Hello, I have set up a Plex media server for local use at my cottage, there is a Samsung smart tv with PLEX player built in on the same network… Internet connectivity (limited to only 20GB/mo) via LTE is all I have available so all media is brought to the cottage with a USB drive.
The other night after uploading 8 new movies to the local server from a USB drive, the “idle” server consumed just over 5GB of data! No idea why it would need so much for cover images and or subtitles! I have found that the server is constantly polling external sources for maintenance data consuming what little data my carrier has allocated.
I would like the server to operate as a stand-alone server, only downloading cover images when new media is added. I have no practical way to segregate PLEX from the rest of the network as all the devices need to talk to each other and need to access the internet for automation & control… Is there a way to administrate the PLEX servers ‘maintenance traffic’ stop it from being a data pig?
Add: remote access for the server is disabled, and I have set the LAN network to only the local subnet.
The first thing I would do is avoid Plex.tv completely. Your access to your server should be via:
http://address_of_Plex_server:32400/web/index.html#!/
and all reference to your Plex account should be removed from the server settings.
Also turn off “remote access” Which is automatically on after install. You have already done this but I suggest double checking.
Further you need to go through the settings on your server and remove all “update” options or make them no more than daily…
Lastly do not download subtitles or theme music or trailers or anything else that is not needed for local watching.
There are other steps you can take but those will get you started.
I do not take any special actions and I have never noticed any real data usage from my Plex server but all I use Plex for is watching my local media and I try, quite hard, to never use all the extraneous fluff that Plex has included in their program only for enhancing their revenue.
Plex really understands that: “There is a sucker born every minute.”
and
“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.” - H. L. Mencken
I try to avoid Plex’s intrusions into my media consumption and I am pretty successful, but not perfect.
You just need to go through settings on your server and look at each option to see if it might be impacting your data use.
While you are doing that you need to make notes of what you change just in case some change you made screws up Plex’s operation.
In the general settings I did have the server logged in to my plex.tv account. I immediately removed that! I have gone through settings as you recommended and disabled everything that looked superfluous. I’ll keep monitor traffic for a but to see if this helps!
