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Next Steps for a Beginner Plex Setup? Where to Upgrade First

I’ve used the megathread to make a super basic proof-of-concept for my own streaming setup, and I’m not sure where to prioritize upgrading first and in what way. Any help is appreciated!

Current setup: I got a subscription to a VPN, so I figure I’ll use that until it runs out. I have that with my main PC (a laptop, I haven’t been able to save for a proper gaming PC yet), a torrent client, and Plex. I tested it out with one TV show and one movie with the Plex app on my TCL Series 4 Roku TV and it seems to work! The video and audio quality work even better when I turn my VPN off and it can tell my server is “nearby”, but whatever.

Possible Improvements I’ve Seen People Talk About: I figure I should split off some of these services from my main laptop. I don’t really want to keep it on 24/7, and I should save the room on it for games and other projects. I’ll put things I’ve seen people talk about below, but not sure what order to do stuff to make the best Netflix replacement.

  • I can buy another smaller machine or two I can use as a server. Not sure whether to put the torrent parts on it, so it can torrent while I’m at work and stuff, make it host the Plex server, or both. And even then, I’m not sure whether to use an NAS, raspberry pi, NUC, Nvidia Shield TV Pro, buy or find an old cheap laptop, a ThinkClient I saw another post suggest, etc. I need something super small and quiet because I am splitting a small place right now. Should I get 2? One to torrent things while I’m gone and one to host Plex, or can I put them on the same machine?
  • Or should I start improving other parts of the torrenting and streaming experience? I’ve seen people mention Sonarr, Radarr, and other applications that I haven’t experimented with yet.
  • Or should I just port all of this into a seedbox hosted by someone else even though I have the VPN subscription for awhile longer? It would clear up some room but I’d hate to be tied to a subscription.
  • I know I’ll also need to buy more storage soon to make it a viable library, too.

What do you all think should prioritize next?

thorbot ,

I use a Synology DiskStation to run plex and it’s amazing. Very easy to install and maintain. When I download stuff it gets automatically out into the plex Library which scans its every 6 hours and auto adds it. Just have to make sure what I download isn’t compressed or just decompress it

neardeaf ,

Just making sure I understand the ask here. You’re currently running Plex & a torrent client off of your laptop, and using the Plex app on your TV to connect to your Plex server running on your laptop?

I’m going to treat this as a simple guide of where I would start if I was just starting again.

You’re going to need two things, a completely separate PC, usually an Intel NUC, to run all of these services with docker on Linux. Then you’ll need storage. Most users start out with a simple 2 or 4 bay NAS, that connects over the network to your other machine (Plex server)

If you don’t want to tinker with all of that and get straight to the point, build yourself your own computer that has a case for multiple 3.5inch HDD drives, then install unRAID on it. There’s your perfect media server right there. I’ve been running that setup for years without it breaking a sweat.

Let me know if you want me to elaborate on these details

RotaryKeyboard ,

The first thing you should do is get a dedicated server for your plex server software. I recommend the NVidia Shield Pro as your first Plex server host because it has excellent hardware transcoding capabilities. If you don’t want to buy the shield, you could get a larger server with a processor that has integrated graphics capabilities. Installing plex on that will actually give you a few more features and probably better transcoding capabilities, but it would be significantly more expensive.

After that, I’d get a Plex pass to unlock a lot of the good Plex features.

VentraSqwal OP ,

Thanks! That’s a good actionable next step. I’ll have to look into what benefits Plex pass gives, too.

TotallyTerry ,

As much as I love my Shield Pro, I just recently had to switch to an actual dedicated device for streaming. The shield pro is showing its age and could not keep up with transcoding and I had nothing but issues with the server being available. I switched to a pretty cheap mini pc with an Intel N100 (Intel sync allows for quick and power efficient transcoding). It’s been night and day in terms of performance.

VentraSqwal OP ,

Was it cheaper than $200? That’s one draw of the Nvidia Shield and Raspberry Pi other people in this thread have mentioned. Although I’m sure they’re less powerful.

When do you need transcoding?

CmdrShepard ,

You can get an old Optiplex micro PC (Optiplex 3060 Micro for example) for around $100 or so online for the time being. The drawback with these, a NUC, and the Shield is that there’s nowhere to store HDDs and you’re forced to use USB rather than SATA. As your collection grows you’ll almost certainly want a larger case to house multiple HDDs rather than having 10 external drives cluttering your space.

I went with a Fractal Design Define R6 for mine which can hold 12ish 3.5" drives in a relatively small footprint.

Also if you want to try Jellyfin you can run it alongside Plex. You don’t have to choose one or the other. I’ve been running Plex and Emby (what Jellyfin was forked off of) for years and both work fine but Plex is more feature rich (with the Plex pass)

ScottE ,
@ScottE@sh.itjust.works avatar

Can’t believe there’s no “Step 1: install Jellyfin” smart ass comment here.

Killer57 ,

I suggest looking into Jellyfin

VentraSqwal OP ,

It looks very similar to Plex, right? Do you have a tl;Dr on the advantages of jellyfin?

onescomplement ,

Jellyfin is free (libre) and open-source. Plex is freemium and proprietary.

Jellyfin supports hardware acceleration for transcoding and also allows playback through 3rd party video players (mpv, vlc, ect). Those are the features I care most about.

I don’t use Plex because it’s proprietary, so I don’t know what merits Plex has.

svamp ,

I have sonarr and radarr setup on a raspberry pi that saves my movies and series on a NAS that also hosts Plex, works great for me.

VentraSqwal OP ,

Sounds nice and simple. May I ask which NAS you use of recommend? Or maybe it doesn’t matter?

svamp ,

I have an old Asustor NAS and can reliably only stream 720p with it but that’s enough for me.

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