Accessing a NAS as DVR storage when running Channels on a Mac

Hey Channels community! I’m new to Channels and trying to figure out which device to configure my DVR server on. I was planning on using my 2nd gen WD MyCloud 4TB NAS, however it appears that the hardware prevents full Channels functionality.

I have an old MB Pro gathering dust, so I figured I could put it to use and leverage the MyCloud as remote vs USB connected storage. When trying to locate the volume, all I’m given the option to select is the internal MB Pro volumes. Is there any way/is it recommended to use a LAN connected HD as the storage location for recordings?

As another option, I have a Synology DS218+ which I’m running Homebridge and Surveillance Station (among other things) so I’m guessing the old MB Pro will be the preferred device for running the DVR server, but open to other thoughts and suggestions.

In the Finder, Cmd+K will bring up the network connection dialog. I believe there is a "Browse" button to allow you to browse for shares on your network. Or, if you know the device's IP address and share, you can directly enter something like \\192.168.1.12\files in the dialog. (Of course, that's a contrived example; I'm pretty certain your actual environment is different.)

One caveat, though: network-based storage is probably not the best for DVR storage.

Thanks for the reply! Yea, I wasn’t sure if the ‘remote’ nature of the drive would be a problem from a playback performance (or writing) standpoint. I’ll just plug in a USB drive into the MB Pro and call it a day.

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The DS218+ is one of the most popular NASes for Channels DVR. I and many others are running on one. Works great. If it were me I’d go with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Synology, but I don’t want to tax it’s resources too hard especially when I have another system not in use. Are you using your NAS just for Channels or other applications as well?

Recording TV is incredibly low on resource usage. All you are doing is pulling a stream off the network and writing it to disk.

The only time the processor is taxed is with commercial detection (which only runs one at a time, so not very taxing). Also, the processor may get taxed with transcoding, but if you're using a DS218, it has hardware transcoding, so that won't tax your processor much, either.

Personally I’m using it also as a UniFi Controller via Docker, and a handful of custom scripts. As racameron mentioned, it’s only really working when transcoding or doing commercial detection, but I haven’t come close to running out of horsepower yet.

I have a Synology DS918+. It runs Homebridge, Home Assistant, Channels, Plex, and more. I've never had a problem. I would just move everything to your Synology.