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Hello there !
Sorry if I’m not on the right forum, I wasn’t sure where to post my question. I’m thinking of building a Plex server, but I’m just not sure what’s the best bang for the buck for the hardware.
What should I use for it between these options :
2017 iMac (Core i5, 4 cores 3,4 GHz, 16 go ram ddr4 2400mhz, radeon pro 560 4 go)
Nvidia Shield pro
Rasberry pi 5
A nas like the Asustor AS5202T
something else ?
Some of these options cost certainly a lot more than others and before watching a LTT video from 1 or 2 years ago, I didn’t even know that the shield was an option. In the case of the IMac, Shield and Raspberry, I will have to connect an external hard drive (SSD or HD is ok ?).
What do you think and what are the advantages of disadvantages of these options ? For example, is the age of the Shield pro a problem ?
How many will access it at a time : Most of the time just me, but if a miracle happen then could be up to 4. But realistically I would say max 2 and most of the time 1.
Most of what I plan on putting on Plex will be DVD with some Blu-ray.
The videos files will be MKV, but I can use Handbrake if necessary on some of them. (I use MakeMKV).
Im sorry if that’s not very clear, I’m really new in all this.
I don’t know much about Macs for Plex but they aren’t the most common server. You’d need to check the server feature matrix and see if they support all the features you want.
The Shield is not a very good server, it has a reputation for being flaky and there is limited space for metadata unless you add storage. It also cannot do hardware accelerated tone mapping. (HDR to SDR)
The Pi is also a weak server, which can be fine for direct play but forget about transcoding and especially tone mapping. It also cannot do Sonic Analysis.
The general server advice is a system with an Intel CPU which includes a GPU that provides Quick Sync. That gives you hardware accelerated transcoding and tone mapping – if you have Plex Pass, anyway. The Asus NAS seems to have that.
However, it can also be nice to split up the PMS and NAS duties. In my opinion, the ideal Plex server is whatever semi-recent and affordable Intel system you can find which has a CPU of at least the 7th generation. Make it a dedicated server running Ubuntu, and you will have a reliable server that has access to all Plex features.
People will be along soon to chastise me and show off how Plex is running on an abacus. They may have manually created separate libraries for 4k content and every other resolution format, so no transcoding is necessary. You can certainly do it that way, but I prefer to have the server do that work for me automatically as needed.
With that all said, there is no reason not to set up a Plex server now with whatever hardware you have and get started. I just would not spend a lot of effort customizing playlists etc because if you change server hardware after an experimental period, it is more work to move that stuff over.
I have a 2017 macbook pro and a 2011 mac mini both running Plex server. Mini has a 5tb external drive with older movies on it. MBP uses a TerraMaster NAS for movie storage. Both work very well. I have an old Roku hooked up to my TV and run plex on it to play the movies/tv shows.
Sidebar: I’m running the Plex server on the TerraMaster as well, but it doesn’t work very well - constantly reloads the movie every 1-2 minutes on most movies I have. Something to do with dynamic conversion issues I think, but I didn’t bother to deal with it since the macs work fine.
You would be fine running your mac as the server either with a NAS or external drive. If you are looking at running it from the NAS, check plex and NAS support for any issues first.
Following your response Banzai, i did try it on my 2017 iMac to test my first Plex serveur and how everything works (and abandonned the idea for the Shield). My iMac have a 7th gen intel processor. For now, i have 2 external hard drives (one SSD and one HD) for external storage. I must say i’m impress with Plex and now i want to buy more physical movie rather than itunes one.
@ps2Movies I just got an old 2012 mac mini. I was thinking of upgrading the RAM to the max (16gb of ddr3). Even if everything is on external hard drive, your answer give me hope that it will do the job, even if it’s quite old. I was thinking of installing Ubuntu on the Mac mini since there is no upgrades for the OS. Did you try something similar ?
If the mac mini doesnt work well, i was thinking of keeping it on my imac and in the next year, put Ubuntu on it since i dont want an out of date OS.
What bring an Intel CPU from the 7gen and up to the Plex options ? (sorry for the noobs question).
Not 100% sure what you are asking, but 7th gen is where the Quick Sync hardware accelerated transcoding feature in Intel GPUs starts to be of reasonable quality. Later generations of GPU do see some Quick Sync improvements but I don’t recall the details.
Naturally newer processors are faster for other tasks like intro detection and Sonic Analysis, too.
So, a reasonable approach is to get the newest and fastest Intel CPU that you can reasonably afford, and so long as it is of at least 7th gen you will have a pretty capable server.
Some people have special needs like serving MANY streams, or refusing to use hardware acceleration, or needing to burn in image-based subtitles, and then it gets more complicated.
@Peter_Griffin I’m using whatever the last supported version of MacOS on my 2011 mini - can’t recall exactly and I’m not on it right now. I’ve only got 8GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for the main drive. It’s behind my firewall with nothing on it other than the plex server - I do use it to surf sometimes but run NordVPN and CleanMyMac to keep it relatively safe from the evil internet.
Right now, unless i find a cheap computer, i only have a 2017 iMac and a 2012 mac mini. I did look for a NUC PC, but its around 500 USD so ouch… Generally works very well on the 2017 iMac, but i want to try the mini, since it jus take less space. For the transcoding tho, i’m not sure the mini can do much…
@ps2Movies , You don’t have any problems with the transcoding on your mini ? Is it because nothing in 1080p or higher is present or something like that ? I look for upgrading the HD to a 1TB SSD and 16gb of ram and it will cost me around 110 USD. Worth it for a 2012 mini ?
@BanzaiInstitute The Plex Pass for my understanding enable the Hardware acceleration. For a 2012 Mac mini or a 2017 iMac, is it worth it ? Thanks !
I don’t know anything about Mac hardware but Plex has a chart somewhere showing the capabilities by OS/hardware. IF you get hardware accelerated transcoding and tone mapping, I think it is worth it. Hardware acceleration means streams will “just work” which to me is the whole point of the media center: play any file on any device without having to think about it.
TBH, I use the MBP most of the time, and I only stream up to 1080p (I have older TVs so that’s the max resolution). I will say that the only transcoding issues I’ve ever had are with the TerraMaster NAS server - it reloads the video every minute or two which is not usable.
I don’t have a plex pass so I don’t have hdwr acceleration options, I’m just using the default settings.
As far as config goes - 1TB SSD will hold a few movies, 1080p ranges from about 1.5gb - 8gb in my library for full movies, my NAS has about 450GB of movies and tv shows right now - I think 180 videos combined. I’m not running SSDs in the NAS and it’s fine, for video replay, modern HDD can keep up with streaming.
Re 16gb ram - You can never go wrong with more ram
*** Just to clarify - I reread my post and it may confuse you about the NAS. I tried using it as the Plex server - that didn’t work, constant reloading, so the processor is not able to do the transcoding (there are ways to make it work, but the main approach of using hdwr accel is not an option for me since I don’t have a plex pass).
I am using the NAS as my movie storage for my MBP, so I run the plex server on my MBP pointing to the NAS storage. My mini is separate, I run it with a 5TB USB connected HDD for movie storage.
Thanks to both of you ! Finally, i did install a new SSD on my Mac Mini (2012) and ram. I have also installed Ubuntu since Mac OS was stuck on Catalina. It run like a charm, but for now, i’m unable to install Plex on it, i’m new to Ubuntu… Once everything work, i will try a month of plex pass to see if there a difference with the hardware encoding.
Thanks a lot for your answers, it’s really appreciated !
