Plex Server on the Cheap? Intel N100 Mini PCs are a Great Choice

Sign up for a Plex Pass : lon.tv/plexpass (compensated affiliate link) - A Plex Server with transcoding capabilities doesn't have to break the bank. In this video we test a sub $150 Intel N100 based Mini PC to see how well it handles Plex serving including hardware transcoding. Find the Mini PC here: lon.tv/ti6cb and see more Plex here: • Plex
Links:
My initial hardware transcode video: • Plex Hardware Transcod...
Intel Quicksync info : lon.tv/quicksyncwiki
VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
01:02 - Windows vs Linux
02:00 - Hardware Transcding
03:53 - Downloading & Installing
07:21 - Transcoder Settings
08:40 - Transcoding Examples
12:14 - Conclusion
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[@Markmac13YT]

Switched to $150 Intel NUC with N5105 chip a few years ago. Also switched to Ubuntu Linux. Had zero experience with Linux. The server hasn’t crashed or failed to hardware transcode…ever. Anyone still running Plex on Windows hasn’t experienced Plex on Linux. If they did they’d never go back. It’s simply flawless and requires zero maintenance. This chip is even better than the N5105. And power consumption is nil. Doubt the fan would ever even kick on. Unless you’re running Windows, that is.

[@LonSeidman]

They even have fanless N100's like the one I reviewed recently!

[@600rrwheelieopjemoeder3]

You’re 100% right. Most stuff ‘in the cloud’ runs on Linux for multiple reasons. Preferably CLI based. I think Windows is pretty much just for gaming, except when you want to run (Minecraft or whatever) servers in docker containers.

[@ewenchan1239]

It REALLY depends on what you're doing/transcoding. If you are trying to transcode 4K video, you MIGHT be able to do it. But if you're ONLY trying to transcode the DTS:X *AUDIO* (i.e. you're NOT transcoding the video; video is direct play), then the N100 will NOT be fast enough to keep up with the audio only transcoding.

[@AndrewTSq]

what is the reasoning behind transcoding a video? (I have no clue, that is why I am asking :)

[@LonSeidman]

@@AndrewTSq This should help! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aIHcg6OPl5tpY7s

[@daverhodus]

Please show Linux installation step-by-step. Also, please test burning in subtitles.

[@ryanw8664]

Would love to see a walkthrough on installing Linux and Plex on this exact machine.

[@firestorm9213]

yes can we get a video?

[@JonKho83]

Thank you for this video and it gave me answers on how well does Intel N100 Mini PCs work well with Plex Server.

[@imkayjaylea]

11:19 Night of the Comet shoutout!!

[@lament]

Ha I thought I was the only one that loved this film!

[@davedillehunt1807]

Great review as always! Recently bought a couple of Beelink minis with the n100 chip and they perform pretty much like this one. Not as cheap but have 16gb. I’m a windows guy (and Mac) but would love to see you do the Linux version of this. I might change to Linux if I think I can handle it. 🙂

[@ShoelessJP]

Love the Plex content as always, keep up the great wrok Lon!

[@Mario00064]

Thanks for this video Lon. Right now I’m running rpi4 Plex but would prefer this as it can do transcoding. I’d prefer to use Linux though for stability. A video showing how to setup this device with Plex and Linux would be very much appreciated.

[@600rrwheelieopjemoeder3]

I explained how to do it in some comment a few above this one. LMK if you need more help bro.

[@john_in_phoenix]

I have been very pleased with this GMKtec device (really nice it has 2.5gb ethernet). I did load Ubuntu on it and serve 4k video from my embedded Ryzen NAS. Well worth the money.

[@mikehenika2002]

This video helped me, I shut off tone mapping and was able to play AV1 video on my N100 much better, on Chrome anyway.

[@meatbunftw]

Hey Lon, thanks for the vid. It would be interesting to take another look at the AMD side of things. With lots of mini/nuc style PCs coming out with AMD laptop SoCs like the ones from minisforum or Beelink, it would be nice to see how the situation has improved(or regressed) since that last look.

[@KevinDouglas11]

Currently have my Plex Server running on an old Optiplex I got from an old job. The Optiplex is running an i5 3470 and all content is hosted on some local NAS devices. In the last year I started bringing in and backing up a ton of UHD BluRays and I think it is finally time for me to move this server off the Optiplex and over to something like this. The power savings and graphics encode/decode capabilities alone would make it worth it. Plex almost never tosses work to the 1050ti I have installed, so I may as well downsize.

[@Fokfeesspecial]

Can it do audio stream music production? amd ryzen 5, 7 or 9 can.

[@richardremmele8685]

I use Plex for my recorded streaming content. I went with a Neosway 5105 at first which allowed me to do everything but one thing at a time. I tried the N200, but it seemed worse. I skipped the N100. I finally went with an i7 GMKTec. Here is a review that I had on one of your videos previously. my Celeron N5105 which was 2 GHz and does PlayOn record from On demand from various services and includes downloading of 4K streams and light editing. The N5105 ran that app at about 2.8 turbo and 60% to 70% of CPU. I decided to try the N200 version and was disappointed. It is 1 GHz and mostly ran at 1.7 turbo and never got anywhere near 3.7 and about 95% to a constant 100% of CPU and mostly failed to record the content. In my initial email to them, they said a cryptic “It's about what we get” or something to that effect, I returned it.

[@SoySauceJohnny]

Using this as a daily driver. I like it. Zorin OS, upgraded from 8gb ram to 16gb Klevv ram off of Amazon.

[@CommonSenseAdult]

Would love to see this but show us the linux setup process and plex setup for sure. I would buy that.

[@simonbyrd6518]

YES, I want a transcoder. Something to take the burden off of my main (but old) PC.

[@5argetech56]

No only does the GMKtec Nucbox make a good Plex server, it also makes a great everyday PC! Mine is the earlier 2023 G1 version N95 with 16gigs of ram and 1TB NVMe SSD. Dual booting Windows 11pro and Xubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS!

[@CF542]

Are there any remotes you'd recommend for this unit to control Plex with?

[@JimSturney]

Better alternative than some of the cheaper NAS devices with ARM processors. Intel processor = ability to use sonic analysis for music, a feature I very much enjoy in Plex!

[@howtoalex666]

It's possible to use mini PC with N100 for streaming obs 1080p60fps? I wanna watch youtube videos and stream it with this PC with my friends. But not sure it's have enough power or not, thanks! :)

[@mokisan]

Thanks for the video lon. I know this is a sponsorship, but a video about jellyfin on linux would be nice too.

[@CantankerousDave]

I’m not sure if it’s changed, but for a while a few years ago, there were videos about how YT’s algorithm was quietly hiding anything that mentioned Jellyfin or Kodi.

[@mneagle1231]

I Bit the bullet on a 600.00 I9 mini PC and wow! That thing is a beast.

[@willykoernap]

There is a plex beta going around that supports Hardware Tonemapping on windows for a few weeks. It only supports intel 10th gen and up i believe.

[@richardthomas4938]

How many 4K streams can it send out on the internet?

[@TrapZeroEX]

I got a gmktec with a n97 processor for $150 last month. I run jellyfin instead of plex though.

[@nrnoble]

Thanks for video. I have a Plex Pass server and been using it for many years. A suggestion for a future Plex video is how to deal with data corruption such as when suddenly no movies or videos show up in plex, but the media files are still there and playback just fine using VLC. I have had the corruption problem a couple of times over the years and it can be solved if the persons knows the steps to rebuild the Plex DB thus saving having to reinstall everything.

[@richardremmele8685]

If you can play them on VLC, they are not corrupt they are just not recognized by Plex, I had that problem with some that were recorded from OTA, I think mostly PBS. I change the setting to something like Other Video and Plex found them. Play around with other setting on a separate iteration on the same file folder and see it it works for you.

[@richardremmele8685]

Movies only see movies and shows only sees shows and Other will show some other videos

[@nrnoble]

@@richardremmele8685 Thx. I am not having problems ATM, and have solved them in the past. My post was a suggestion for a future video to help others solve Plex DB problems when it becomes corrupted. It is not simple process that can be solved using the Plex UI. When the DB become corrupted, even new media content can not be added, and typically existing content is completely missing.

[@SantiagoMolero]

Hi Lon. Can we use HDR tone mapping in a linux subsystem within windows (WSL)?. Thank you for this video!

[@LonSeidman]

Hmm that's a good question I'd have to research that one.

[@JavierLopezElMagnate]

Hey Lon, great video. Quick question. I’ve been running a plex server on an old i5 dell desktop for 6 years or so. One thing that really put a strain on it is recording OTA broadcasts via my HD Homerun. Did you try this using this NUC? Wondering what that performance would look like.

[@LonSeidman]

What i5 is it running? It could be that it's struggling with MPEG2 .

[@alansmithee.01]

As Windows 10's 2025 EOL approaches, many of us with Plex servers running on unsupported 7th gen and older Intel CPUs are faced with trying to modify a Win11 ISO to install or transition to Linux. A Linux installation and Plex migration guide would be a huge boon to this segment of the userbase, especially since there are some tricky hurdles with Plex on Linux when it comes to user permissions to access media library folders (e.g., external drive library folders)

[@LonSeidman]

Permissions can be a real pain - I'll do some investigating into the easiest path to get started on the Linux side.

[@Maginone2]

Great movie selection. JAY AND SILENT BOB😍

[@dansanger5340]

Not only does it make a great media server, but I use my N100 mini-PC to transcode videos down to a smaller file size to save disk space. It's not as fast as my main PC, but it's fast enough, and way quieter.

[@ciscokid5839]

Will do. Thank you.

[@huongnhuho3546]

Just finished reading the one using Intel 125H ,but could not find its PSU , where ?

[@bigredwag]

So this or a Shield Pro?

[@supriyasou3722]

Thanks for the video. I want to setup a Plex server just for fun as it gets mentioned so many times on this channel. However, I still have not understood what I will do with it unless I have a huge library of pirated or ripped movies. Most entertainment today is via streaming services.

[@CantankerousDave]

Streaming services that charge more and more for less and less in terms of features and video quality, and whatever you’re watching can leave the service at any time. Buy media that you like secondhand and rip them to your own server.

[@ciscokid5839]

Just curious how do you keep server running when you are trying to access server away from home? Thank you.

[@LonSeidman]

In the power settings disable standby/sleep

[@richdaley9982]

I have been giving something like this a lot of thought. I have Plex running on a pretty powerful AMD Ryzen 5 based PC but I have a grid tied solar power system and recently I have been thinking a lot about how much energy things are using in my house. The PC is not using that much power when it is idling but it really doesn’t make much sense to have it running all of the time just in case I want to watch something on my Plex server. I never stream to more than one device and rarely serve 4K files.

[@john_in_phoenix]

Load Ubuntu on it and you'll be very happy even for 4k video. I have this exact system and use my NAS for storage. You could easily set up an external drive with sleep enabled and really use substantially less power. If you don't care about 4k, Windows works fine.

[@hammer86_]

Set up Wake On Lan. You can put your server to sleep or even turn it off when not in use. Then you can wake it from your phone when you need it. But if you want one of these little computers, go for it. They're cheap and good. I have one. It's running Ubuntu server and a bunch of services including Jellyfin. Love it.

[@revengec]

Can you cover data corruption?

[@robertlunderwood]

I'm using a similar device as a home server to run all my Docker containers on.

[@matdob7677]

Thanks Lon, all my media is on large usb external drives. If I connect them to my N100 (on which is my Plex server), will it stream efficiently or should I go with a NAS and HDDs?

[@si4632]

Or maybe have a couple of large nvme drives some do support multiple drives. I find usb drives crash from time to time

[@matdob7677]

Good point ​@@si4632, should have thought of that before buying large usb drives.

[@nelsonarteaga244]

Hey Lon. Which mini PC would you recommend for the best reliability. Budget of $150-$300?

[@LonSeidman]

For reliability I'd maybe look at a used name brand device. While I've generally had good luck with these mini PCs most are from unknown brands without much in the way of domestic support.

[@robertj1138]

Where did you get the vp9 file from netflix?

[@LonSeidman]

Find it here! opencontent.netflix.com/

[@ausguy4385]

Can plex run a device and have the storage on separate nas?

[@LonSeidman]

Yes - see here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZmviHd_fMl7aJo

[@brainblader2]

Lon, could you please take a look at these machines working as dedicated game servers? I think that would be an interesting video.

[@LonSeidman]

As like a Minecraft server or something like that?

[@MisterPikol]

I was thinking the same about these N100 devices, but I'd spend slightly more and get a 12th or 13th gen i3/i5/, waaaay more cores and better turbo boost, cost below 300 bucks

[@nelsonarteaga244]

Which one would u recommend?

[@sirracer2005]

Would one of these run a channels dvr server?

[@LonSeidman]

Yes they should do well with that too

[@sirracer2005]

@@LonSeidman thank you.

[@Droogie128]

I picked up an inspiron 3880 with an I3 10100 for $110. It's very sff, and does awesome as a plex server.

[@LonSeidman]

That's a great deal!

[@Droogie128]

@@LonSeidman got it at a pawn shop. I try to hit a bunch of them once a week

[@Droogie128]

@@LonSeidman I might add an arc 310 to it

[@MisterPikol]

no native support for av1 unfortunately

[@Droogie128]

@@MisterPikol hence me possibly adding an a310

[@sjsphotog]

An NVIDIA shield is still a better option when connected to a NAS or external hard drive.

[@royk164]

If you have a mini pc witha SSD made by Netac, it will fail after about a year. I have 2 that have.

[@Ockv74]

❤❤❤

[@ericB3444]

Most persons think plex is movies for cows. It’s a farm channel.

[@LJR_LIMITED]

definitely run a no desktop server version of linux.

[@Doktati]

❤Plex❤