I’m curious if anywhere there’s an article that shows a breakdown of Plex Media Servers by OS type/version? I’m a Windows guy so my Windows servers have been serving me well for the past decade or so at this point but for my next build I’m considering a dedicated server/NAS build so I’m leaning towards TrueNas Scale even though Linux isn’t my strong suit. My curiosity on the server OS types is because I figure that whichever OS has the most Plex servers would be the OS to get the best support and/or be most stable in general?
I don’t have exact numbers to share but Windows is by far the most for desktop operating systems that PMS runs on. Which is likely just because it is what most people have.
But I would not call raw numbers of installs any indication of what is “best” or has the least issues. “Most stable” can mean different things to different people and if you want the most stable box it is not just the software, but is also dependent on the OS and HW.
I would run it on whatever you are most comfortable with. If I had to run PMS on Windows I would probably shoot myself in the head.
3 Likes
So what do you (as an employee) run your PMS on? (if you don’t mind sharing)
A 2020 M1 Mac Mini for Server. A QNAP for storage.
If you want to go the Linux route and you are coming from Windows I’d strongly recommend going with Ubuntu desktop.
If you want your storage local, you can set up ZFS very easily on Ubuntu, or if you want a separate storage server you can use TrueNAS as a storage appliance and run from Ubuntu.
I used Ubuntu for years and TrueNAS since FreeNAS/NAS4Free days, but earlier this year spun up a TrueNAS Scale server to try running Plex as an app. First I used the TrueNAS native app, but then moved to the TrueCharts version to give me some more configuration options.
I still run the Ubuntu server in an offsite location with better upload for when I want to stream remotely (my house’s upload speed sucks) and I really like it better than the containerized approach. Troubleshooting, messing with files, and tweaking are much easier. I find myself crossing my fingers very time I update the TrueNAS app hoping that it will redeploy properly, and I won’t have something to fix. I also run other services on my Ubuntu boxes.
I’m sure part of it is that I am not 100% versed in how the containerization works as opposed to a full install… but if you are coming from windows - and find out you don’t actually just want to stay on it - I really recommend going with Ubuntu or really anything other than the TrueNAS app.
I’m currently playing with a full Ubuntu VM and on Proxmox and passing a GPU through to it, as the TrueNAS scale deployment was because I wanted a hypervisor consolidated with the storage server. So hoping I can accomplish that with Proxmox.
1 Like
I do want it more for ZFS than anything else so will research Ubuntu as well seeing as this wasn’t actually a consideration for me but it is now, thanks.
A ZFS pool is super easy to set up on Ubuntu, and it will by default scrub every 35 days. Takes some more steps to set up notifications, not as simple as in TrueNAS but doable.
The nice thing about Ubuntu for someone coming from Windows is you will need to drop to the terminal to do things (and you will likely just be copying and pasting lists of commands at first), but you also have a GUI so if you, say, want to navigate to a directory to drag and drop files etc., you can do that, and some things I think are faster and easier (like disk management).
You’ll get more and more used to doing things in terminal as you go, until you’ll default to it for most if not all tasks… but in the meantime, you’ll also have a GUI to fall back on.
Certain things are nice to pull up in the GUI too, like the system monitor:
But that’s the thing, in my mind TrueNAS was already simple enough as it’s mostly GUI based. I have limited exposure to Ubuntu but from what I’ve seen and experienced anything worth doing is done from a terminal so doesn’t feel like the GUI is worth much whereas with TrueNAS it’s GUI first and terminal if needed. I’m still doing the research though, only plan on building a new server next year or the year after since my current 2018 built server is still going strong…mostly moving away from it because I feel like the Intel RST RAID 5 setup feels like a ticking time bomb…but lets see what else I learn between now and then.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
