Optimising Media Storage and Playback Setup

[maisbrough]

Server Version#:1.32.7.7621
Player Version#: Plex Web 4.108

Keen to get advice on ways to improve my media storage and retrieval set up.
I’m running Plex on Mac Mini M1 2020 8Gb memory (controversial to some) with My Book hard drives (8TB) attached for TV and film playback via Plex media server. 2 bay Synology DS216 NAS for back up and occasional playback. 2 bays 4TB in each, mirrored.

With regular upgrades along the way this has worked well for 16 years although still occasionally have Plex buffer for high res/larger media files.
The Mac has a wired connection to the modem upstairs and stream to my Samsung QLED downstairs.
Two questions.

• The My Book drives have failed on me in the past. Is it worth upgrading the NAS to a 4 bay and a faster processor so I can stream 4K direct from the NAS?
• Is anyone paying for cloud storage and directly streaming from third party servers and getting high quality playback at relatively low cost?
• What else am I missing? I like the Mac as part of the set up so would rather not move.

[rabior]

Hi.

My Plex Server is on an Intel Pentium Silver NUC, running Lubuntu, and files are hosted from an external USB 14TB Seagate Iron Wolf Pro, which gets synced to another 14TB drive once a month.
The drive is also used as an SMB file storage NAS by 3 people.

The server runs 24/7 and reboots weekly.

Haven’t had any issues with this setup going on 4 years now, except for playback on PS5, which is experienced by many.

It’s surprising how well low end Intel CPUs transcode with Quick sync. Can get around 5 to 6 simultaneous 1080p streams with hardware transcoding. More recent hardware should be even better.

[maisbrough]

Thanks Rabior. Very helpful. May well have to consider alternatives to my Mac Mini. Wondering if upgrading my external drive storage to SSD will improve performance also.