I have an old thinkpad laptop with 128gb ssd that I’ve been thinking about using as a plex server (won’t need too much space as I only intend to start downloading a small number of movies). https://mobdro.onl/https://vidmate.onl/
Am I right in thinking I have to keep the laptop on 24/7 as it has to connect to wifi in order for my smart tv plex app to connect to the server, and if so - isn’t this terrible for power consumption/electricity bills?
What’s a more cost effective way of setting up a plex server - note: the current laptop I intend to use is 10 years old so would prefer to use that than spend £100s on a NAS etc.
Your thinkpad may (or may not) be able to be your server. See What kind of CPU do I need for my Server? | Plex Support to see if your machine measures up. Just remember meeting minimum specs will get you a minimum experience and experience glitches and slowdowns we all hate.
You do not need to keep the server on 24/7. It only needs to be on when you intend on watching what it is hosting. That being said a laptop running 24/7 is not much of a drain.
If you have a more modern machine that you can use that would probably be best. I have my workstation hosting the server while I run a bunch of other stuff and it works just fine so a modern dual purpose machine would probably be better than a 10 year old laptop.
Right now my server is on an older Macbook Pro. It works incredibly well. (I will eventually migrate my server to a brand new M1 Mac… Eventually.)
I do keep it on 24/7, but it really isn’t taking enough power to make a difference. I guess it would be the same with your Thinkpad.
It will be drawing more power if you need to transcode content very often, though. So I encourage you to tailor the files you’ll add to your server to the specific clients you’ll be using to try to limit transcode operations to a minimum (audio transcode is usually not a problem, video transcode is what will draw the most power and might hit the performance limit of your machine). Trying to limit transcodes might be more difficult to do if you’re sharing your server, though.
I have my server running on an old Thinkpad without a problem. That’s my hardware.
Intel(R) Core™ i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GH
8 GB of RAM
I leave its lid closed (monitor off) and I haven’t noticed any increase on my electric bill
You can probably check how many watts your adapter consumes and go to a website and simulate how much it will cost you. The rate you pay should be in your electric bill
