Hello,
Long time using PLEX, first time posting in Forum. I’m having a terrible time with buffering. I suspect that it may be my router, which is a few years old, maybe several years old.
I’m purchasing a new router and would like suggestions on which would be best fit.
I am running PLEX on the following:
Windows 10
32 gig DDR4 RAM
All movies are on an internal dedicated WD Red Drive
I want to upgrade my Network Card as well.
Need suggestions on the best Network Card as well as Router.
I am leaning towards the NetGear Nighthawk X (r9000)
I’m looking for Mid to High range, leaning more towards high range though.
My router is on the second story, about 2900 sq/foot house.
You just need to rethink your Local Area Network (LAN) setup. For that much sqft, you are going to need more than just the one router w/ a built-in Wireless Access Point (WAP). Even though it may work, that doesn’t mean it will be work to fullest. Based on your layout of your home, it probably won’t matter if you have a stronger WAP or not, if you’re only using the one.
For a setup like yours you need at least a modem or CPE (modem,router, & WAP combo unit) to start. If you have what we call a bridge only modem, i.e. Arris CM8200A, then a Nighthawk X will serve as your router & can be one of the WAPs you will need. From there you could invest in the Netgear Mesh Technology & buy additional Nighthawk X routers, set them into the mesh config around the house & boom you’re done, or you can use any other equipment that betters your network coverage & budget.
The reason you would need this is because you need to account for all the signal blocking & crosstalk within & without your home. Your floors are not made of air, so you need to account for everything that is running through them, i.e. carpet, wood, concrete, wiring, plumbing, insulation, tiling, drywall, texturing & such. As well as all of your devices in the home & where you’re located. Hopefully, not near an airport. Personally, I think getting into Ubiquiti equipment & dabbling into enterprise equipment would serve you better, but based on budget this may not be on the table, so your “Prosumer” (higher end consumer) equipment will be just fine.
Make sure to get Gigabit compatible equipment & only use CAT5e or higher. CAT5 (not 5e) maxes speeds out at 100Mbps instead of 1000Mbps (5e).
However, if you still have one Hard Disk Drive (HDD), then this may be a potential bottleneck for performance as well. A couple or a few in a RAID array can help w/ performance. Since Plex is heavy reads & not as many heavy writes, you can use RAID 5 & 6 w/o much performance hit for a more modest server size. You will also have the disk failure tolerance of (1) or (2) drives based on array type taken.
