Plex on linux in virtual machine

General Discussions
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Hello, can somebody help me to get optimal server build?
Currently I have Plex running on ooold dual XEON e5504 HP server in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V virtual machine with 3 cores and 2GB ram assigned. I am planning to upgrade to another server lying around, it’s HP DL380 g7 or Dell R710. Currently on e5504 when transcoding, Plex use all 3 vcpus almost at 100% so I am asking, will the newer server solve this problem with AES-NI capability or i should buy dedicated GPU and passthrough it to VM? another thing is, linux have poor support for video hardware acceleration. will there be issues with transcoding too?

I am using it at home, it’s transcoding max 2 movies at same time

2

Hi Marin

You might now want to use VM’s with Plex, many slowness occurs depending on how much resources you give it. I would recommend buy a NAS device which can handle trans-coding. Usually on local net work you would not need that. I use a ReadyNAS 516 I have no issue with videos playing upto 1080p. You can look at the Plex compatibility below and see what might interest you. Depending on your budget

3

I know, it all, but i need to have server for other VM’s and I am not going to buy NAS for watching movies. it’s not cheapest thing with all drives and I have already 24/7 device with 8TB of storage in raid 1+0.
I want to run in in VM.

4

Hi Martin

Sorry i was not able to answer your question on this but let wait for one of the plex employees to answer this.

From personal experience VM’s for Plex is not a good idea, depending how much resources you give.

5

now it works good but transcoding use all cpu’s. that’s only reason why I am asking for this. just for transcoding.
with direct play i don’t even see cpu hitting 10% per core. memory is also great, around 400-800MB, and it’s running deluged on same VM constantly downloading and uploading at around 2MB/s. I can say that deluged use more CPU than plex when not transcoding

6

Martin,

If you can specify CPU-Passthrough to the PMS VM only, you can utilize HW Accelerated Streaming (presuming the CPU has Intel QSV support).

Use of other external GPUs (nVidia / AMD) aren’t fully supported yet because they require manual installation of the video and vaapi drivers (or other proprietary drivers) by you before it can be accessed.

7

I am following up on my own post.

To be 100% clear.

  • PMS in a VM is ill advised.
  • Attempting GPU passthrough is not for the weak of skill and should not be attempted unless you know what you are doing, the type hypervisor you’re running, and have full mastery of it.
8

Thanks for reply, there is no way to get HW accelerated transcoding without QSV and dedicated GPU?

  • can somebody tell me if it work on CPUs like Xeon L5640 without HW acceleration? and how much CPU does it use? it’s important because if it performs well with 3-8 cores without hw acceleration, it’s OK for me :slight_smile: and I I can live with that
9

If you run PMS in a VM, transcoding will use up to 100% of the resources you allocate to it dependent on the task (transcoding) it is doing at that moment.

In order to scope the capabilities, only a bit of math is required.

Passmarks of the processor (the referenced Xeon is 6405 for the entire processor).
Video bitrate of H.264 to be transcoded.

H.264 requires 2000 Passmarks of performance for each 10 Mbps of video to be transcoded.

For this Xeon, 6405/2000 = 3.2025.
Total H.264 transcoding, excluding audio and PMS overhead, 3.2025 * 10,000 = 32.025 Mbps maximum

The safe number here:

1 stream of 20 Mbps of H.264 video, with audio conversion and PMS.

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thanks, but where did you get passmark score? I have got score of 5180 for dual Xeon e5405 and 9717 for dual Xeon L5640 from cpubenchmark website. Also now with 3 vCPUs of e5405, it’s transcoding relatively good, videos which are 1080p. Sometimes it freeze or desync audio.

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