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[As soon as I posted this, I had to stop trying to watch something due to buffering and messages about my connection and lowering quality. My connection is 1gbit cable, wifi 6e, currently USB 3.0 into the laptop and a file from that over network using the Shield. It will work later probably, but I want a fix so this doesn’t happen. The only option to go faster is USB 3.2 gen 2x2, but still in the same place and would still only be 3.0 if I plugged into the Shield - not a good idea to do that for any reason I know if.]
I don’t really understand how Plex on the Nvidia Shield works (when it does!) and hope one of their unpaid employees on here knows and wants to help. I used to plug my source drive into the Shield, but I stopped when they lost 2TB of data with their encryption and bad technical support. I figured out that Plex wasn’t using the USB connection when it wouldn’t work if the Internet was down, so I guess it is using WiFi to stream from my USB drive. I don’t know that the home WiFi stops working if the ISP is down, but would think it should work. I have also had it stutter a couple of times and tell me something about not being fast enough to play whatever file it was at the time. I do know that doing something else at the same time with the same drive can cause problems with playback. I now have WiFi 6E on all related devices (except the Shield, if it matters) and I may have only 1 port that does USB 3.2 gen 2x2 on my desktop, leaving 1 of that type unused or connected at 10 Gbps or lower instead of 20. I just looked up how it relates to the WiFi 6E speed and that slows it down from 20 Gbps also. I am trying to have everything connected the best way so hopefully there aren’t any messages from Plex that something isn’t fast enough to “stream” my files. It would be great to get full use of the extra cost that came with this USB speed, so I can move things around and leave one with the laptop if this helps. I don’t know if it’s overkill and unrelated, but problems with my desktop USB setup has already possibly blocked me from using more than 1 at a time. I should have two ports for that, but I’m having lots of problems there and nothing is fixing it yet. I just need to understand how the Plex is handling files, USB and WiFi, and if this 20 Gbps USB 3.2 gen 2x2 drive would help when you have WiFi 6e - or would it be wasted and working at reduced speed here also?
I will always be trying to watch/hear the highest quality and that will include 8k if that ever happens. The TV is 8K ready. I don’t intend on plugging directly into the Shield again, but would like to know if that makes any difference. I have an unused Thunderbolt/USB-C port on the laptop, but more use for these drives on the desktop if I can ever get the problems there sorted out, unless this will improve Plex performance somehow. If it isn’t going to improve anything, then my 20 Gbps external will be mostly wasted. I have had something on the audio side not play, TrueHD maybe? I don’t know if that will change, but I’m interested in maximum everything and not having playback or speed issues.
I thought I had at least 2 ports for this speed on the desktop when I got them, but I definitely have 1 on the laptop. I know the Shield would only be regular USB 3.0, but they like to have users encrypt their external storage then perform factory resets causing the need to reformat the external storage. I most likely will not do that again, but want to know if there a benefit in doing so. It didn’t seem to be using the direct connection, so I guessed it was pulling the data over WiFi.
