2nd attempt: Plex streaming and security - volume, folder, or VM isolation?

[ranranran]

Hi all,

I had posted this question at the beginning of the week, but for some reason it was deleted, and I'm not sure why. So, I'll try again, hoping that was just an accident....

Anyway, I just purchased a TS-253Be (2 x 8TB drives) and wish to use it for:
1) Family data backup (documents, photos, videos, etc...)
2) Plex Streaming (external access when out of the home)

My question concerns how best to secure this from external intrusion, particularly all our family data. Is there any difference or advantage to keeping these two usages on separate volumes (e.g. 2 created volumes, one for backup, one for Plex) or just have one volume with 2 folders (e.g. 'Backup' and 'Plex')?

I had gotten one response before the thread was deleted suggesting something about running Plex through a VM....but before I got to ask for more information, the post was, as mentioned, deleted.....

Is this the preferred way to prevent access to our data? Any suggestions or thoughts would be welcome.
Thanks, Ran

[dolbyman]

see here

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=147443&p=709389#p709389

[ranranran]

Ok, that's weird, when I looked for that post and your reply last week, it was gone, not listed under my posts in my profile or anywhere that I could find on the forum. Now my original post is back! Thanks for finding it for me!

What type of processing hit would a Plex server take, running in a VM vs. running under the QNAP OS? If I needed on-the-fly transcoding of movies........would I see fewer/lower quality streams with this setup?

[dolbyman]

not sure for cpu/software transcoding..but gpu passthrough does not work for the intel gpu (in case you use it)

[ranranran]

Hrrrmmm... so, basically it would be a tradeoff. Better transcoding support via native install (I have the J3455 Celeron) but poorer security of my files, or I could put it into a container (e.g. I was looking a this https://github.com/plexinc/pms-docker/b ... /README.md on github) but suffer from another OS layer and software only transcoding......

That's a tough call. I guess I'll have to do a bit more research on these containers and perhaps try it out to see what type of performance drop I see.....

[OneCD]

Ok, that's weird, when I looked for that post and your reply last week, it was gone, not listed under my posts in my profile or anywhere that I could find on the forum. Now my original post is back! Thanks for finding it for me!

The forum was having some "technical difficulties" last week. Seems to be OK now.

[Trexx]

Personally I don't see Plex itself as a major security risk.

I have had Plex exposed for a long time with no issues as it exposes 1 port which I believe is randomized on the external side.

Now that being said, I also don't have myQnapCloud or other external services opened up on my QNAP for direct outside access. When I do need to access the QNAP directly I use a VPN through my router to do it. I also have a good firewall with IPS/IDS capabilities on my router helping protect things as well.