Drive Allocation Unit Size Recommendations

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi all,

I’m just building my new server that’s been made and am just preparing the partition for Plex and wondering what sort of allocation size you’d recommend and if it makes a difference. I’ve noticed that Windows now supports allocation sizes of up to 2M, and my understanding is that the larger the allocation size is, the faster the disk performs, but the more waste is involved on a per file basis (generally speaking).

I have nearly 700GB to play with (for the Plex folder) and the Plex folder on my current server is around 140GB - so plenty spare. My current server has around 10TB of data, but my new one has space for up to 20TB which, theoretically, means that my available space of 700GB should be more than capable of coping with the increase in size of the Plex folder (estimated around 300GB), so I’m not overly concerned about size. However, I just wonder if it’ll even achieve anything or just be a waste of space. The Plex folder will be stored on two RAID 0 (Yep, I’m aware of the risks) SSDs and will also house the transcode folder - so I really want this to be as quick as possible.

My actual media will be stored on 4 x 10TB drives in RAID 10.

Happy to hear your thoughts.

Best,

2

Just remember not only movies will add to this, but all files.
That includes subtitles, poster artwork, music, and anything else. Just ask yourself how many *.srt files will you have, or custom posters, or mp3’s, config files, etc…

3

Thanks, and yep, I’m aware. I was using my current DB as a marker i.e. 10TB of films equates to about 140GB of Plex DB storage. How much storage is used during transcoding per simultaneous user on average?

4

Have no clue.
But what I can tell you is the metadata space for just one movie I have.
Capture
So you can imagine how big this could be if you plan on moving your Plex folder to a drive with a 2M allocation size.
Or using 2M for just your media if you have hundreds of .srt files or posters.

5

You should only think about increasing the size of the allocation units, if the drive/partition will only store the media files.

If you are planning on moving the Plex data folder onto it as well, then leave the size at the default.

6

Yeah, that’s quite literally the opposite of what I’m going to store on the drive in question. Ha. The drive is going to be for Plex Data and transcoding only. Do you think the transcoding will see any benefit? If so, I could split the drive in two, keep the Plex data folder on a standard allocation, then have a specific “transcode drive” on a larger allocation.

My intention, eventually, is to buy another 32GB RAM and create a RAM disk for transcodes.

Even if it did make a difference, is bet it would be tiny!

7

^^^ this

8

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