Plex Spec's - halp

[J37]

Hoping I can get some advice here - I have zero experience with Plex, but from what I understand it'll work perfectly for my needs.

Work currently has an Optiplex that they aren't using, which I can purchase (spec's below).

Intel i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz
8GB DDR3 RAM
250GB HDD (I'm thinking of maybe changing this out to a WD Blue 500GB HDD - but not sure if Plex/media would benefit being on an SSD?)
No GPU // Onboard Intel Graphics

I've done some very basic research with regards to requirements, but I would like some reassurance that this setup will work. I did see the below questions being asked on the main Plex website, maybe this could help someone who knows, know how well the above system will work for me.

What kind of Plex apps will be connecting? (Android, iOS, Plex Media Player, Roku, etc.)
Samsung 4K TV - will be watching mostly 1080P footage (Not too phased on 4K) and maybe my Android tablet.

How many apps will be playing content at the same time?
1 mostly, max 2.

Will access be local, remote, or a combination?
Local, never remote.

Will you be using a lot of content with subtitles?
Nope.

 

[Jack_Bauer_ZA]

Add SSD for OS and Plex and add 8gb ram.

Used the same setup for a log time and it worked great

 

[Kill Switch]

My server:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4250U CPU @ 1.30GHz 1.90 GHz
8,00 GB RAM, 500Gb SSD, but I run all my local media off WD NAS

Works flawlessly for my needs, is overkill by far most days.

 

[J37]

Add SSD for OS and Plex and add 8gb ram.

Used the same setup for a log time and it worked great

Great, thanks I do have a 500GB SSD on hand already, so will throw that in there.
Do you know by any chance what RAM it would use? I've done some Google'ing but not entirely sure.

Did you ever run vm's on the machine? I've also been looking at hyper-v and playing around with that stuff, nothing major just maybe 2 or 3 vm's doing light work (plex etc.) Do you think it'll be able to handle that?

My server:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4250U CPU @ 1.30GHz 1.90 GHz
8,00 GB RAM, 500Gb SSD, but I run all my local media off WD NAS

Works flawlessly for my needs, is overkill by far most days.

Great, thanks. I was contemplating using a bigger storage option, but realistically my media never really exceeds 100GB, I filter through it and get rid of the trash quite often. So I'm thinking a 500GB drive should be more then enough.

 

[Kill Switch]

I run a VM for home automation as well on the my box but only 1

 

[Yasin]

Do you know by any chance what RAM it would use?

DDR3.

https://imgur.com/a/6uVKIDy

Intel® Core™ i5-2400S Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i5-2400S Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

 

[P1000]

Tip: to avoid paying for the PlexApp on a phone, use DLNA with VLC on the phone. It also works with Kodi.

 

[ThatGuy_ZA]

Keep the SSD for the OS/Plex/metadata.

As long as you're not transcoding much, those specs will be absolutely fine. If you have 1080p content in a codec that your client devices support, Plex will use DirectPlay which uses almost no CPU/GPU.

 

[iamgigglz]

To contribute: My Plex server is on a 4th gen low power (T series) i3 with 8GB ram and an SSD for OS etc. Media is stored on a NAS.
The i3 is doing many other things, including sacrificing one of its 4 cores to a Home Assistant VM.
The only hiccups I’ve experienced are with H.265 content and very high bitrate stuff - like 25GB for a movie. Aside from that (99% of the time) it works flawlessly.
It’s steaming to 2, sometimes 3 devices and often streams to external clients.

 

[Crouchinglee]

To contribute: My Plex server is on a 4th gen low power (T series) i3 with 8GB ram and an SSD for OS etc. Media is stored on a NAS.
The i3 is doing many other things, including sacrificing one of its 4 cores to a Home Assistant VM.
The only hiccups I’ve experienced are with H.265 content and very high bitrate stuff - like 25GB for a movie. Aside from that (99% of the time) it works flawlessly.

I have one of these and they Stutter like crazy on Anime with subtitles >< But it plays a 60gb movie just fine ><

HP ProLiant Gen10 Tower Ultra MicroServer – AMD Opteron X3216 (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 15w), 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 SDRAM​

 

[IOPS]

Should be fine, as others have pointed out - an SSD should be a must. 1-2 streams, even if those are transcoded, should see the CPU handle it OK. Depends on what content you're playing and what clients are capable of. You might find that the clients accept a broad band of codecs which will direct stream, which hardly uses any resources.

Transcoding happens when video or audio needs to change between the server and the client, it's a CPU/GPU intensive process.
Direct play just sends the same file over the network when the client can accept the video and audio.

Where are you planning on storing your media?

Also, please post updates in a year or so when you're basically built a datacentre in your house with 100TB of storage Plex is a deep rabbit hole.

 

[iamgigglz]

I have one of these and they Stutter like crazy on Anime with subtitles >< But it plays a 60gb movie just fine ><

HP ProLiant Gen10 Tower Ultra MicroServer – AMD Opteron X3216 (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 15w), 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 SDRAM​

Yeah subtitles are a bit of a fail on Plex. It's forced into doing a full transcode of the video.

 

[dash09]

I have one of these and they Stutter like crazy on Anime with subtitles >< But it plays a 60gb movie just fine ><

HP ProLiant Gen10 Tower Ultra MicroServer – AMD Opteron X3216 (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 15w), 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 SDRAM​

You know I had the exact same issue with anime and only anime, couldnt figure out why. I thought maybe it was because the videos were 10 bit or something which made no sense because other h265 vids worked just fine. You have enlightened me

 

[lukekay]

You know I had the exact same issue with anime and only anime, couldnt figure out why. I thought maybe it was because the videos were 10 bit or something which made no sense because other h265 vids worked just fine. You have enlightened me

If you have a GTX 1050 or better lying around and willing to fork out for the plex premium pass then you can use the GPU accelerated NVENC/NVDEC which is built into the card to significantly speed this up. I made the mistake of buying a GT 1030 (Only has NVDEC) which made me sad, so don't be like me.

Plex can also be run on something like UnRaid (what I use) in a container then you can add VM's or other containers to serve other functions as well as build a fully capable storage server.

 

[solz]

shouldn't be a problem with those spec.
ran plex on my QNAP with a Pentium CPU and later upgraded it to a 3770.
streaming to multiple devices wasn't a problem I just didn't like it running now and then to max fan cause of cpu usage.
SSD will help doesn't have to be that big just for OS, I'm running my win10 from USB3 on the NAS and the 4 drives are on raid and works well.

 

[Enigma]

Add SSD for OS and Plex and add 8gb ram.

Used the same setup for a log time and it worked great

did you find that your plex server needed the extra 8gb? if so, what size user base are you serving?

plex from my experience seems very light on ram usage relative to other resources

 

[Enigma]

If you have a GTX 1050 or better lying around and willing to fork out for the plex premium pass then you can use the GPU accelerated NVENC/NVDEC which is built into the card to significantly speed this up. I made the mistake of buying a GT 1030 (Only has NVDEC) which made me sad, so don't be like me.

Plex can also be run on something like UnRaid (what I use) in a container then you can add VM's or other containers to serve other functions as well as build a fully capable storage server.

yeah you really want GTX1050 and above for x265. You will need to use hacked drivers for more than 2 simultaneous GPU transcodes though (assuming you using plex pass)

 

[Jack_Bauer_ZA]

I had 4 x tv's connected and it just worked better with 16gb.

 

[dash09]

If you have a GTX 1050 or better lying around and willing to fork out for the plex premium pass then you can use the GPU accelerated NVENC/NVDEC which is built into the card to significantly speed this up. I made the mistake of buying a GT 1030 (Only has NVDEC) which made me sad, so don't be like me.

Plex can also be run on something like UnRaid (what I use) in a container then you can add VM's or other containers to serve other functions as well as build a fully capable storage server.

Nah plex is mostly used for kids movies these days, no need to spend more money on it. For just 1080p and 1 or 2 streams its simple to get up and running. In fact the plex server has become more of a download machine/document storage in recent times, get all my steam/epic downloads done there and then network transfer

 

[--Blades--]

Should be fine, as others have pointed out - an SSD should be a must. 1-2 streams, even if those are transcoded, should see the CPU handle it OK. Depends on what content you're playing and what clients are capable of. You might find that the clients accept a broad band of codecs which will direct stream, which hardly uses any resources.

Transcoding happens when video or audio needs to change between the server and the client, it's a CPU/GPU intensive process.
Direct play just sends the same file over the network when the client can accept the video and audio.

Where are you planning on storing your media?

Also, please post updates in a year or so when you're basically built a datacentre in your house with 100TB of storage Plex is a deep rabbit hole.

Ya fook- be careful this innocent hobby has taken over my life lol