PLEX Media Server Recommendations

[Debojit Sinha]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is the correct place for this post, but I'm planning to get a dedicated system for my Plex Server. Space being a constraint for me, I was thinking of getting a Mini PC, such as a Mac Mini, or an Intel NUC. I'm planning to have the movies stored initially in USB external hard drives with the plan being to move them to a NAS in future. The Plex server and the NAS would connect over a LAN cable with the router.

Additionally, since most of my content is BluRay rips of movies and TV shows encoded as H.265 to save space, I'm looking at a fair bit of transcoding as well, with the option of running two streams in parallel.

Please advise.

Thanks & regards,
Debojit

 

[xMirage2kx]

I am currently running plex on a 3.5ghz i3 with 4gb ram. It works fine for up to 2-3 transcodings but then begins to seriously suffer. Even though the specs on external hard drives suggest no issues I have found slow load times and buffering with most usb connected drives (even usb 3) especially if you are trying to transcode and stream 2 movies off one drive at the same time.

 

[xMirage2kx]

I am currently running plex on a 3.5ghz i3 with 4gb ram. It works fine for up to 2-3 transcodings but then begins to seriously suffer. Even though the specs on external hard drives suggest no issues I have found slow load times and buffering with most usb connected drives (even usb 3) especially if you are trying to transcode and stream 2 movies off one drive at the same time.