I think a great idea is for Plex server to have the option to test itself, the network, and the storage. I think this could be done easily by Plex having a known video file and have the server transcode it and send to a Plex player that is hosted at Plex. It could then report on the storage, the CPU, and the network to start. It could also give pointers on what config changes based on the hardware you have installed.
What are you actually hoping this will give you?
In order to measure your network speed, then the smallest part of the pipe between your server and the plex client will need to be the link between your house and your ISP.
If anyone is having a disk throughput issue, then they must be running a server from the 80’s
And the CPU reading will be irrelevant for anything but that exact media using those exact codecs at those exact bitrates.
there is so many variables in what you are suggesting, testing it for a very specific use case is almost meaningless. You can easily simulate all this test without the involvement of Plex, which would also not increase Plex’s cost base by additional bandwidth and machines running clients. How much would you pay for this service?
To be honest I know I a beast of a machine but Plex still seems to have issues. I would like to find a way to make sure I have the configuration setup correctly and tell me what if anything is a bottleneck.
I was thinking if Plex had a video file that is an exact size, exact codex, and audio stream it could basically do a benchmark of the entire system. It may not even need to send the transcoded file to the cloud. I would like to know how many transcodes my setup can handle, and if possible what the slowest part is.
@brentbarnett said:
To be honest I know I a beast of a machine but Plex still seems to have issues. I would like to find a way to make sure I have the configuration setup correctly and tell me what if anything is a bottleneck.I was thinking if Plex had a video file that is an exact size, exact codex, and audio stream it could basically do a benchmark of the entire system. It may not even need to send the transcoded file to the cloud. I would like to know how many transcodes my setup can handle, and if possible what the slowest part is.
Post your machine and internet specs. It’s either going to be your network or CPU which craps out first, and existing tools/processes can already help you identify that pretty easily.
If you want to see how many simultaneous transcodes you can do, just keep launching Plex/Web in browser windows, keep transcoding the same file and count how many windows you can open before the buffering starts. Or, look for the speed values in your logs and extrapolate from that. Or, just go by the general guidance benchmark provided on the help pages.
Also understand that files are very very rarely of constant bit-rate, so the only way you’ll know how many copies of a specific 2 hours long movie will work, is to play and monitor the entire length of the movie. If Plex supplied a reference file, it may be nothing like your actual media so be completely meaningless to you. If you want to play with various types of reference files, you can always get them from sites like this one → http://jell.yfish.us/ Google will give you plenty of others.
i7-6800K Intel
64GB DDR4 RAM
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 512GB - Transcode Temp dir
Striped Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD - Where library is stored
Synology 1812+ 8 Bay RAID 6 22TB - Where media lives
