A caching feature would allow you to have a secondary Plex caching server (either on a cloud VPS or hosted by Plex for a monthly fee) that could have items you are likely to watch soon copied to it. (For instance the next few episodes of any TV shows in On Deck and any manually added items. It could work like mobile sync but for remote access.)
This alllows users with less-than-ideal upload speeds to still watch their media in HD from anywhere without having to resort to storing the entire media library in the cloud.
This feature is also a more cost effective alternative to Plex Cloud and could make Plex an attractive solution for media management for more people.
Hello plex devs. Im a plex pass user too and i really need this feature.
I do have a pretty large plex server in my home, and i would like to share it with my friends and family. Problem is, internet upload is not enough to satisfy 10-15 people (20 mbit upload), and internet speeds is not a thing that you can decide upon.
We need the ability to setup a plex media server as a cache server, connecting to a master server. When in cache-server mode, a folder should be requested for cache, and then the server will start caching every video request made. If space is full, simply deletes the most unwatched or the first added. For metadata, could be saved locally with master pushing updates or requesting it directly to the master.
In this way, workflow would look like this:
If video is in cache:
Client -> Cache server
If video is not:
Client -> Cache server <- Master server
Other users on reddit, plex forum, discord, including me, have this necessity, and for plex pass users it could be a really nice feature to have.
@Nicolasvac Sounds like you are looking for a “lazy-loading” cache, that doesn’t preemptively cache things, but instead reactively caches recently watched things, on the presumption that users are likely to watch the same media around the same time (perhaps, new movies coming out). Presumably you want this cache in a cloud somewhere, still remote to most clients.
I think everyone else is thinking of a 1-cache-per-client situtation, on lan, to support connected-TV devices and the like. My situation is I’ve got 6Mbps DSL in a vacation home, with a low CPU server (unable to transcode).
I have hacked together a workaround for myself - an “optimized” location for my libraries that is rsynced to another server (With a bandwidth limit) and a second plex instance. Combined with “only sync 5 unwatched episodes”, its pretty easy to work with now. Still wish it was integrated.
After searching for a bit tonight, came here to reiterate the value of this request. At our second home, we have shaky cable internet and a low-power CPU (no transcoding) Mac mini with a PMS install. Would love for it to be able to smartly cache highly used files locally on the second home’s server so that at least the things we’re more likely to watch there play locally from the cache instead of having to pull from our home server (symmetrical fiber with good CPU and GPU set up).
Problem: Both remote client and server can have high bandwidth available but still require buffering due to VBR, TCP, and congestion. Caching is generally out of the control of Plex as it is done by the OS player.
Feature request: A client side caching server to pull data from the PMS to the Client LAN, temporarily storing and serving as requested.
Example: I have a client with 250Mbps down and a server with 120Mbps up. Playing an average 6Mbps VBR direct play can (and does) result in buffering during spikes in Bitrate as the wider network conditions isn’t ready for it and Client OS player hasn’t buffered enough ahead. The network averages about 6Mbps over the duration of the video.
By putting a separate caching server on the client side the video can be pulled at near 120Mbps to the lan of the Client. The OS player then pulls the video from the LAN cache.
The OS player will see if there is any local caching servers and connect to them rather than directly to the PMS.
The caching server can be a virtual machine, a Raspberry Pi image, or a Phone App
I would love this feature as well. If I have a Plex server at home and a caching server in a second home or cabin in the woods. It would be great to have it to speed up 4k streams in areas with bad connections like cabins. It’s also a great way to use AI to predict what needs to be caches based on popularity and usage patterns.
This way i can run plex from the Datacenter but also watch high bandwidth movies without struggles at home.