No, Plex does never do that. (with the exception of the “delete” feature, which you should disable while only testing the software)
Plex will probably be able to recognize your movies just fine.
For TV shows it may work if the media collection is not too large. But you should better use a folder structure for your tv shows, with folders per show and subfolders per season.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201543057-why-is-some-of-my-content-not-found/
Yes. It will retrieve all the data of the items which it recognized (“matched”) and store them in its own Plex data folder.
Yes, Plex’s own data store and the actual media should be strictly separated.
I’d say just install it and try it out.
Unless you are adding raw 4K UHD Bluray rips you should be good with your server hardware.
You can ease the server load and reduce the need for video transcoding by using the dedicated player apps instead of web browsers. Free download below.
Just be aware that the Plex data folder is by default on drive C: If you don’t have much free space on there, you better move it to somewhere else right before adding the bulk of your media to Plex.
