Apple M1 Plex Server Maximum Transcodes, I'm impressed Apple

Server Version#: 1.24.3.5033
Player Version#: (web) 4.63.0

I have an M1 Mini with 16GB and the 1TB SSD.

I searched for this to see if a topic already existed, but didn’t find one.

I decided to see how many transcodes the M1 could handle in HW, and the results are honestly stunning. This 10w TDP low power chip is a powerhouse. It surpassed my expectations. I expected it to crap out around 4-6 HW transcodes, and due to its low power nature, I didn’t even try a straight CPU transcode.

But HW wise? Extremely impressive.

I queued up a Concert I copied locally to the SSD to keep the network traffic to a minimum. My normal server is a older system in my sig. Its aging out, but I’ll probably replace it with a AMD Ryzen based system in the future.

The test file in this case is Hans Zimmer - Live in Prague. Its a 35Mbit avg 1080p H264 file with Dolby Atmos.

When testing, I chose to have it transcode down to 720p 4Mbit streams.

I started off with one Web client, and just kept adding them, expecting it to stop. I had to resize the windows twice to fit more.

In the end, ended up with 13 simultaneous transcodes, and not a single hiccup. It was only when I went for #14 that it finally broke and failed to start #14. But the other 13? They kept right on playing.

Impressive work from a low power chip. Especially considering that Plex is still Rosetta 2 and not Native. I heard it uses Videotoolbox and that is probably native. But I’m impressed all the same.

For a box that idles around 7w and consumes basically nothing its doing an amazing amount of work.

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