I do, and I’d love to trade access with any fellow SigForumites. It’s a fairly simple setup, just an M1 Mac Mini backed up by an old Synology DS1010+ NAS. I have 1G/1G fiber now though so I’m not terribly concerned about giving out access to some fellow Plexers.

I will mention though that I have four kids 14 and under, so my movies and shows aren’t super diverse. I’ll drop shows on there for 6 months or so as my wife and I work through them, but ultimately if they’re garbage, I’ll delete them.

Does anyone think Para would benefit from an invite? I feel like he might enjoy access to the stuff we all keep around.

Thoughts?

Had one for a bit but my storage drives are several years old and aren’t used to being run constantly. I need to transfer my stuff to a new drive.

I have 2 servers.
2nd one is offsite backup & since I have slow-ass internet at home, I can stream from it when needed (not often).

Home server stats:
1:24 PM :: MCM: 2,102 movie titles and 104 T.V. titles

Offsite server has slightly less, haven't backed up for a few months.

I do. I started with a media center PC from a first gen i5 setup and now have upgraded twice to a legit server setup. My bottleneck is the only internet available in my area is AT&T regular. (not fiber) Not great......

Been running Plex since 2008. I bought a lifetime Plex pass when they were first offered. Money well spent.

I started with a second gen mac mini connected to a drobo via FireWire. In 2012 I switched to a quad core third gen mac mini that gave up the ghost just a month ago. Moved it to an intel nuc windows computer connected to a usb drobo that replaced the original FireWire array some years ago.

I’ve installed it and messed with it but I don’t get the point of using it.

I got into it because back in the day I had stacks of dvd’s and boxes of home movies and I got sick of the clutter, not to mention the occasional destroyed disk when the young children got hold of one. I ripped all the disks and digitized all the home movies over time and started streaming them to Roku devices on every tv. Even in the age of streaming services, we’ve still got content in our Plex library that we can’t find streaming.

quote:

Originally posted by 1gkek:
I got into it because back in the day I had stacks of dvd’s and boxes of home movies and I got sick of the clutter, not to mention the occasional destroyed disk when the young children got hold of one. I ripped all the disks and digitized all the home movies over time and started streaming them to Roku devices on every tv. Even in the age of streaming services, we’ve still got content in our Plex library that we can’t find streaming.

That makes sense.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I’ve installed it and messed with it but I don’t get the point of using it.

1. I can't stream reliably (although Plex is starting to gravitate towards streaming, they are rock solid with local media).
2. No ads, trailers, FBI warnings, ETC
3. Download to phones/tablets. Kindle Fire + mSD card = 50+ movies for the kid while on the road. My then-3yo got an "Iron Butt" award last year driving ~14hrs to FL.
4. If plex can get access to streaming content through it's native interface, it will be much better to use vs multiple various streaming platforms.

I know Plex is a decent software but I never have had the desire to create a video library.
Partially because I don't like to watch movies/shows over and over again and partially the enormous space to house especially in HD or 4K format.
Unlike Audio where I do like to repeat listening and and as a bonus the storage space is manageable.
Even so today Hi-Res streaming is available in audio with Tidal, Qobuz and others to increase listening titles.
Of course streaming video is uber-extensive now days too.
Just never had the desire for personal video streaming.

quote:

Unlike Audio where I do like to repeat listening and and as a bonus the storage space is manageable.

That's a great point. I actually run my Music library, sorted by Artist\Album (Year), through my Plex server. A couple of my friends will use my audio library through their home stereos via Roku or Apple TV or something (Plex app).

The online services are great but sometimes they deem it necessary to remove access to music, an example of this being Mark Knopfler's later albums were removed from Spotify at one point. Squabbles between record companies and lawyers can't interfere with a locally owned copy.

(To be fair too, managing a video library can be a PITA sometimes.)

I had one years ago using a Mac Mini. That Mini became obsolete unfortunately.
I may buy another.
I still buy lots of DVDs and BluRays all get ripped as soon as I open the package.

What is the minimum Mac Mini I would need to run Plex these days?
Would this do it?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/23458...r=artemis&media=COPY

I ran mine on a 2012 mac mini for a decade. It was a quad core i7, but without doing a cpu benchmark comparison and depending on the content you put in your library, I’d say probably yes. I don't have any 4k content in my library and even my 1080p stuff was compressed and my server never had to do any transcoding to lower resolutions which is more cpu intensive.

An intel Mac Mini would probably work but a base M1 unit will draw far less power, and Plex says they have an official ARM version for Mac coming soon.

YMMV

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:
An intel Mac Mini would probably work but a base M1 unit will draw far less power, and Plex says they have an official ARM version for Mac coming soon.

YMMV

Not sure what that means.

Kind of amazing how many others are also using Mac Mini's to run Plex. Seems to be a really popular choice! I've been running on various Mini's over the years.

Another way for the geek types to run it is in Docker containers. I've got a docker compose script I can give out that makes it really easy to deploy Plex with radarr, sonarr, jackett, and other apps for managing video libraries.

quote:

Originally posted by K0ZZZ:
Kind of amazing how many others are also using Mac Mini's to run Plex. Seems to be a really popular choice! I've been running on various Mini's over the years.

Plex started as a port of XBMC (now Kodi) for Mac in 2007 and the Mac mini was the perfect platform for it. Back in 2008 My plex box was direct connected to our main tv. A huge improvement over the stacks of disks, but a far cry from where it is now.

quote:

Originally posted by K0ZZZ:
Kind of amazing how many others are also using Mac Mini's to run Plex. Seems to be a really popular choice! I've been running on various Mini's over the years.

Another way for the geek types to run it is in Docker containers. I've got a docker compose script I can give out that makes it really easy to deploy Plex with radarr, sonarr, jackett, and other apps for managing video libraries.

My 1st intro to Plex was probably 2010 and I was using a 2006 Mac Mini.
I used it for a number of years.
That Mac Mini I still have and it still works just so obsolete can’t really do anything with it.

Another use case for plex was live tv and dvr. It even stripped out commercials really well. Thanks t the channel AntennaTV, I recorded every episode of some old tv shows. Even my kids enjoyed Perry Mason.