I am looking into building a dedicated plex server.
Can offload the trans coding to the gpu instead of the cpu?
Can’t do any hardware transcoding with Plex Media Server as it sits now. There are requests for this feature in that forum.
So I only need to be concerned about cpu and thats it?
Start here: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200375666-Plex-Media-Server-Requirements
I run PMS on an Asustor AS-7004T NAS. This NAS has an i3-4330 CPU in it with roughly 5K passmarks. It is very seldom I find something this machine can’t handle. I’ve had as many as 7 streaming at a time, with 2 of those transcoded. Direct Play sessions use about 2-3% per stream, and of course transcoding takes a bit more. QNAP also makes a model with a similar CPU and a few models with better CPU’s, if you want to run an off-the-shelf NAS.
If you want to use something home grown, determine what media formats you want to use, and your clients can Direct Play. Then how many concurrent connections you are likely to have, and how many of those could possibly be transcoded. Using the link above, you can start getting to the place where you can determine what CPU requirements you are likely to need.
This should get you at least started…
