New Plex server build advice please!

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi,

I am currently planning a new Plex server build and am looking for some advice on the best way to configure.

At present I have the following; ⁃ dell 9020 sff i5 4750 8gb 240ssd ⁃ 2 12tb wd reds ⁃ Nvidia shield client (not worked well as a server)

Use case;

4K direct play

1080 remote streaming

TeamViewer or similarly to remote into pc as will be headless

Automated torrenting; deluge, sonarr, jackett, radarr

Torrenting covered by a vpn, currently using nord.

Data redundancy - hoping to use the 2 drives in a raid1 like set up

Nice to have; remote access sonarr and radarr whilst behind vpn

I’d like to use the pc as an all in one Plex and torrenting box. However this seems problematic due to the well documented vpn issue.

After doing some research I’ve compiled a number of options which could solve it;

⁃	windows vm, hosting torrent and vpn

Pros; easy to set up, most comfortable with windows. Vpn will fully protect. Cons; I’ve read it’s quite memory hungry?

⁃	Torrent proxy

Pros; super easy, no vm or os required Cons; no easy way (I think?) to know whether the vpn is active or not

⁃	Ubuntu vm

Pros; lightweight Cons; I’m not familiar with it

⁃	Unraid

Pros; people speak highly of it, software runs in containers with vpns Cons; I’m not familiar with it.

What would people recommend as my best course of action? If possible with reasons why?

Main main is to use this one pc to do everything and not have to use my laptop bar from selecting torrent feeds.

Thanks in advance! P

2

You might get some feedback on the server build from Plex Media Server perspective — however this is not the place to discuss your torrenting and similar activities.
Please stick to the forum guidelines when it comes to this.
https://forums.plex.tv/guidelines

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Any advice on my server config?

4

Running anything in a VM will hog-tie your entire system. ALL of the resources required by the two instances (native and virtual) will be split between the native and virtual OS - and that split is only what’s left from the overhead of Hyper-V or VirtualBox (or whatever). Also, last I used it, Windows 10 Hyper-V isn’t real clean with sharing the network card, and that card is going to be VERY important to your Plex experience. Finally, to the best of my knowledge, virtual machines are not supported in any WIndows distribution less than Windows 10 Professional, so your OS will be more expensive as well.

5

Unraid ist great, getting started with it is not that difficult. PMS also runs great on it and (community) support is also great.
But if you are a Windows person, the learning curve could be steeper…

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