Questions about Plex server hardware

[Max_Mitsopolis]

Hello there !

 

Sorry if I’m not on the right forum, I wasn’t sure where to post my question. I’m thinking of building a Plex server, but I’m just not sure what’s the best bang for the buck for the hardware.

 

What should I use for it between these options :

- 2017 iMac (Core i5, 4 cores 3,4 GHz, 16 go ram ddr4 2400mhz, radeon pro 560 4 go)

- Nvidia Shield pro

- Rasberry pi 5

- A nas like the Asustor AS5202T

- something else ?

 

Some of these options cost certainly a lot more than others and before watching a LTT video from 1 or 2 years ago, I didn’t even know that the shield was an option. In the case of the IMac, Shield and Raspberry, I will have to connect an external hard drive (SSD or HD is ok ?).

 

What do you think and what are the advantages of disadvantages of these options ? For example, is the age of the Shield pro a problem ?

 

Thanks a lot !

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, Max_Mitsopolis said:

Hello there !

 

Sorry if I’m not on the right forum, I wasn’t sure where to post my question. I’m thinking of building a Plex server, but I’m just not sure what’s the best bang for the buck for the hardware.

 

What should I use for it between these options :

- 2017 iMac (Core i5, 4 cores 3,4 GHz, 16 go ram ddr4 2400mhz, radeon pro 560 4 go)

- Nvidia Shield pro

- Rasberry pi 5

- A nas like the Asustor AS5202T

- something else ?

 

Some of these options cost certainly a lot more than others and before watching a LTT video from 1 or 2 years ago, I didn’t even know that the shield was an option. In the case of the IMac, Shield and Raspberry, I will have to connect an external hard drive (SSD or HD is ok ?).

 

What do you think and what are the advantages of disadvantages of these options ? For example, is the age of the Shield pro a problem ?

 

Thanks a lot !

How many people will be accessing it at a time? Do you need to transcode the files at all? What format and resolution are the media files in?

[Max_Mitsopolis]

44 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

How many people will be accessing it at a time? Do you need to transcode the files at all? What format and resolution are the media files in?

Hi and thanks for the answer !

 

How many will access it at a time : Most of the time just me, but if a miracle happen then could be up to 4. But realistically I would say max 2 and most of the time 1.

 

Transcode the files ? I’m not sure what that entails. Most of what I plan on putting on Plex will be DVD with some Blu-ray. 
 

The videos files will be MKV, but I can use Handbrake if necessary on some of them. (I use MakeMKV). 

 

As for the resolution, I think DVD are 480p ? For the Blu-Ray, 50% will be 4K and 50% « normal » so I suppose 1080p for the normal ones and 2160p for 4K.

 

Im sorry if that’s not very clear, I’m really new in all this.

 

Thanks again !

[Donut417]

On 7/16/2024 at 1:59 AM, Max_Mitsopolis said:

Transcode the files ? I’m not sure what that entails. Most of what I plan on putting on Plex will be DVD with some Blu-ray. 

Transcoding happens when the video and or the audio of the file in question is not in a format that your device your streaming too understands. Depending on the resolution of the content will depend on how much horse power you need. DVD quality requires less power, 4K can require shit ton of power to transcode. 

 

It's best practice to pick a format that all or most of your streaming devices can use if you can. Same with resolution, if you have movies in 4K and want to watch on a lower resolution screen you will need to make sure you have copies of that file in a lower resolution (to prevent transcoding). 

 

[QuantumRand]

To add to @Donut417's advice, pay attention to the audio formats too. If one of your TV setups don't support any of the available audio formats, Plex will fallback to transcoding as well.

 

One thing you can do to mitigate this is to include an extra audio track when you use Handbrake convert your movie from DVD/Bluray (using Handbrake is an example of transcoding, by the way). You can take the highest bitrate/lossless original track and convert that down to AAC/MP3/Opus (whichever format all of your devices support) and give it a reasonable bitrate (like 128-256kbps). In terms of storage size, it only adds 100-200MB per movie.

 

As for hardware, the cheapest thing you can do is use what you already have on hand. Have an old laptop/desktop hanging around? As long as it doesn't have to transcode, any multicore system within the last ~10 years would probably be fine. Assuming you already have it, that iMac is plenty fast enough to serve up 4 HD streams at a time, probably even while transcoding one of them.

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, QuantumRand said:

As long as it doesn't have to transcode, any multicore system within the last ~10 years would probably be fine

Depends on resolution of the content. My Ivy Bridge system transcodes fine. But the content that’s being transcoded is over the air live TV. Most HD content is 720p and a vast majority of the content is DVD quality or less.