Plex Media Server running on Apple Silicon M1 chipset i.e. new Mac mini, MacBook, etc

Mine is less than 256GB with approximately 2500 movies and 13000 TV shows. That is with chapter thumbnails also.

There are 2 main things that use up space for plex data, the library database file, and the metadata/video/preview thumbs.

My database is over 1 gb last I checked, my whole plex data folder is 700-800 gig.

I have a 1tb ssd dedicated only for plex data, which is about 90% full.

My media library is multi terabytes spread over multiple raid arrays.

Interesting. I am running 3 x Synology units for a combined total of 260TB and I am not seeing anywhere near that use. Earlier this year I blew away my PMS data directory and started over. I think Plex has a tendency to build up superfluous data as things are added, removed, and updated over time. My data directory is now less than half of what it was prior to the refresh with more titles.

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Video & preview thumbs are the large space consumers.

If you have them disabled that saves a lot of space.

I am running thumbs as well…

where do I look to see mine?

@Balthazar2k4 interesting…

I already started with just the database (no metadata/thumbs/etc) when I migrated to the 1tb ssd, but after they release the new tv agent, I may clear out my metadata folders and refresh again.

@wkalexand

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@TeknoJunky thanks! :pray:

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Ordered today my new Mac mini M1 so hopefully Plex will support it soon since my Mac mini Late 2012 is now out of the newest macOS support.

So seemed that Rosetta2 should fix the problems for us till Plex will release a full optimized version for Apple Silicon M1

Considering what Plex on M1 can do through Rosetta I can’t wait to see what native code would look like.

benchmarks I’ve seen, especially on games, suggest that rosetta2 is passing graphics tasks through with very little overhead. general purpose computation is a ~20% hit on rosetta2, but graphics don’t seem to be. Probably wouldn’t expect a big improvement on transcoding there.

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I would agree that transcoding would see minimal performance improvement, but database indexing and general functionality should see performance gains.

I don’t think that Plex transcoder is using GPU chip when Rosetta 2 is doing his work. IMHO, It only uses CPU to do such tasks. If I’m right, and I hope so, it will be interesting to see if with native code Plex Server could use CPU and GPU on this M1 chip. :+1:

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New options incoming ?

Anyone done some stress testing on transcoding? I did a very short test on my new mini with 8GB of ram, set up 5 transcodes (4x 1080, 1x4k). No buffering or artefacts as far as I could tell.

Hi - I just got an 8GB Mac mini M1 and PMS won’t run – I’m getting this error message. From reading this thread, I’m guessing there’s not much that can be done until Plex creates a new M1 based system?Screenshot 2020-11-21 at 12.53.26

simongwaldock_gmail_com -

in the finder …
go to the “go” menu
click on “applications”
locate the program you want to open
hold the “control” key on your keyboard
without letting your finger off the control key, click the program you want to open and choose open

That’s PMP not PMS by the way

Have PMS up and running on my MacMini M1. So far, so good. The experience is flawless thus far. Pretty much the same thing I saw on the MacBook Pro. Time will tell as I am now using the M1 based machine as my primary server.

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Thanks for all the reports: Has anyone done a good set of 1080 -> 720p Transcodes?