Expanding media server capacity

General Discussions
1

I am new to media streaming and am having fun exploring PLEX. Thank you for your great work in developing this tool. As it turns out, I need more storage capacity on my dedicated media server PC. I purchased a refurbished Dell i5 with 1Tb HDD for only $150–a great little PC, but it has limitations for expanding media storage capacity.

First, the box has no internal bay for a second (and much larger) internal HDD. Second, the computer has only USB 2.0 ports, no USB 3.0.This leaves only three options:

  1. replace the existing 1 Tb HDD with a larger 4Tb internal HDD
  2. install a USB 3.0 card (or a 3.1), and purchase a new USB 3.0 external HDD.
  3. just connect an older USB 2.0 external HDD that I already own.

Option #1 is best in terms of performance , but will cost me $300 ($200 to have some tech shop do it for me, plus another $100 for the new 4-6 Tb internal HDD). That seems a disconnect as I paid only half that much for the computer. Option #3 is the least expensive (no cost), but I am concerned with possible poor streaming performance. Option #3 would provide faster data streaming performance (is that really an issue?) and would cost me $120 ($20 for the USB card plus another $100 for a 4Tb USB 3.0 external HDD.

What do you (anyone, anyone) recommend?

2

I used to stream from an external usb 2 drive with no issue. you have it already so it would be easy to test. connect the drive, add the drive as a library. move a movie from your original library to this one, force a scan to update your library info then play it to see how the performance is.

3

Have you considered Network Attached Storage (NAS)? My Plex setup started out on a Western Digital two drive 6tb setup. I think I spent $4-500 on it at the time. I’ve since upgraded to an expandable unit where I can add a hard drive any time I start to run out of space.

EDIT: Something like this:

4

I have tested using an external usb 2 drive, and have found that it seems to work without any lags. Thanks for the counsel.

5

a nas.
one with 4 or more bays, that you can expand later with larger drives.

you can get an older/cheaper/lower power nas for just storage (ie plex still runs on something else).
or you can get a newer/more powerful nas that can run plex server directly.

obviously costs can quickly escalate, but if you can afford it, it’s better to go bigger/better up front, than to run out of space/performance and upgrade incrementally.

do understand, unless you can commit yourself to deleting old/watched content, that there is never enough space, and that storing media can become a black hole of time and money.

much like cars, computers, and significant others.

6

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