I did see one other topic about this but they mainly got into maintaining the system and add-ons, but I would like peoples take on more of the reliability and performance differences of the systems.
Things that I would like to accomplish with change:
Space, Given that I really don’t need the PC for anything other than Plex, Having a PC sitting around for just the occasional use can take up a lot of room. The alternative considered is a Shield pro with storage on a NAS tucked away in a closet.
Performance, Over the years I have been concerned that Windows makes modifications that requires saving of resources for possible future multitasking, thus not ever fulling using the resources available. I have had issues in the past and currently with streaming content (not transcoding just streaming). I have considered buying the Shield TV for the Samsung’s as opposed to using the dedicated app. With the Shield Pro designed to deal with media/gaming is the hardware/performance better than my current setup?
Currently I have my windows 10 with a Ryzen 5 1600 and a Radeon R5230 GPU, with the Samsung app as the players. I recently came to the conclusion that the only need for the PC is to run the Server.
So which would be better?
Current set-up or Shield Pro with Shield TV and NAS for storage?
I guess I really don’t need the shield pro since all clients will have the shield tv. The only question would be about transcoding for mobile devices.
I am under the impression that NAS’s may have an issue with transcoding from 4k to a 1080 or 720 for mobile devices.? But all I’m talking about here maybe one or (at Max) 2 transcodes at a time.
If you can get away with using a decent PC which is always on and you have access I can guarantee you’ll have a better time using it. I have used plex servers on various PCs for about 3 years and using all sorts of clients (mobile and others) during that time and it has been a blast. The only problem for was that I wanted my servers to be always accessible and most of them were laptops which were stationary most of the time but when I had to put them away or travel it was becoming a problem. In addition to that my latest one has a very loud fan because of the beast hardware inside it and sometimes it’s becoming an annoyance to leave it on.
Because of that I purchased Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 so I an always-on Plex server which I can put tons of content on and be powerful enough to handle high resolution transcoding (prior to that I had a Raspberry Pi 4 server which was fantastic for direct play but wasn’t good enough for transcoding so I had to upgrade). I’ve had the Shield for a few days now and it has been an utter failure to get it going from day one. Nvidia client support is currently looking into some issue with the built-in file sharing while I’m waiting for someone here to maybe try and assist me with getting the Plex server to actually register in the web app so I can load my libraries.
Long story short - I was extremely excited about getting the Shield and solving all of my previous issues only to be terribly disappointed on arrival. I still hope that these issues are resolved soon and I end up getting what I want and what the Shield is bragging about but only time will tell. So yeah, Windows setup all day long, if you can go with it comfortably.
EDIT: I forgot about this post but just in case someone stumbles upon it from now on - my issue has been resolved and the Shield has been working like gangbusters. Even though it has some quirks here and there, overall it’s been everything I’ve needed and more. I would definitely recommend it as a cheaper alternative to an always-on PC.
