I’ve been using Plex Cloud since it began. I first heard of Plex right around the time they began offering Plex Cloud. So that’s all I’ve ever known. Now that Plex Cloud is being discontinued, I don’t know where to migrate my library. I want to keep using Plex, so I know this means having my own server. I know there’s no one-size-fits all, but I could use a little guidance here. I’m not a tech whiz (I don’t know anything about Linux, for instance), but I’m the guy my parents call when they can’t figure out something on their iPad or computer. So I know a little… My library is mostly old TV shows, some movies. I’ve got almost 1TB of files, so whatever my replacement is, I’ll want room to grow.
Any suggestions? I want ease of setup, ease of use. Should I go with an NAS? Or a Mac Mini? Something else?
I personally run main on a 2014 Mac Mini but am planning to get a NAS later on for storage while still using the mini for the server… Right now I just have a three USB3 hard drives connected to the mini. one for movies one for TV and the last for home videos and other random stuff. I personally just know Macs the most and don’t want to bother with running PMS on a NAS
If you need transcoding, and most do, then an actual computer will do that better than a NAS IMO. Unless maybe you get a really expensive NAS that is very powerful. This gets into things like what plex player you usually use and if it likely needs the type fo files you have to be transcoded.
Thanks so much for the response! The Mac Mini is appealing because, like you, I know Macs better than anything else. But I’m also sort of tempted by the Western Digital My Cloud PR2100 4TB. Unless I’m misunderstanding, it seems like they claim it will handle transcoding and it also runs PMS, right?
I use the Plex Player on my Apple TV and my iPad most often. And most of my files are MV4.
Not to completely hijack this topic, but will Plex continue to work after November 30th?
I don’t use the Plex Cloud option, not after the Amazon fiasco. My server is on my Mac at home as is all my content. I love being able to watch my content when I’m on the road via my iPhone and iPad.
I’m a little confused about the status of Plex after the cloud service ceases?
Plex cloud has no relationship with Plex local. Local Plex should, and I am sure will, continue to work as it always has even if the media being used is in the cloud.
If you don’t want to run a local Plex server at home (or can’t due to buying hardware or having an adequate upload speed etc) then it’s worth looking into running it yourself in the cloud. For example, I pay around £50 a month for a server from hetzner that has 12tb of storage and a processor that I’ve had 9 transcodes on (it also has a 1gbps connection). You can pay less for less storage etc. As long as you know how to install Plex on Linux, you’re sorted.
It does depend what power you want, you can pick up a series 3 or 4 I7 from
Hetzner for more like £20 a month that is more than powerful enough for most people.
My suggestion for the last couple of years is buy a 4 bay NAS with an Intel Cpu.
That will stream most things. If your media has high bitrates and MKV and the NAS cannot handle it, you then have 2 options.
Convert your media to mp4 - No $$$ but lotsa time
or
buy a NUC, mac mini or Nvidia Shield to be the server and then the NAS is just storage. ($200-$800)
I actually have an excellent alternative to Plex Cloud that I’ve tested on my PMS here. This is my configuration:
Windows Storage Server 2016 with a ton of local storage (12TB). I also use NetDrive 3 and I have my OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, & DropBox (Unlimited Storage currently at 20TB) mounted as local drives to the server. I run Arq backup which is backing up all of the local media to my DropBox storage with all of my 4K (UHD) media sitting on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, & DropBox.
Simply with the above configuration, I add the folders & media files on the cloud storage to my libraries, in the same manner, that I add folders & media on the local drives because with NetDrive 3 they appear as local drives.
The performance with 300Mbps FIOS is excellent. There’s no buffering inside my network and my son, who lives 300 miles away (he’s on Comcast) has told me that he sees no difference between media streamed from the mounted cloud storage vs. the actual local ReFS volumes.
