Hi all
I have been using my nvidia shield pro to run my plex server for a while now but after endless problems and having to start over from scratch im giving up on it
Im looking to buy a small pc good enough to run a plex server and able to stream 4 within my home network
I have seen these very compact micro pc units but depends on the spec
Can anyone suggest a spec that is good enough to do the job but without breaking the bank
Many thanks
I run mine on a Dell Tower PC under W11. i7 processor, 64gb RAM and a couple internal hard drives. Works like a champ. Absolutely flawless performance.
I’d say any relatively new mini pc should be able to stream fine. Probably better to stick to an Intel chip as I think I’ve read they are better for HW transcoding.
I had issues with hw transcoding, but I don’t have a big video card. Also, read about some limitations with hw transcoding that drove me to abandon ot.
What I found that helped was adding a 2TB USB3 SSD thumb drive dedicated for transcoder cache. It helped tremendously. The i7 14000 series CPU handles simultaneous 4K transcodes no problem.
If i go for a mini pc is there a minimum processor spec i should be looking at?
Ive seen some cheap I5 units with 8gb ram, would they do the job
Make sure is 2nd gen i5. i7 is probably over kill. The i5 will transcode just fine.
The complete answer depends on which generation i5.
7th gen gives you basic hardware transcoding support for h.264. If the hardware is cheap that’s a good place to be. 8 GB RAM is enough.
These days with AV1 content becoming more common, if I was building a deliberate Plex server, I would want the iGPU to have AV1 decode support which means 11th gen.
Hi Trippy86
Just a thought, rather than putting your media collection on your PC, which would eventually slow it down, why not go for a NAS (Network Attached Storage) instead?
This would not only store an enormous amount of media, i.e. years worth of films/video, music videos, digital music, backups etc., because this will keep the extra workload from slowing down your PC and keep it free to continue the necessary work needed your keep a home or home/office running.
As I said, just a thought.
UK Bob
Had a nas previously but last 2 in 10 years died on me so I invested in a massive ssd which I connected to my shield for plex. I back up my ssd to a 16tb drive for safe keeping
In my experience, this is highly dependent on 2 questions:
if the answers are Yes, and The Latter, then I highly recommend more RAM. Particularly if media storage is on the device itself in a RAID/Pool.
I’m not saying that playback is impossible with smaller RAM. Just that responsiveness will be improved with larger RAM sizes – particularly with more than one stream running.
honestly, any m series mac mini will do the job fantastically at a cheap price
That looks like an ultra low voltage CPU – i.e. quite slow.
These were put into mini PC’s to keep them coolable. Which is alright for simple tasks like office and web surfing. High CPU load is usually only sporadic with these use cases.
However, a Plex server can be under high CPU load for an extended time, if there is something to transcode when there is no GPU hardware transcoding support (e.g. a TrueHD audio track). The cooling system of these small machines is often-fitted to these tasks.
(and even if it can handle the load for the first few months, the fan will be under high load for very long time periods – which then will lead to quick dust and fluff accumulation in the device. Thus making the cooling less and less effective over time.)
Fair enough
How about that mac? Would something like that be sufficient?
What media formats will you be streaming (video codecs, audio codecs, bitrates, dynamic range [SDR/HDR], etc…). And what types of client devices will you be using to view the content?
This will largely inform the hardware requirements for your media server.
Yes the Mac mini M series, especially the M4 or M4 Pro would be a very suitable Plex Server. You would have to install NTFS for Mac by Paragon Software to read and write to NTFS Volumes. I highly recommend this software as I have been using it for a long time without issue.
Check it out with the link below:
Mostly 1080p but some 4k too
It would important to know to which Plex Clients/ Devices you will be playing your content.
Mainly my laptop, TV, nvidia shield and xbox series x on my Internal network
Mac m4 is out unfortunately, too pricey for just using it for a plex server
