Hello,
My server is actually running on a MacMini Core i5 with 8gig of RAM but i want to upgrade.
My question is:
for the Same hardware :core i7 16g ram and 250 SSD should i get a Mac os , linux of windows install ?
yes i can use any of this system on my new hardware.
Thanks for you help ! 
I say linux. I backported PMS on Gentoo, but PMS runs natively on ubuntu.
ciao
luigi
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
@jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
This!
@jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
Thirded. For me, it’s Windows. I almost never think about the server at all.
@jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
And another vote for this. For me it is OSX and I never touch the server except to upgrade.
@jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
I agree! I have set up servers under Windows, Linux and on the Shield TV. On each of those there are good things and bad things that you can run into BUT there is no clearly superior OS.
I am most familiar with Windows but I am OK on the other two and I found nothing that makes me want one over the rest. But since I am most comfortable with Windows it is the one I always fall back on. Currently I am running a Windows server as my primary and I keep the Shield active as a backup.
I dumped the Linux server primarily because it was Linux and that is where I am weakest and I cannot figure any way to justify three servers.
Once set up all the systems I tested required almost no regular maintenance.
I have issues with some of the decisions and directions Plex has taken of the last few years BUT one thing they do very well is make the core functionality of their server very stable.
So the deciding fixture is familiarity and that is each individual’s choice.
There, I’ve said in many words what others have said in few.
I agree with all the comments about going with what you’re comfortable with, unless you want to play around with a new OS to sort of learn it, but then you may not have a stable environment you can depend on only due to user error.
Like the post above me from Elijah, I have used several environments. Mainly because I like to play around with different software. I have setup servers on Windows 10, Shield and Linux as well. The biggest missing piece on the Shield is 3rd party plugins if you have need for those. Otherwise, they are about the same.
I’ve been running plex on Windows since the late 2000’s no problems> @jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
Totally agree which ever OS you find the easiest to manage within your environment.
I have run Windows PMS for years and as of this last weekend made the switch to Ubuntu. Best decision I could have made. Linux is such a lightweight operating system compared to Windows and my hardware encoding performance improved rather significantly. Not to mention became much more stable. Yes, there is a learning curve, but I feel it was well worth the time and effort.
@jjrjr1 said:
What ever OS you know best and are the most comfortable with…
This. However there are some reasons not to.
My background was always Windows but I recently expanded that to Mac use. I then decided to create a dedicated server and so instead of running MacOS or Windows which would both be fairly expensive I built myself an unRAID server.
This required me to learn a bunch of new skills; linux admin, docker configuration, etc. but in the long run this has been really good for me. Only works because this is a headless (no kbd,monitor) server dedicated to Plex and storing all my personal data.
Whether this is right for you will depend on hardware you plan to buy, what use you will make of the machine (mixed workstation/server would not work well with this) but sometimes expanding into areas which are not your native knowledge can give great solutions.
David
Sorry to bump this, but I recently made the switch from a dying OS X server to Ubuntu, and ever since my server has been a prolonged nightmare. The OS itself seems crash on a daily basis, in the last week requiring three full installs. It also seems to be playing havoc with my hard drives, since Linux abhors HFS+ formatting, and as a result, somehow, I have permanently lost 4TB of files. Remote viewing has also become far worse with the change, although I went from an ancient 2009 quad-core iMac with 12 GB of ram to a dual-processor Xeon X5760 2.93Ghz with 12 cores (24, according to the builder with Turbo active) and 16 GB: remote viewers experience godawful lag and crashes, even though my internet connection yields 60mbps upload speeds. I even receive the dreaded ‘your connection is too slow’ error on my home, wired Direct Play network even though every cable, port and junction is rated at Gigabit Ethernet and my settop streamer is an NVIDIA Shield, also wired, so no transcoding is required. I get this with simple 1080p H264 videos and HDR10s, alike. I really don’t want to move this computer back to Windows, as it originally was delivered, but for me, the vagaries of Ubuntu and the fact that it has not delivered what I expected from reading these fora (power, simplicity and reliability) mean that I am downloading Windows 10 as I write this, god save me. Unless, of course, someone in here can explain to me all the nonsense I’ve been experiencing since switching over and tell how it will ever be all right again. Oh yes, and suddenly the first fifty films in my library all have a time stamp from being added 20 years in the future, so new material ends up buried on the third or fourth screen. Sheesh.
I feel for you I really do.
Windows is far from perfect, despite the fact that W10 has actually grown on me to the point that for me at least its my favourite version of Windows ever.
OS X I have never used. Not because I have anything against Apple. (The ATV 4K is by far the best purchase I have ever made.)
Linux I haven’t a clue… at least not without Googling. However my remote server runs Linux and Docker via a script.
Docker is even more of a mystery to me than Linux.
Its flawless… but will never persuade me to switch on my primary system that I’m far more familiar with.
Sorry to hear your experience. I can’t help with any insight immediately, though I’ve run PMS on both Linux and W10. I’m comfortable in either, but for PMS I went with Linux because:
My PMS server is old, slow hardware. I personally can get more out of a given hardware setup using Linux than with Windows. IMHO, Windows has more overhead that takes away from resources that in this case I want maximized for server functions.
The commercial skipper worked very well on Linux when I first ran PMS, but didn’t work for me on Windows. I’m sure it can work well on Windows, but I didn’t feel like investing the time to find the problem when everything was working well on Linux.
Ultimately PMS can work well on either. I’ve been happy with my choice since for over a year I’ve run smoothly, have a stable OTA DVR , remote access works, I use a NAS for storage without problems, and have had only minor issues with upgrades. (Knock on wood!) I did have to go through a learning curve to understand how to get all my use cases to direct play or direct stream, but that wasn’t platform specific.
Ultimately, find the platform that works for you for Plex. Use it. Be happy.
I just thought it is worth noting here that this answer is now more clear; if you’re using hardware acceleration, Windows or Linux will trump Mac. Mac OS is limiting HW transcoding to 1 at a time. Windows is 2 (but there are ways, supposedly to increase this?). Linux is unlimited as far as I can gather.
I have been using a Mac OS powered PMS and have not been happy with streaming to multiple devices, even in direct-play, with a powerful quicksync enabled iGPU Intel i7 8th gen.
This is certainly not the case in all situations. It will likely depend on your media, but it’s not a limitation of the platform; at least not in all cases. I just tested with three simultaneous, hardware-transcoded streams (1080p, H.264, 35 Mbps source) with no issues whatsoever, on a Late 2012 Mac Mini (i7-3615QM based).
I’m only adding this here in the event that someone reads the above and gets the wrong idea. macOS, as a platform, is certainly capable of more than one hardware accelerated transcode simultaneously.
The Plex documentation says otherwise - https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/ - I was just going off the official word. I have never seen my rig do more than 1 (full-time) HW Transcode. I’ve seen it “time share” and I’ve seen it do container transcoding. But never, for example, 2 at the same time of the same format.
“macOS is only capable of hardware-accelerated encoding of 1 video at a time. This is a platform limitation from Apple.”
You bring me hope. For your 1080P transcodes, were all three encoding to 720P or something else and full transcode (no direct stream of any sort)? Fascinating if so and worth letting the Plex team know. They are pretty firm in Mac OS limiting to 1 at a time.
Yep, all were being transcoded (with both hardware decode and encode) to 720p, 4 Mbps. All H.264. 4K is, of course, a non-starter on my hardware, but I picked on one of the highest bit-rate files in my library.
I am envious of you. My setup has better specs and can’t get near that…
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