Computer specifications for PLEX Media Server

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Good morning, I want use a computer to install PLEX Media Server and share my video and photos with my friends.
Which specifications should have the computer (RAM e CPU) to support 20 simultaneous connections without problems?
Two more questions:

  1. To see my content outside of my home network, do NAT need to be open?
  2. What speed should my internet connection (download and upload) have to support 20 simultaneous connections without lag?
    Thanks.
QNAP NAS specs for PLEX Media Server
2

For any decent feedback you should need to include some additional details about your planned setup: e.g.

  • what kind of media are you planning to host on your server… are those e.g. full-quality DVD/Blu-Ray or 4K rips or optimized videos (maybe with some indication about their resolution/avg. bitrate)
  • will all those be streamed as-is or require to be transcoded (e.g. by the user’s choice or because their devices aren’t up to play the videos as-is)

Your own internet download speed will be almost irrelevant for that.
Plex usually works with approx. 80% of the available upload bandwidth. General rule of thumb is [avg. bitrate] * 1.5 * [number of concurrent streams] (where 1.5 is an estimated factor for the max. bitrate of a video compared to the average bitrate)…

Not sure what you mean. Best practice for remote access is to open a port forward for Plex on your router
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289506-remote-access/

3

Hi tom80H thanks for your reply.

So, I want reproduce 1080p video and MP3 audio files on my server.
And yes, I want enable live transcoding.

I have 20 Mbps oupload. Can that be enough?

For example in my counter there are some Internet Providers that to see, for example, an NVR outside your home network it is mandatory to have a static IP because the NAT with a dynamic IP does not work (even with the Dynamic DNS service).

4

That might work for 3-4 optimized 1080p streams (5 if you get lucky). The bandwidth will allow no full-quality blu-ray rip (those are easily in the area between 25-40 Mbps)

You’ll need a routable public IPv4 address… it doesn’t need to be a static one (though many ISPs will happily take the opportunity to sell it anyway).

5

Ok thanks.
So, we back to the initial question: which specifications should have the computer (RAM e CPU)?

6

If you’re transcoding using the bare CPU power to output optimized 1080p content, you’ll need to consider approx. 2000 PassMark points per stream. PassMark is a CPU benchmark to help comparing CPU performance for certain tasks.

So if we assume there’s approx. 5 concurrent streams, transcoding a video to an optimized 1080p output, your CPU will need a PassMark score of approx. 10000 (give it some headway for basic operations). That’s certainly more than what your average NAS is capable to deliver (referring to your parallel thread)

You can compare CPUs based on their scores on the benchmark provider’s homepage:

If you have a Plex Pass membership and a supported iGPU/GPU you can also let some of those streams be transcoded by the graphics chip. This will take some load off the CPU — though hw-accelerated transcoding isn’t available for all use cases (GPUs e.g. cannot burn subtitles into a video stream).
HW accelerated transcoding is e.g. available with Intel CPUs supporting Intel‘s Quick Sync Video API.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

7

Cleary. Thank you.

8

This is only true, if

  • the average bandwidth of the source file doesn’t exceed 10 mbps
  • the video codec used is H.264
  • the color bit depth is 8 bit
  • the color space is standard and not HDR
  • audio doesn’t need to be transcoded as well

In other words, you can’t use this passmark number if you have “raw rips” (remuxes) from DVDs and/or Blurays.

13

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