Hi guys, am fairly new to this so please be gentle ;).
I was wondering if any of you guys had advice on leaving plex running 24/7? All my media is stored on my laptop which i cant leave on all the time. I have a friend and his server is constantly on, surely he can’t leave a laptop on all the time??
Thanks in advance,
Andy
Run PMS on a NAS. Perfect appliance for that. (just like keeping the fridge on and everything cool 
)
I simply run a decent desktop with Windows 10 and a good number of USB drives pooled using StableBit’s DrivePool. It runs 24/7 and gives me zero trouble.
The “trick” is to get a computer that exceeds your probable needs and run Plex on it and nothing else.
You can use a NAS but I do not think that is needed and the extra expense is not really warranted. The server is not the place to scrimp but it is also not the place to expend more money than needed to get the job done.
Again the real trick is to not use your server for other tasks and get a server that exceeds your needs.
I too have a dedicated system that does nothing but Plex and other media needs. It is in use for the vast majority of the day so it makes since to have a separate setup. I happen to run it on a Win7 box w/8TB of space (currently) and USB drives for backups.
@andy.marshall1888@gmail.com said:
Hi guys, am fairly new to this so please be gentle ;).I was wondering if any of you guys had advice on leaving plex running 24/7? All my media is stored on my laptop which i cant leave on all the time. I have a friend and his server is constantly on, surely he can’t leave a laptop on all the time??
Thanks in advance,
Andy
If you want Plex available 24/7 you need something running 24/7.
A NAS might not be the right choice depending on media or if you plan to transcode and stream out of the house.
I’ll chime in as well - I’ve run Plex on Windows and on a NAS (Synology DS1512+) - And I currently run it on a “dedicated” windows 10 machine with StableBit Drive Pool. The windows machine allows me to run: MCEBuddy (add chapter markers where the commercials are), NZBGet, Radarr, Sonarr, Emby, and SD PVR as well as Plex and PlexPY. So it’s a dedicated Media Machine not a dedicated Plex Server. I stopped using the NAS because if transcoding was required it couldn’t handle it. (maybe if I re-encoded it all…)
I use a dedicated Win7 machine for WMC and Plex and my media is stored on a NAS. They all run 24/7/365.
@andy.marshall1888@gmail.com said:
Hi guys, am fairly new to this so please be gentle ;).I was wondering if any of you guys had advice on leaving plex running 24/7? All my media is stored on my laptop which i cant leave on all the time. I have a friend and his server is constantly on, surely he can’t leave a laptop on all the time??
Thanks in advance,
Andy
I use an Intel NUC w/ Fedora 14 as the OS for my primary Plex server. Works great and so fast at search and syncing.
For storage I have a Synology NAS w/ 3 TBs. This setup is up for weeks if not months at a time.
My Plex server has stayed running since the day I switched it on (for the most part, aside from a few power outages and a cleaning/maintenance session).
It’s a custom-built NAS. 6 drives, powerful CPU for transcoding, and only draws about 35W usually.
I just set my system up for wake on lan through the router and set it up to sleep. Whenever i open plex it turns it on. Viable option if you want to keep your media on your laptop but allow it to not run all the time. I’m poor so I like to keep my money in my pocket and not spend it on unused electricity. Sleep draws anywhere like 5-10 watts. I’m being liberal on the 10 watts because I don’t think any system uses that much in sleep.
