Starting a Plex Server

[Jahcrispie]

Hey, 

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question.

I'm looking at starting a Plex server that I can run most of the time, 24/7 would be ideal as I have a girlfriend living in the US (I'm in the UK) so she can watch stuff when I'm asleep.

 

Anyway would a Windows OS be sufficient for this or should I go down the route of FreeNAS? I know that FreeNAS has a (for lack of a better term) plugin for Plex.

I'd like to be able to download shows(obvious only ones I own rights to :P) or rip them off of my BluRays to store on the system. I'd like to be able to do this on the Plex server so my main rig isn't running programs or downloads in the background, I know it would be easy to do this with a Windows machine however running the server headless would be my preferred way of setting it up.

 

Both my main rig and the Plex server will be connected via ethernet and not WiFi so I'm not fussed about transfer speeds.

 

I have never used a FreeNAS based system so I am unsure of it's capabilities. Would I be able to install a BluRay read/writer drive into it and get my BluRays onto the system that way?

 

Any advice is appreciated

[Electronics Wizardy]

windows will work fine for this.

 

You can use a blue-ray ripper on it.

 

If you have the system, why not install it ang give it a shot?

[Boomwebsearch]

17 minutes ago, Jahcrispie said:

Hey, 

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question.

I'm looking at starting a Plex server that I can run most of the time, 24/7 would be ideal as I have a girlfriend living in the US (I'm in the UK) so she can watch stuff when I'm asleep.

 

Anyway would a Windows OS be sufficient for this or should I go down the route of FreeNAS? I know that FreeNAS has a (for lack of a better term) plugin for Plex.

I'd like to be able to download shows(obvious only ones I own rights to :P) or rip them off of my BluRays to store on the system. I'd like to be able to do this on the Plex server so my main rig isn't running programs or downloads in the background, I know it would be easy to do this with a Windows machine however running the server headless would be my preferred way of setting it up.

 

Both my main rig and the Plex server will be connected via ethernet and not WiFi so I'm not fussed about transfer speeds.

 

I have never used a FreeNAS based system so I am unsure of it's capabilities. Would I be able to install a BluRay read/writer drive into it and get my BluRays onto the system that way?

 

Any advice is appreciated

 

Windows should work great for this, what hardware are you planning to run the server on and are you planning to use hardware transcoding on the server?

[Glenwing]

Moved to Servers and NAS section.

 

Windows will work fine although there's the usual issues of it randomly restarting itself to apply updates and so forth unless you take steps to prevent these sorts of things.

 

You can set up FreeNAS as a file share that will be recognized in Windows as a network folder (so it will just appear as a folder in Windows Explorer that you can drag files into to transfer them onto the server), but it is quite a pain in the butt to set up.

[LogicalDrm]

Please only post one thread per topic. I've locked your previous about same subject.

[Guest willies leg]

I've got a Debian server running Plex in a docker container. Server is headless. Bind mount to my media folder in read-only mode, so it can't change the original media. Got the PC from Best Buy's scratch & dent return area, spent a whopping $170 on it. Runs flawlessly. I do updates whenever I feel like it. System load is really low, even multiple streams. I've used the same machine to rip DVD's I own, they take a while to transcode, but it's all scripted so it's not a lot of my time, it's a lot of computer time. Just stack the files up in a folder and let it do it's work.

 

Plex runs on pretty much anything these days, no problem. Don't overthink it.

 

I guess build what you're comfortable with, and you'll be happy.

Build something out of your comfort zone and learn something, you'll be frustrated, enlightened, then happy.

 

[Escapenz]

Windows is perfectly fine and if your your main pc is fairly good just leave it running 24/7 and run it on that. i do it and have 0 issues even been hit with a few people watching while i game.

[Donut417]

16 hours ago, Jahcrispie said:

y advice is appreciated

Linux works well for this as well. I run my Plex box on Ubuntu 18.04. Best part is Plex runs as a service under Linux meaning when you restart the server, you don’t have to login to get Plex running. Also Linux doesn’t automatically install updates and restart on its own. 
 

As far as Blu-ray ripping goes, I’d imagine it would work in Linux. I think Make MKV does have  a Linux version in development. But while I have a DVD burner in my Plex server I haven’t tried ripping any disks as of yet. I mostly use Plex to record Live TV. 

[Jarsky]

See your replies in your last thread: 

 

 

You're probably best just to use Windows, as it seems like you don't have much experience and using linux tools like FFMpeg, mkvtoolsnix, etc....can be very daunting if you don't know how to do CLI and scripting. 

 

MakeMKV, Handbrake, tsMuxer, BDInfo, mkvtoolsnix-gui etc....are all tools that have easy GUI's on Windows if you search for a fuel guides on how to use these tools, its the easiest way. Plex will run on anything....

 

 

[Donut417]

7 hours ago, Jarsky said:

MakeMKV, Handbrake

Last I checked Make MKV was working on a Linux version and Handbreak does work for Ubutnu, Im starting at the download link right now.