Running Plex on a different machine

[jon_2112]

I've been toying with the idea of splitting Plex out from my FreeNAS machine. The main reason is performance-related. I've got an E3-1220 v3 that seems to struggle with multiple high-res transcodings going on simultaneously. Instead of trying to upgrade to much faster and more expensive server-grade hardware, I could install Plex on Windows or maybe FreeBSD with some fast consumer-type hardware and take advantage of more CPU speed as well as hardware acceleration.

My concern would be file share performance if the Plex datastore is being accessed over the network. Does anyone have experience with this? Would gigabit ethernet be fast enough for Plex to be happy, and would I see any major performance problems with this setup? I suppose I could even drop a 10Gbe adapter in each of them for not too much money and just direct connect, avoiding having to buy a pricey switch.

Also, which protocol would be best? Would SMB be OK for this?

 

[G8One2]

I can't answer you question directly, but I do have a gigabit LAN that has no issues streaming high bitrate content from Plex. It handles 4k resolution, multiple streams just fine. But I have server grade hardware throughout.

 

[MikeyG]

I have Plex running in a VM, accessing files via SMB from FreeNAS. It's using 10gb, but I don't think it's ever come close to stressing the network. Bottleneck is still CPU. Works fine for 4k streaming though. Even though the files are big, if they are being encoded in real time, UHD bluray disks don't go above 100mbps.

 

[Chris Moore]

I've got an E3-1220 v3 that seems to struggle with multiple high-res transcodings going on simultaneously.

How many streams and what file resolution video to what resolution player? If transcoding is overloading your CPU, it might be worth getting some different hardware, but you might be able to get some more powerful server gear for less investment than the cost of building another computer, unless you already have an extra computer?

If you want to split the transcoding to another system, it would likely be best to use Windows or Linux for that other system. I think I recall someone posting in the forum previously about doing that. Did you try a search?

 

[jon_2112]

More than one 4k seems to cause problems. I figure a modern i5 with hardware transcoding enabled would be quite adequate though.

 

[John Doe]

had the same conclusion but I dont want to have a separate computer running for plex, so i ended with using ESXi