Win10 VM or Server 2019 VM (New Build)

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.23.6…
Player Version#:
Building a new Plex VM and wanted to know if I should go Win10 or Server 2019?
My current is Server 2016 and for some reason I keep getting choppiness in my shows. Watching Yellowstone typical 1080p and its choppy. Not bad, just enough to bother me
Server 2016
10 Cores
32GB Memory
SAS drives
Any benefit to running Server OS? Would be much leaner on Win10

2

If I were you, I’d plop plex media server onto a linux VM rather than any windows VM. Ubuntu server is a great option.

On every Windows 10 machine I have put plex media server onto, my brothers/mother/friends have all had a buffering issue where my server wouldn’t upload past 6mbps (remote streaming only). Any movies that are > 6mbps would have an endless buffer. To fix this, I made a ubuntu VM using VirtualBox and managed to get quicksync working in it and mounted my windows 10 media folders into the VM.

Additionally, I believe Linux PMS has more functionality than windows PMS anyways.

3

+1 Linux.

For plex, there is zero benefit to using windows server, and cons include not only license costs, but compatibility/driver differences/issues.

Finally, using vm instead of bare metal is more likely to cause more headaches and maintenance than necessary, but to each their own.

4

Yeah the VM will probably be a massive pain in the rear in the future. It certainly was a pain in the rear to set up. I’ve been wanting to move my server over to unraid since I’ve been having less and less of a need for windows based things on that specific machine. Space is an issue though. I have nowhere to put my files while I switch over and format all the drives.

5

Thanks guys… Im a SysEng and live with VMs. With that said, Im admittedly not a Linux\Unix guy… was nothing but Unix 25yrs ago or so but not today.
As for licensing, its already licensed and paid for, just looking to refresh everything here.
Thanks again for the input.

6

That said, I would go with Server 2019. W10 feature updates have a tendency to break stuff whereas Server 2019 is a static feature set with security updates. That is what I run and it has been rock solid.

7

Thanks Uh_oh… built it last night and bringing files over as we speak.
Gonna look at a different layout than one I currently have. I have all sorts of ‘genre’ folders, but dont want to clutter up “Comedy” folder with movies from the 80s… since we hardly watch older stuff. Not sure how Im going to set this one up.