Thank you for reading my topic! I’m new here and ofcourde a Plex User. At the moment I am using an dedicated PC (HTPC) as Plex Media Server. But the disadvantage of it, is the power consumption. The PC is not always on, because of the price for the power after a year. I would like to have something that is always on, so you don’t have to wait it to power it on.
Now I have watched different videos and reading a lot of options as Plex Media server. I consider the following devices:
Rasperry Pi 3 (not so much power, i think?)
Nvidia Shield (limitations)
Nas (The price tag is above 250 dollars without any drives)
So my question to all of you is; what do you use as plex media server and why ? Maybe we can share our (dis)advantages with each other.
Greetings!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, i’m from the netherlands!
Intel i5 NUC with 8gb of RAM which is my main Plex server
HP Microserver, which holds all my videos and also runs as a secondary Plex server for music and home videos
If your media is in a format that allows your clients to direct play, then a Pi is the cheapest option. As soon as your media needs transcoding then you’ll need something more powerful.
I use a Mac Mini.
Small, low power consumption, powerful enough to serve up 3 transcoded stream at once which is all I need.
It is also connected to our main TV and can run PHT (or PMP but I never do) if needed.
See my signature for my PMS.
I have NUC’s, NAS’s, and Shields
The Shield could be just what you want!
But not right now. If you are not in a hurry give nvidia and plex a month or 2 or 3 to sort it out.
Watch this forum to see when that happens !
I think as far as actual power usage goes that many folks just assume a computer uses a lot without ever tracking it.
I have a fairly busy home built PC with an i7, 16 gb RAM and 5 drives of various sizes in a Windows drive pool giving me 16 tb of storage.
Set up as a Plex machine and backing up my off site server daily, as well as ftp backup of my brothers media a state away. I am adding stuff to my home server almost constantly as it chugs along 24/7.
Plugged into a watt hour meter my total $ for 3 months is just $25 at .12 cents per kWh. I am sure others are paying higher rate especially if they get into second or third tier rates but mine is only $8.00 a month. Much cheaper than buying other rigs to do what mine can do and mine is easily expandable and to upgrade if needed at a low cost.
If you were to figure your kWh charge is double mine at .24 per then that’s only $16 a month. Pretty cheap really, and if all you’re doing is serving up Plex media occasionally, should be much less.
Wow thank you for the reply’s, i love that! I was also thinking about a ssd in mine HTPC. It will start faster, but even with ssd, there is no option for always on.
Like you guys already said, Raspberry is no longer an option for me. At the moment it will run good (i think), but at the end I will expand my library etc. So i don’t want any limitation.
Mac Mini is a great way! I can even back-up my Macbook and make a nas/ftp server of it. But the price tag I HATE IT ! haha. The HTPC that I already have can do the samething as the mac mini, but the power consumption is the problem…
Specs:
Intel Dual core
2x HDD (320 hdd for windows and 500gb for plex)
GTX320
I calculated I will spent about 250/350 dollars each year if he was 24/7 on.
Currently using a Nvidia Shield as my server with media on a 2tb hgst ultrastar via usb drive caddy. Metadata on a 64gb adopted samsung pro microsd.
As a server it works fantastically. With the exception of the HDD its completely silent & sips juice. Havnt had any of the bugs people have reported. It crashed a few times which I believe was being caused by ES file explorer. Supports 3 streams without issue even over a wireless connection. Havnt tried with more, my internet doesnt allow for any remote streams (5mb down .3mb up)
Hoping to add a low power NAS to my network just for file management (and torrents ideally). The only reliable way ive found to add movies to the shield so far is to plug the drive into my pc and transfer them over the old fashioned way.
I am using a home made server running VMWare ESXi. When I built it I was focusing on power-friendly hardware. I used it for several services in my network, one of them being plex.
@dfilipi said:
I think as far as actual power usage goes that many folks just assume a computer uses a lot without ever tracking it.
Agreed. Idle system power consumption on newer Intel quad-core i5 builds (integrated graphics, SSD only) is around 20W or less. When you’re planning on a set-up with 5+ drives, the choice of HDD and PSU likely have a bigger impact on idle power draw.
Granted, peak power consumption can be fairly high but you’ll likely be glad that’s even an option when it allows transcoding 1080p streams to multiple clients.
From memory, my 9-drive unRAID server with older Conroe/Allendale-based CPU (Pentium E2160, iirc) and 7200 RPM HDDs measures ~70-80W idle per Kill-A-Watt. Iirc, it sat at ~40-50W without any drives. That’s actually much higher than, say, Skylake quad-core i5 which probably uses just 5-10W more than a NAS when idle. Electricity is more expensive in my location compared to dfilipi’s (~$0.25/kWh). Even figuring the custom x86-based build uses 35W more than a NAS, at 24/7 operation, for me, that’s a savings of 25.2kWh or just $6.30/mo.
I don’t know how expensive electricity is where you live but just keep in mind that even if you have a 500W PSU, that doesn’t mean your computer is drawing 500W from the wall all the time (or even at any time).
A little bump here, I was also thinking about getting a cheaper NAS, just for storage. Running the PLEX Server App on another device and connect the device to the NAS where the movies are. A pro of this setup is: Your NAS is just for storage and not for transcoding or something like that. So the total price of the NAS will drop 100$ then.
BUT: you still have to use another device for running PMS app, (not always on solution)…
You guys are right about a 500watt power supply are not always using that much power. But is there anyway to check how much it costs IF the HTPC is always on ? At the moment I used a website to figure it out, called: “http://powersupplycalculator.net/”. But Im not 100% it’s right. Because If its true, it costs so much every year.
Anyways, to be clear: Im looking for a solution for the following things:
PLEX Media Server (always on) > low power consumption/price
VPN service
Something like a NAS or Shared disk, so i can connect my game pc as well as my Macbook for storage outside.
(And it will be awesome if i can backup my macbook to it wireless, but this is no need)
I thought maybe a mac mini indeed! But I don’t know if its the price worth it or power consumption. Besides, a htpc or macmini will me in my bedroom, so if it is 24/7 on, i dont want to hear a lot of noices, but I think you understant that haha
I dont know if there is any device that will do it all or a solution at all, but maybe you guys have tips/advice.
(I can also add a big HDD in my game pc and use the PMS app there, but I rather not downloading on that PC because of possible spam/viruses).
I have a small Gigabyte Brix (sort of a NUC) with 4 GB of RAM, braswell N3150 CPU, 1 TB mechanical drive. It’s self-contained and even if 1 TB is not that much, it’s enough for my library. Power consumption (thanks to the braswell) is very low, performance is fine: it can transcode one 720p stream, or low bitrate 1080p h264 stream, but I can also use it as a client. I installed Ubuntu and OpenPHT
In my humble opinion if this is the spec of your current server:
Intel Dual core
2x HDD (320 hdd for windows and 500gb for plex)
GTX320
a NUC or similar with internal drive is the best option. You can have a small SSD for the OS and a 1TB mechanical drive for data, just look at the different configurations. On your current server you have a dedicated graphics card, which is useless with current performance of integrated intel graphics, unless you want to view 4K content using your server as a client. How many streams do you need at once, and do you have a lot of transcoding?
2012 MacMini. Back then I wasn’t sure spending that much money on HTPC running XBMC and AirVideo but it’s perfect for my needs now. Usually serving 3-4 streams.
It’s quite powerful, i7 Quad Core, 16GB Ram, SSD+HDD. I like it because it’s pretty small. I love the remote. It is quite quiet unless transcoder kicks in with 700% CPU usage, then fan gets crazy
Cons: it was expensive and it is even more now. Due to it’s form factor upgrading HDD requires taking the whole thing apart.
Power consumption 11W idle max 85W. Mine runs 24/7.
I would say no to RPI3 or any NAS. I would consider NVidia Shield (yeah limitations), NUC, 2012 MacMini (or wait for newer model) but what are your needs?
How many people will access your server, what devices they use, how big is your media collection, would you rather transcode or keep optimized versions, what’s your budget?
@Caelite said:
Currently using a Nvidia Shield as my server with media on a 2tb hgst ultrastar via usb drive caddy. Metadata on a 64gb adopted samsung pro microsd.
As a server it works fantastically. With the exception of the HDD its completely silent & sips juice. Havnt had any of the bugs people have reported. It crashed a few times which I believe was being caused by ES file explorer. Supports 3 streams without issue even over a wireless connection. Havnt tried with more, my internet doesnt allow for any remote streams (5mb down .3mb up)
Hoping to add a low power NAS to my network just for file management (and torrents ideally). The only reliable way ive found to add movies to the shield so far is to plug the drive into my pc and transfer them over the old fashioned way.
Wait, what? How did you switch the metadata to the MicroSD?
)
I HATE IT ! haha. The HTPC that I already have can do the samething as the mac mini, but the power consumption is the problem…
