I have an i7-2600k running Plex on my primary server. When remote clients transcode, the CPU can get a little taxed and local playback suffers.
I have a second server, also an i7-2600, onto which I could very easily load Plex (unraid docker on both) and use nfs to mount the media from the primary server.
I don’t really want my clients to have to choose servers… Is there any way two Plex servers, essential identical, can be made to share the user load?
Thanks.
Plex cannot do that.
A modern CPU (less than 10 years old) might help your performance… you won’t even need an i7 for that. Especially since Kaby Lake and newer CPUs will also support hw-accelerated transcoding (i3/i5/i7-7xxx)
This person in Australia wrote up how he did it. But Plex doesn’t officially support load balancing.
I was looking at moving to a Ryzen 7 2700x…
I have an i5-7600k laying around but no motherboard. Would it easily surpass the i7-2600k, or should I suck it up and go with something from the last couple of years? I don’t like to upgrade once the system is set, and I never buy current gen equipment.
As per the plex FAQ, I have only bee looking at passmark scores.
Anyone? i5-7600k OK for a single home user, usually direct play, and a couple of remote clients on a crappy slow connection? 1080p content or less at this point, no plans to change.
Take a look at this thread, [Release] UnicornTranscoder, create a Plex Transcoding Cluster. That might accomplish what you are asking for.
As @beckfield said, not officially supported by Plex, but this could possibly accomplish what you want.
-Shark2k
The i5-7500 will definitely work better than the 2600.
The Intel graphics in the 7500 supports hardware accelerated transcoding of HEVC/H.265 video. The quality of transcoded AVC/H.264 video should be better than with the 2600. Intel improved the transcoder quality between the initial offering in the 2600 and the HD630 graphics in the 7500.
The 7500 will be better than the 2600 when burning subtitles is required. On linux systems, burning subtitles uses the CPU, even when transcoding the video via hardware acceleration. The burning process is also single threaded, so the higher single core capability of the 7500 will definitely help.
Both Intel chips pale in comparison to the Ryzen. The Ryzen (Passmark = 17601) will easily transcode multiple 1080p streams without hardware acceleration.
If you do want to use hardware accelerated transcoding with the Ryzen, you’ll want a NVIDIA 1050 or better GPU. The Ryzen has no onboard graphics, and Plex does not support hardware acceleration with AMD GPUs on linux based systems.
The Nvidia 1050 supports decoding of HEVC video. Nvidia limits their consumer/gaming GPUs to three simultaneous transcodes (modified drivers are available to bypass this limit). Nvidia Quadro cards are available without the pre-set limit (ex P2000). Check Nvidia’s Encode/Decode Matrix, linked below, for Quadro cards with Unrestricted encodes (Encodes are restricted on certain cards such as the P400. Decodes are not restricted).
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