Choosing Hardware For Your Plex Server

Hi, what is the best hardware to build my Plex Server to 4K and hires audio, considering the clients like NVidia Shield Pro, Apple TV 4K and Chromecast 4k with Google TV.
I can use a Synology DS923+ with ram upgraded or an Intel NUC with 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 4-Core (11th Gen).
So to NUC option, I should be run it over windows or what is better?

What should I have the best performance?
Thank you

My media server runs Emby instead of plex. With that out of the way, mine resides in a rack mounted, 20 bay 4U server chassis. It consists of dual 12 core E5-2697 v2 cpu's, 128 gigs of ram, and a spare 8gig RX580. I don't count on my gpu for heavy transcoding since I never have many concurrent streams.

If you have the hard drive space in the case, but not the motherboard connectors as is my situation... add in a raid card. It will give you way more options storage wise as well as run your storage in at least raid 5 to give you a bit of leeway if you had a hard drive failure. That way you wouldnt have to redownload all of your media all over again. 8-10TB platter drives are becoming very affordable these days. Get three of them in raid 5 and you will go to go for a long while.

realisticly for most people will be 1-3 trascod at the time , you may give access to 20 people most will not open the app more than 2 times

I'm runnning an old 4th gen intel on unraid. it has a lot of sata ports (10, if I remember correct). I plan to upgrade soon for at 12th with integrated gpu. I have an old GPU for transcoding, but hardly use it, so it's going to go out the window soon, I believe.

ARC A750 A770 nice

Wait. So my graphics card doesn’t matter at all since I have the newest intel cpu? I was wondering if the new Antill arc GPU would work better as a home theater PC instead of a 1650 super

I really always want the best to do the job, not the least . not sure why people want to go into figuring out what can you get by with.

I saw your video about hardware for plex server, very good. I would like to know what video cards you recommend for external streaming. I have a lot of 4k video. my internet is fiber 500/500 mb. thanks

My problem is people who use my server need to transcode due to shitty internet/network environments. So I want to make sure that I CAN handle transcode if need be.. this basically means that I can't have 4k content on my server though.. (when you play a movie with different versions does it ask you which one you want every time?)

Some folks ramble chaotically and make it hard to follow what they're trying to explain.. I like when people take their time explaining everything so, cheers for that!

My Plex servers are a i910900x 64gb of ram as I use ram for storage when transcoding with almost 60tb of storage some internal most on a nas that I connected to the Plex server over 10gb p2p connection that machine is a old dell server and a disk expander. The gpu in the Plex server is a quadro p2200

I run Plex with remote access, with a old old old hammy-down server. I can support 2 transcodes but ive had as many as 5 concurrent streams. All on a Intel Xeon 5130 @ 2x GHz. That Load Has it Pegged at 100% but typical traffic is 1-2 streams keeps still high, but ~85%. The hardware was free so 🤷‍♂

Running my server my my Nvidia shield, just for me and one tv, direct play...buuuut...it sucks. Issues every other day, from not playing 7.1 truHD AT ALL, to just not loading my library...wanting to build a server

I want to get 4k HDR content to my projector via wired network plex server. Please give me some examples how to do this!!!! I don't need something that is powerful for direct play/streaming, right? Or do I?!?

I did heaps of research for my Plex server/HTPC and found the best case option to be Coolermasters 130 mini ITX case. Looks the part next to all the other home theater equipment, only a single blue power light on the front, great front to back airflow so the sides aren't too important, and has an optical drive slot. I went the shiny black pioneer blue ray drive which looks perfect for a HTPC.

I have Plex server on my windows PC. I have an AMD Ryzen 7 2700x, 16GB ram, I have a 2TB drive for recording tv and a 6TB for other file storage. The weak part is my video card. I have an old Nvidia card I think I paid around $60 for but it's got 2gb of memory and an HDMI port. I probably should get something better but now clue what I need.
I do stream out of the house sometimes but it's only me so only one stream at a time my internet is not very fast. I only get 6mbps up so I have Plex limited to 720p, 3mbps. It seems like video works ok and if tried mp3 and flac audio. Those stream ok

I have a ryzen 5800, 64gb ram, 10 TB HDD RAID 1, and an nvidia rtx 3080 running on windows 10. I'm having very inconsistent results with direct play and direct stream, e.g., lagging, crashing, buffering. My clients are chromecast w/ Google TV, android, and roku tv.

I was hoping you would talk about hardware acceleration with GPU. Did you have to download any special drivers for you GPU? What are your transcoding settings?

I5 8400 itx build thinking about adding a p400 quadro based on Nova sprit video but never hit a bottle neck limited to 4 1080p streams. Being a truck driver I do need 1 remote stream.

I’m planning to use my old pc as plex/nas server. It’s a Phenom II x6 1090T 3.2 ghz, 8 gb ddr 3 and going to source an nvidia card that supports NVENC as my 550ti that’s in it now doesn’t support it.

Add a sata controller card /shrug

Rpi 4 \o/

You WANT a cpu with quicksync. Makes a huge difference

Mandark HA HAHA HA HA HAH A

Not here for plex media server. I was looking for virtualization hardware...

AMD GPU's aren't advertised that much because most of those technologies have always been a part of its software/hardware stack and RYZEN cpu's are powerful enough without quick sync and due to having alot of L3 cache also helps alot across the board whether you're using lower end RYZEN or high end and for way less power.

If you have your internet network/router in the same room as your main movie watching tv you don't really have any issues with needing transcoding. Now days GOOGLE Chromecast TV and other streaming divices that you can connect directly with ethernet cables allow you to get full Audio/Video without transcoding anything. Full Dolby Vision/HDR 10 and Atmos

Yeah being that CPU's even so called "Budget CPU's" now are so efficient and fast they can easily handle high bit rate 1080p videos and even 4k just by using the integrated GPU's. Plus with the cost of 6-core cpu's it makes it even more possible for the majority if its even necessary. I personally have a 8700k / 5700XT system w/32gigs and I use the GPU acceleration option in the PLEX options and I've never had any problem. But I also have my Google Chrome TV hardwired so 4k Direct Streams aren't ever an issue.

My Plex server has 125TB of storage. 12 of the drives in it are 8TB SSDs. I may need help.

I'm good with my synology Ds720 2 bay nas with 2, 8tb hard drives 2 samsung nvme ssd cache cards with a max of upgraded 6gb of ram storage good enough for my plex server needs

Might want to tone down your background music. A lot.

Anyone interested in big plex server? 800TB+

great video, would be worth it if you went over plex hdr movies, hdr transcoding and hdr tonemapping but otherwise great video!

great video, would be worth it if you went overt plex hdr and hdr tonemapping. otherwise awesome.

I have around 14tb of movies old and new movies. What would you recommend for plex