about NAS servers being able to transcode and my WD Ex2 has NO all across. Why does my NAS needs to transcode? Is this a limiting factor and does that mean Plex on my NAS is useless and I stick to the Desktop Plex server?
(iii) Whether WD NAS or Desktop - how do I access my files on other computers using home network and not via internet as my understanding is that if I access Plex on browser on other computers - I use my internet bandwidth?
(iv) Plex is compatible with Alexa and it will be great if I can ask Alexa to play a movie - that will impress people. Hope it works in my current set up
(v) Assuming my WD NAS option works - do I need to have a static IP - currently I dont have any static IPs from Hathway
Tomorrow I will go ahead and try and setup following instructions from the above three videos.
Please guide me as I feel pretty dumb that in 2020 I dont even use Windows network feature to access files within my home network and have to use thumb drives!!
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