Have a Mac mini M1 8GB arriving tomorrow to be both my daily driver office machine (nothing majorly taxing just web browsing/documents/emails/teamviewer sessions) and as a replacement pms for an ageing Intel NUC. 95% of the time I will never be streaming to clients at the same time as working on the Mac so I’m assuming from what I’m hearing this should work without missing a beat! Let me know if anybody wants anything in particular testing!
Decided to pick up a MacMini M1 for Plex after the results with my MacBook Pro. Going to migrate my server this weekend.
6 Likes
I’m doing the same, after the results of your tests 
Thank you!
2 Likes
I just got a Mac mini M1 and I am very encouraged with what I am seeing. Transcodes in Handbrake are amazing. It does run Plex just fine as well but have not tested fully because I hit a snag. I planned to replace an intel Mac Mini as my Plex Server and Plex DVR. Unfortunately, my media is on an OWC Thunderbay RAID Box running softraid. Softraid is not yet supported on the M1 at all so I need for that to be updated to fully transition.
So running PMS under Rossetta still supports hardware transcoding?
Have you tried using it as a plex client with the plex app? Very interesting that this device might make for an amazing plex server and plex client.
@Balthazar2k4 it looks like you are running server and clients on the same machine?
you’ll probably get even better results if you run the server only with clients on other devices (those clients are using up unneeded resources that the server could be using).
all in all, the new mac mini is looking to be a nice pms server, can’t wait to see folks experiences with them once they are widely distributed.
1 Like
I was actually streaming from my MacBook Pro to my iMac. Running multiple windows on the iMac to simulate multiple clients. I expect the MacMini to be basically the same experience.
1 Like
hi folks
sorry for being a bit of a novice
Im running Plex server on a early 2009 Mac mini and was looking to upgrade it as its struggling (we watch everything on an Apple TV or iOS devices)
when you say transcoding 4k - 1080 etc do you mean a 4k movie file playing at 1080 res ?
the problem im having at the moment is that if I try and watch a 1080 film or tv show it will take a good 4-5 minutes to start if at all is that a transcoding issue ?
cheers
yes, it means having a 4k file, and trying to play it on a non-4k screen/device, or otherwise limited in resolution or bandwidth.
there is no way to know with the information provided.
I would recommend first, check @ Plex Web > settings > dashboard, which should show you if the streams are transcoding or not. you might have to expand the details with the 
icon near the top right corner.
If you still need help, please open a NEW thread, post all the specific details of your setup, including hardware specifics and what is connected to what, what the plex client and server versions you are using, and ideally server logs saved during the time you are having streaming problems.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/
I was testing full size 4K BD files and transcoding them to 1080p (10mbps) streams. As for the speed of the encode start, well, it was near instant. The time to press play to actual video playing was less than 10 seconds.
This seems amazing. Just think what a natively running PMS can achieve with this hardware!
Thanks for all your replies and valuable insights. After reading I realized I should have asked for a version of plex media server that runs on apple’s new M1 natively (i.e. universal binary) 
Do you feel strongly enough if you have a bunch of users externally that 8GB will handle transcodes about the same as 16GB, or no?
(quote removed, wasn’t meant to be there)
This is great.
I mean, we SHOULD put a little perspective in here. I can transcode 1080p to 1080/720/SD on my i5-6500T plex box in hardware and handle minimum 14 streams with CPU at 50% because of audio. I paid $125 for this thing at a local computer recycler. If I had a 7th gen I could likely do that with 4k sources.
(this is a dell optiplex 3040 micro, so essentially the same size as a mac mini)
1 Like
How’s the battery life on that 3040? 
(Yes, agreed. I’m being silly. These aren’t the “right” choice for a dedicated Plex purchase. They’re “just” astonishingly good for what they are. Rosetta is a remarkable accomplishment. I hope Apple shares more about how it works internally.)
didn’t mean to quote that!
Hey folks, one other thing to keep in mind, besides the ram thing (whether to get 8 or 16), the probably more important thing is disk space, especially if you are considering migrating an existing large server.
Larger Mac mini disk is pretty expensive, and you could easily run out of system disk when using video/preview thumbs.
For my application the 8GB units are fine. If you are running 10+ transcodes simultaneously you may want to consider the 16GB upgrade. I think most will be fine with 8GB.
1 Like
I think it is important to note that I am not suggesting the M1 MacMini is a cost effective solution. It absolutely isn’t. One could use a PC costing far less to accomplish the same thing in effect. I am currently working to curb the electrical vampires in my house and moving from a Ryzen 3900x based system to the M1 is good move for me. I am not cost sensitive and therefore am not even considering that in my choice.
1 Like
Any rules of thumb on how big the drive should be? I haven’t even looked at how big my metadata file is… where do you find it?
