Hi, I’m posting this here because Xbox One would be my preferred place to view my Plex library.
At the moment, I have a 2TB external hard drive connected to my PC to run my Plex server. I then either cast it to my Chromecast or watch it on my Xbox. The issue I have with this of course, is unless my PC is on, I can’t access it whilst I am away from home. Ideally I would like to be able to have my Plex server readily available all the time, no matter where I am.
Which leads to to think that setting up a NAS or a computer/device that is on 24/7 is the way to go. My concerns with this however are,
Cost of setup
Power assumption of the device that is powered on all the time
Whether the files will need to be transcoded or not
Leading on from my last point, as far as I know. The Xbox One can play most file types, so will files still need to be automatically transcoded or will the player just stream them natively?
I have read up on the documentation a fair bit, but some of it does get quite technical and I’m just looking for some advice on what I can get away with.
I am running PMS on a dual core AMD with 4GB of ram and Ubuntu 15.
I access it from a Xbox One, 2 Xbox 360s, 2 Roku Sticks and a Note 4.
I try to make sure my video files aren’t in a format needing transcoding, but it happens at times, especially with the 360s. Word of advice, whatever you choose to do, cores are your friend more so than ram. I will be upgrading my CPU soon.
I estimate an extra $3 a month on my power bill since putting my machine on my network.
Yes, my media server runs 24/7 and is exclusively for Plex and file storage.
It currently has 11.5TB of hard drives split between internal and external hard drives. My girlfriend and our kids connect via Roku sticks because the Xbox 360 sucks ass for streaming. I have noticed that the Roku Stick seems to require more transcoding than not – hence my suggestion you get a CPU with as many cores as possible.
Ok cool, thanks for clarifying. What sort of budget did you look at when building it can I ask? I’ve already spent over a grand on my PC so I’m sure you can understand my concerns about spending out a lot of money for another PC
Hmmm, another option I was looking at was just using the wake on lan function to just turn my PC on and off remotely, but I’ve not had any luck so far. I can shut it down using an app over wifi
If I were starting from scratch, I would probably have got one of the NAS appliances that supports Plex (like the MyCloud EX2 or EX4). They cost about the same as an entry level desktop but should use less electricity.
I transcode my media on my PC to be directly playable on most devices before adding it to my Plex library. This means h.264 encoding of the video and aac or ac3 encoding for the audio. Plex is pretty much always in direct play mode this way.
I would also use wired (Ethernet) connectivity for the NAS and (if possible) the primary players (Roku, Chromecast). This will allow for smoother playback and also not clog your home WiFi when people are watching something.
My setup was built up over several years and, like HomeGrown, my desktop is my Plex server. However, I do have a NAS device with a built-in DLNA server so I am able to watch videos on my Roku without my desktop running. It is not nearly as nice as the Plex interface.
I’ve looked at the EX2 & EX4. My problem is the cost for the storage. I already have 11.5TB and adding that to a NAS like the EX2 would be, IMHO, cost prohibitive.
