I am running a PMS on a 4 bay Synology 916+ and use Apple TV as Plex media player (for the big screen). I am about to buy a Nvidia Shield Pro as PMP. However, I also want to move PMS to the Nvidia. I only read positive reviews about the Nvidia as PMS. Are they any negatives to consider when moving the server from the Synology.
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You can run multiple Plex servers at the same time. Leave PMS running on the DS916+, run PMS on the Shield, and compare them side-by-side.
Read Plex’s Nvidia Shield documentation, especially the Limitations document.
My primary Plex server is a DS918+. I occasionally run PMS on my 2015 Shield just as an experiment. I do not use the Shield as my primary Plex server, share its libraries with others, etc.
Some general observations from occasional, non-daily use of PMS on a 2015 Shield Pro:
I did not notice any problems (buffering, etc) watching 4K HDR movies (i.e. high bit-rate media).
I cannot compare transcoding between the Shield & DS918+, as I rarely transcode (one of the benefits of using the Shield as a client).
Expect that an external drive to hold the Plex server data will be necessary. The Shield’s internal 16GB most likely will not be enough.
Plex Media Server updates will be delayed relative to their availability on the Synology. It takes time to have updates posted to the Google Play Store. Plex can quickly publish a Synology update on their own servers. The delay is usually only a few days but sometimes can take a week or more. Not usually an issue, just something of which to be aware.
The Shield has a built in SMB client. You can leave your media on the Synology if desired while running PMS on the Shield. Share the appropriate NAS directories via SMB and mount them on the Shield (like mounting NAS directories on a PC/Mac). This is done in the Shield settings, not Plex settings.
With the media is on the NAS, the Shield should (must) have a wired gigabit Ethernet connection. There will be traffic on your network while the Shield is streaming movies, scanning libraries, generating thumbnails, etc.
- WiFi can be unreliable. SMB does not play nice with unreliable network connections.
- When PMS on my Shield scans a library on the NAS, there is a steady 100 Mbps of traffic for the duration of the scan.
- Some 4K HDR movies can burst above 100 Mbps when streaming.
With media on the NAS, tasks such as scanning libraries, thumbnail generation, etc will take longer. This is because the Plex server on the Shield has to read the media over the network. PMS on the Shield can read the data faster since the files are local. Example: Scanning a library with PMS on my DS918+ takes 5 minutes. Scanning the same library on the Shield takes 15 minutes.
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