Laptop as a PLEX server

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi,

Please forgive me if this is in the wrong place.

I am a total novice to this sort of thing, but would like to get myself started. I was originally going to setup a new budget build however realised I have a laptop sitting about collecting dust and want to know if this would be sufficient.

The Specs are i3-5005U CPU @ 2.00GHz with 8gb ram running Windows 10. Will switch to Linux if this is better.

I would buy an external HDD to go with it.

Would this be sufficient for a home PLEX server running no more than 3 streams?

Not entirely sure if I will be transcoding as I do not know what this is.

If the laptop is no good, could I be pointed in the right direct for a budget build. Looking at ideally, no more than £100.00.

2

If you stay clear of subtitles and any video codec that is not H.264/AVC, you should be able to use it for 1 transcoded stream at a time.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-5005U+%40+2.00GHz&id=2484

Even if you buy a Plex Pass, you won’t be able to use other video codecs with hardware transcoding, as this is an old “Broadwell” chip:

See this thread Hardware Acceleration and Intel Atom X5-Z8350

3

Thank you for your prompt response.

So all of my video media would ideally need to be H.264/AVC? Is this the standard for video codec?

Comparing this laptop to a Raspberry Pi build, which would be better?

4

It is the de-facto in Plex.
It now gets slowly replaced by HEVC/H.265 which raises the CPU demands for transcoding significantly. There is no chance to transcode this with your laptop.

The RasPi is an even weaker device. In my personal opinion it will limit your ability to use all of Plex features significantly. I’d not bother with it, unless your media collection is rather small and you’re willing to pre-transcode almost every video, to avoid transcoding at all costs.

5

That’s great, thank you very much.

Is there some sort of guide I can follow for getting the laptop setup as a PLEX server?

6

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200264746-quick-start-step-by-step-guides/

7

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