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+--- Thread: Plex Media Server? (/showthread.php?tid=837)
Plex Media Server? - Enquiries - 02-28-2020
Hello
I watch your videos on youtube, they are really good. I am after some advice and guidance. I dont mind paying a consultation fee for it as I dont know if your products would be what I will be purchasing.
I am starting a Plex Media Server and initially plan to setup a 150TB server, with plans to expand in the future as my 4K media collection grows. I would have really liked a setup like the Storinator Q30 from 45 Drives (based in Canada) - something simple, looks aesthetically good and most importantly really quite but I cant seem to find something similar here in the UK. I have an old iMac 2009 (3.4GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM with upgraded SDD memory) it amazingly still performs really well so I have little appetite to replace it !
Having said that, I have also been thinking, instead of the dedicated server such as the Q30, why not replace my old (but still well-functiong iMac) & build a PC/Plex Media Server combo in a Thermalake Core WP200 (the case has a capacity to host up to 60 HDD's so plenty of future expansion).
The server will be for me, my family & a small group of friends so it will have to be able to handle multiple streams/transcoding (including 4K) & have 10Gbit network connectivity (for future home network project).
For the HDD's I will need some help, I have started buying WD portable 14TB drives and the plan is to 'shuck' them and use them to save some money on storage. Most of them are in fact WD Red HDD's from what the research I have done.
Sorry this is a long email, as you can see I am very confused about the direction I want to head with this as there is so much information out there with endless possibilities.
I would really appreciate your advice going forward with my project.
Thank you
Plex Media Server? - ed - 02-11-2021
First of all, you could use your MAC and build a Plex server with it. The i7 CPU is quite capable of transcoding quite a few types of 4K videos. But it surely will not cope with multiple 4K streams being transcoded.What you can do to improve things is getting an external GPU box with a decent graphics card.The best cards will be mentioned later on in this post.https://nascompares.com/answer/ultimate-4k-plex-server-with-top-20-graphics-cards-for-multiple-4k-video-transcoding-streams/#best_gpuHope this helps.