While @Lwpwrlvr is correct that this forum generally recommends storing all of your media on a separate NAS device, it is not absolutely required. If you already have your media stored on one or more external drives it will work just fine to connect them directly to the Plex server. That being said though you may still want to consider moving your storage to a NAS device at some point simply so that you can set up parity and protect your data in the event a drive fails.
In reference to your other question, Ubuntu is the recommended OS if your are going to be using the box as Plex server with quicksync hardware transcoding. You can find more details about setting up a Plex server in the following thread from JDM.
I read a bit more in the forum and now Iâm wondering if I should build a NAS first instead of this? I donât think I will encounter too much transcoding - the NAS Killer 4.0 will be able to serve as a basic Plex server as well?
I think that a NAS Killer build might work for you as long as you donât need to do too many Plex transcodes at one time.
If you are looking to have a box that can function as both a Plex server and a NAS, you may also want to consider an OTiS build. It would allow you to take advantage of the Intel Quicksync technology to do hardware transcoding in Plex, but can also do NAS stuff (like run some Docker containers, VMs, serve files to other computers, etc). For more information please give the following forum thread a read.
The seller was very gracious and allowed me to return the device with free shipping. He also offered to mail me replacement RAM as a troubleshooting measure.
Can anyone confirm that these units sold as no ssd no os do in fact come with sata cable and sata power cable inside? I have a sata ssd just sitting around
I wouldnât count on sata cables being included. I do not recall what mine came with other than Iâm real sure it didnât include any hddâs or ssdâs.
Sata power shouldnât be an issueâŚas it should include a power supply.
Thanks for posting this deal! Quick question: I bought a crucial NVME 500GB and the M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter. Iâm planning on installing ubuntu-20.04.1. This will be the first time Iâve installed an OS onto a NVME through an adapter (Iâve done it via onboard NVME though). Do I need to do anything special in regards to the adapter drivers in order to throw the OS onto the NVME?
You were right: nothing special needed! Ridiculously easy. Thanks again!
Also, any recommendation on a DP dummy plug? All pretty much equal?
Also, Iâve enabled hardware transcoding and noticed that in the plex dashboard, it is showing the video as âdirect playâ. It does not show (hw) to signify hardware transcoding. What does âdirect playâ mean? I do use makeMKV to backup my movies and keep original file sizes (though not very storage efficientâŚstorage is cheap).
Iâve had plex on my main PC for years, but eager to learn more now that I have it running on this ProDesk 400 with Ubuntu desktop.
From the first picture that you posted it looks like the video was being transcoded but it wasnât using hardware transcoding. If it had been doing hardware transcoding there would have been a â(hw)â in the video section.
From the second picture it doesnât look like you have hardware encoding enabled. You will need to enable the checkbox in front of the âUse hardware acceleration when availableâ option.
thanks for the responses. I used the guide to build my ubuntu server. In regards to the guide, it simply stated âEnable hardware transcoding in the transcoder settings!â. I enabled âuse hardware-accelerated video encodingâ. Looks like I shouldâve enabled âuse hardware acceleration when availableâ as you both noted.
I will get on with more readings hehe
