I’m a new user and at a loss to know what I need to do - the user guides seem rather confusing and complex.
My setup and requirements are very basic:
I have a Buffalo NAS drive on my home network which holds my music library.
I have an Android tablet on which I have installed the Plex app and paid the activation fee.
All I want to do is to be able to connect my Android tablet to my NAS to play music.
My problem is: I don’t know where to install the Plex media server, or if I even need it for this application. My NAS is not listed in the compatibility chart but I saw somewhere that if you just want to use the NAS for storage it doesn’t matter. But then it gave no guidance as what to do next. Should I put the media server on my PC (which is not always on)? should I put any of the NAS versions of the media server on my NAS? Or is there a way to get the Plex Android app to search my local network and find the stored music?
You need to run the server somewhere. If your NAS isn’t listed in the compatibility chart then you need to use your PC for this. Your tablet cannot act as a server; the only Android device that is supported as a server is the Nvidia Shield.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.
Sadly this means that Plex is no use to me, so I have uninstalled. I need to be able to access music on my NAS.
VLC for Android accesses my NAS storage directly without any trouble, but the UI is not very exciting which is why I hoped to be able to use Plex.
I’ll write off the £3.30 to experience!
Thanks again
this means the plex server manages and serves the content (ie your music) to the plex client (ie your tablet or any number of other plex clients).
your server (running on PC or other device) would need to be able to access the storage on your nas, after the plex server indexes your content, you can then play it on plex clients.
so then you would use the plex client app on your tablet to view and play your music library.
vlc is not a client server, it is simply a direct media player (either files stored on your tablet or a local server).
another possible alternate media player would be KODI, which would give you another decent interface with which to view and play your content directly (files on tablet or files on local nas).
what plex shines at is, being able to serve content to multiple clients at the same time, and they can be local (on your wifi or lan) or remote (on your mobile or at a friends house).
if you would like a refund I think you have a certain time limit on the app store to request a refund.
TeknoJunky - thank you for that extremely clear and concise description of Plex. If only they would post that at the top of their website!
I have just one question relating to your answer though: if I install the server software on my PC, once I have indexed the files that are on my NAS would the PC need to remain on to enable me to access the NAS files from my tablet (on local network) or would the index be effectively transferred to the tablet so I could still access them with the PC off?
I will not seek a refund for Plex though, it was not a lot of money and if/when I replace my NAS I will make sure to get a compatible version.
