Turn A Raspberry Pi 4 Into A PLEX Media Server

[@bobowon5450]

this is the first guide for turning plex into a media SERVER that actually uses the pi as a server and not a client

[@pugster73]

A few things. 1) If you are running a server 24x7, I would use a passive cooled case like one of your reviewed flirc case. 2) You can run the cli version of raspian which takes up less resources 3) Running Openmediavault via docker is much better since it is much efficient in running it and you can run it headless.

[@revelmonger]

Sorry for bothering you a year later, but would you recommend Jellyfish?

[@pugster73]

@@revelmonger I have tried jellyfish and it is kind of buggy. Better off using emby

[@PPV0077]

@@pugster73 yeah but sadly emby is now subscription based.. or is it just paid on

[@SirRob24]

My first ever Plex Server was an rPi 3B+. I had pretty decent luck with that. 90% of my viewing was just in-home on the same network so that worked fine on my PC and Smart TV. I live in Canada. Was visiting Japan last year and we were able to stream 1080p with a smidge delay at the start but after it did some buffering it played perfectly. I didn't think the little thing was going to be able to do it but it did. Raspberry Pis really are perfect for getting your first server up and running.

[@adityanair5340]

Was 1080p flawless at home on TV and did you run it on the 3B+ 24/7 on LAN?

[@jmr]

I started my Plex journey with a RPI3. I recommend Diet-Pi as an OS. It let's you easily install many different programs like Plex. For a small household the PI4 will work fine. The PI3 even worked well when I used it. If you get too many speed bumps you can try turning off transcoding in Plex. In the OS you can also turn off the Desktop environment entirely. I ran my PI3 and PI4 with an SSD hard drive for booting. Then for additional Media use a separate USB 3 hard drive for the Plex library. I eventually upgraded to a NAS after I decided to stick with Plex.

[@davidianmusic4869]

Totally agree on power consumption, but I’m running on solar north of 49’, so December power is precious. Going to try on a pi2, really, I barely ever stream more than 720. Pi2’s are kinda a sweet spot, not near the 4’s performance, but not shady AND a power sipper. Thanks for all your info, using a lot of your suggestions. Great channel.

[@Dirtyz1234]

Not sure you made a good distinction between streaming the original file and requiring the pi to transcode to a different format. It's a good idea to have all your video in a format that requires no transcoding with this setup.

[@IRWPD]

Never knew that Plex server was that easy to setup.

[@RonkeyRong]

Omg perfect, I was just looking for how to do this yesterday and you happened to post a video today about it today. Thank god I'm subscribed

[@timothyzimmerman5423]

I use openmediavault with a plex docker. That way I can transfer media over my network. It is all controlled headless over a browser. super easy to set up and super lightweight.

[@ighor]

You don't need to install openmediavault to get it to work this way. Docker available for every linux distro.

[@timothyzimmerman5423]

@@ighor i know but it doubles as my file server so its perfect

[@ighor]

​@@timothyzimmerman5423 but you know that you can run all services used in openmediavault in any docker right?

[@timothyzimmerman5423]

@@ighor yeah I know its my preference though.

[@KOTProduction]

i run mine too with openmediavault , I can't get 'till 5 1080p direct streams at the same time without any glitch :)

[@Toddimyre]

I actually built this setup a few weeks ago, but I used Raspberry OS. It takes a little more effort to get it going, but it works out pretty well. And, like you said, power consumption is next to nothing. When my central air unit isn't running, the power bill is like $3 a day on average. You should have mentioned the transcoding in the video though. The Pi isn't very good at transcoding video on the fly, so you'll want to pre-transcode your videos or use the built in transcoder. Note that the second method takes a really long time.

[@PlatinumRmx]

What would you recommend as a step up above the raspberry pi for transcoding purposes? I've been thinking about buying an old server PC but have been holding back.

[@dunnoausernamedunno5533]

How do you do this on Raspberry OS?

[@iamapie13]

I've had a raspberry Pi 4 Plex server for a while now, I bought Seinfeld on DVD and I didn't want to keep swapping discs just for watching the series, that's what got me into Plex, even though my library has grown I still use the raspberry Pi, also I managed 5 1080p streams once I watched a movie with my friend from my server, no one seemed to have any issues

[@robertthompson5716]

This is THE BEST video I have seen online for getting a plex server set up. I have been working on something like this off and on for months! Got it set up in a day. Amazing content!!!! I subscribed and liked!!

[@Pixel2Play]

Using a Nes4PiCase with a 2'5 hard drive could be a great solution for a streaming setup.. Thank you for this video !

[@thendakor]

Thank you for this. It's answered a lot of questions for me. I had nightmares try to get plex working on my Pi3 with a USB HDD and Raspberry Pi OS. I got it working eventually but this looks so much easier.

[@Richie016]

multimedia setup with a Plex interface is simply fantastic! with the rpi4 boars.

[@davidbugeja7708]

I have this setup on my Odroid C4 (through your reviews) which operates quite well. Got external hard drives connected to it with a "DIY NAS" setup using greyhole if you want to give that a go. It's basic data redundancy without the fuss of a raid controller or anything like that, and you can just add hard drives to it and it will scale the space on the smb share.

[@VineshSookun]

Do you have video showing how to do it, as i am trying to connect with a nas

[@joness11ut]

An excellent ‘How to’, video. I have 12 year old iMac as my Plex server and it will need replacing soon I’m sure. This is a great cheap alternative to a new PC!

[@midnightfm87]

Thanks! I’ve been considering migrating my Plex Server off my gaming PC for a while to save on power consumption. I’ll probably pick up a Pi4 soon and give it a try. The only thing I’m unsure about is if my 8TB external HDD will be able to be read by both Windows and Ubuntu, due to the drive being NTFS. Ideally I’d like to be able to plug it into Windows while I’m doing my ripping and encoding and then plug it back into the Pi the rest of the time.

[@felixlacasse475]

I did exactly what you did, use a pi4 4gb, use the same ehddas you and I used a Ethernet cable. When I watch my video on my fire stick it seems laggy. I feel like it run low fps. Any idea?

[@sanket5398]

I have a question here: After I have set up the plex server can I just remove the monitor, keyboard and mouse and just leave raspberry connected to wifi and the pendrive attached to it? Will it still work?

[@MySqueezingArm]

ETA Prime Plex has recently started to get a bit shady regarding authentication. I suggest looking into Jellyfin

[@nolaughing5087]

How?

[@MySqueezingArm]

@@nolaughing5087 In short Plex used to sign you in directly. Your client would connect straight to your server. Now they force logins to pass through their centralized server. This happened around the same time Plex was catching a lot of heat from people selling access to their media libraries. There are also reports of Plex leaking metadata grabs, but I'm not sure about the validity. Jellyfin is open source, with no centralized servers anywhere. No accounts either. I find it much more lightweight, and would probably run better on an RPi4.

[@ryzech4168]

Plus its closed source

[@DaPanda19]

@@MySqueezingArm thx for clearing that up as I haven't used Plex in at least a couple years. Funny story, a few years back as an Uber driver here in LA, I picked up 2 guys headed to Newport Beach from LAX, we got to talking and they saw that I used Plex on my tablet which lead to them telling me that they worked for Plex as developers, which was insane to hear at the time because I loved Plex. Now I look back at that and I'm kinda meh about that experience since I now better understand what's happened after I stopped using it.

[@MySqueezingArm]

@@ryzech4168 Yeah, which is always a crapshoot. Something else I forgot to add, I primarily used Plex to stream my kids DVDs to their ipads. One iPad is super old and absolutely gets crushed by Plex. Jellyfin gave it a new life.

[@davehglider]

Any reason why you use Ubuntu over to Rasbian OS, or is it just for the simplicity of the installation for Plex. Is there's any benefit other than simplicity installation. Btw great tutorial. Thanks

[@ngrimes08]

That’s what I want to know. I have rasbian now, not to far into it, so I’m gonna switch to Ubuntu. I can’t stream 1080 on rasbian so wondering if Ubuntu does a better transcoding job. Just my initial thoughts not knowing much.

[@haydenc2742]

If you use /dev/shm as the transcode directory...the 8 gig version will definitely help Very cool it has more oomph than the 32bit ARM processors For home use, a few transcodes should be just fine anyway Very nice...keep em coming!

[@coolguy91975]

Always interesting, but I have DVR files in MPEG2; even a Shield can't serve that up without frame skipping.

I use pi 4 as a plex music server with FLAC and high end mp3s. Works AMAZING

[@MrSadface]

Same here! I spent early lockdowns re-ripping all my CDs into FLAC and putting them onto a small external HDD (plus a big HDD as backups). Works great streaming on my phone in the car or wherever else.

[@L4marca]

IMO: 1. Emby 2. Jellyfin 3. Plex And for OS (headless): 1. DietPi 2. RaspiOS lite

[@VarunDaniel]

What is your opinion of installing plex directly via DietPi vs running it in docker containers?

[@L4marca]

​@@VarunDaniel I haven't used docker alot, but if you're planning on exposing the server to the internet for remote access, then I'd think docker is better. But I'd use Jellyfin/Emby over Plex.

[@VarunDaniel]

@@L4marca Thank you. but my question is, should I select radar, emby, portainer and docker while installing Dietpi and will the apps be shown in docker as containers? Or should I only install docker first , then go in docker and install the other apps?

[@L4marca]

@@VarunDaniel I've never used radar or portainer, so I wouldn't know. But if I had to guess, you would probably have to install docker first, considering the other apps use it. But if it's a package available in a repo, I'd guess it'd install docker as well anyway if it's a dependency.

[@VarunDaniel]

@@L4marca Thanks!

[@sanrasuzumaki942]

Pi 4 are almost as hard to find as a ps5 or Series X, Thanks for the video.

[@jasperfredrickson4420]

Glad you gave the power disclaimer because that's the first thing I thought. Any transcoding is going to destroy that cute little guy. But yeah, a single stream it's probably fine.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

TBH, I convert my files before putting them in my plex install regardless of where I'm serving from.

[@josephtremblant2173]

Ironic how a device is capable of single streaming videos but incapable of properly playing 1080p and 4K h.264 mp4 videos due to VideoCoreVI GPU raw power limitations in 64bit OS's.

[@trixniisama]

..

[@boomboxing4402]

This sounds really neat if i end up with a raspberry pi at some point this would totally be something i would try edit: Another great video (:

[@evanbrown7549]

What’s the difference between a client and a server I am new to all this

[@boomboxing4402]

A client would be the system connecting to the server typically

[@XxBlueSkiesx]

Can you run that off a network drive as well? Thanks

[@PixelPiratesMusic]

Is there any performance differences on using ubuntu with plex server instead of raspberrypi os lite? I was thinking the lite version with plex server is better for performance since you dont have a desktop showing and taking resources from the rpi?

[@LBP2Saperoth]

could you do this but with jellyfin? free and opensorce alternative to plex

[@bensuddaby832]

That is what I am currently running. Raspberry pi 4b 8GB, in an Argon ONE case, running Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (beta). Ethernet to my router. TV has an old Amazon fire stick on my 5GHz wifi running the Jellyfin app.

[@jonahnichols2158]

@Ron Bali The new rc should fix the metadata times from what I've read.

[@dannygubaci8418]

Add PS4/PS5 or other networked media players, non-DLNA. Good luck! :))))))))

[@droiduprising]

@Ron Bali Thank you for the comparison. 👍

[@NikhchansGaming]

I don't understand the benefit of a Plex server over the more widely supported DLNA..? Can you do a tutorial to run a DNLA server as well?

[@rhiantaylor3446]

Further to the point several people have made that the PI will not have the grunt to cope with any transcoding, I would add that using NTFS USB drives will similarly reduce the CPU cycles available to Plex or OMV. If you are just shipping a file from the drive to a LAN client (e;g. a TV !) then a NTFS drive almost doubles the load on the PI c.f. using the native Linux drive format EXT4.

[@willstradingadventure799]

How did you turn Blanking off with Ubuntu? I have everything setup exactly how you do but 5 minutes after I walk away the pi goes to sleep and the server won’t work

[@04Stefan07]

Excellent guide thank you! When I used my external USB storage it always asks for authentication when I need to reboot the Pi. Any way to get around this?

[@karliet251]

I used to do this one a pi 3 and didnt really have much issue (before I moved to a nuc)

[@nickgraauwmans]

too bad H.265 video's can't run on it. maybe 5-10 sec and it begins to buffer. (1080p)

[@starmc26]

It can run H. 265..... Turn off hardware acceleration.

[@pasan.]

Why didn’t you use the Ubuntu Plex appliance image for the Raspberry Pi?

[@FubarMike]

For me I would probably put the pie in a little case and plug it right into the TV and use a wireless keyboard with track pad. If only there was a tv friendly desktop environment to suit a TV better.

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

So, you'd be running your Pi as a "TV box", running both Plex server and client, or just using the TV as a monitor?

[@dolo.c4y972]

2 years later, do you still recommend the Pi4 for a Plex server or do you know of something better? I currently use Plex on my gaming rig mainly as a music server and am looking to have a more dedicated and smaller setup.

[@train21]

I have Plex setup on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, I've been running it for around 3 years been going strong but I'm planning on upgrading it to a Pi 4 to take advantage of the USB 3.0 ports as you can't stream 4K due to the 2.0 ports.

[@lpjunior999]

I’ve done something similar for years on Raspbian, but the problem is my Pi3 wouldn’t find the USB drive unless it was plugged in as a network drive. And if I unplugged the drive it wouldn’t find it until I rebooted it. And it’s a PITA to keep updated without unplugging the whole thing to run a sudo command.

[@freesanatani914]

Great tutorial. Can I unplug the monitor and keyboard/mouse after setup?

[@AskIveSolar]

Man, I was excited until i saw ooh boon too. Ubuntu seems to be an easier setup since its in the app store. My plan is to install raspbian to a big hard drive and run the media from there. Our movie collection is pretty static.

[@n1kkri]

Before you installed PLEX, can you connect the raspberry pi to a TV via HDMI cable, install Chrome from the same area you installed PLEX (DESKTOP) run Chrom and watch and listen to youtube videos? I am looking for one of the raspberry pi OS that include HDMI video and audio by default. So far the only ones that give you a choice for HDMI are the Legacy versions. In addition to having the choice available for HDMI via the speaker icon in the top right or in the terminal mode doing a sudi raspi-config go to settings, audio and selecting HDMI all the others do not even offer HDMI as a selection except for the Legacy version as shown when using the raspberry pi imager program. Thanks

[@eyesofnova]

If you want to play 4k HDR content off the Pi, an Nvidia Shield running Plex will use what is known as direct play which essentially does all the heavy lifting on the Nvidia shield. Just need a usb 3.0 hard drive.

[@NikhchansGaming]

Or...mi box 4, firestick.. or any budget Android phone!

[@eyesofnova]

@@NikhchansGaming not sure about the mibox 4, but Fire stick can't direct play 4k with DTS. Only Dolby digital

[@edc9442]

Are you able to access this from other computers? Or every computer on the Wi-Fi network?

[@KineticEgg]

U should also look at doing a vid about creating an openVPN wifi hotspot with a Pi4, for those whose routers don't support such a function, so the likes of Roku devices can have some fun in other parts of the world. I've Set up a Plex and VPN server on a single pi4 and able to access lots of great free content via my Roku devices from Plex and Pluto USA services here in the UK and I'm still able to connect to the plex server while out and about. Great video as always

[@Javilanderos]

Great video quick question: If power goes out and power resumes, would Plex server restart automatically or would I have to click Plex every time I want to launch Plex. I would like to have a Plex server that would run 24/7 with minimal/no user input. I guess the term is headless. Will this setup allow me that or do I have to find a different setup. Thanks in advance.

[@greatMomiz]

once u set it u can have access to your movies also outside home or has to be connected to the same wifi?

[@ChrisSoehnlein]

Yes, you can access it outside of your home if External Access is enabled.

[@greatMomiz]

@@ChrisSoehnlein thanks bud

[@truant2000]

I’ve been using a Pi4 4GB as my Plex server/automated nzb downloader for a year and it saves so much money compared to running a PC 24/7. We have 3 LG 4K TV’s that happily direct play 4K content so no need to transcode and after a recent corruption I have swapped to Using Raspberry Pi OS booting from a Samsung Evo 870 SSD and have Plex, Sonarr, Radarr and NZBGet running in docker containers so they are easier to backup and restore should the worst happen.

[@yesplusca]

That's only for direct play no transcoding because raspberry pi isn't powerful enough but if you have odroid xu4 that will allow you transcode 1x H.264 1080p depending your files , i will say odroid N2 Plus is the best option if you really want low powered SMC for plex media server .

[@andresvaldevit3692]

Most people don’t even need more than this, great job ETA. One question. Do you think I could be able to run at the same time on it a Plex media server, a self hosted VPN and Pi-hole?

[@feartheturnip]

if using a HDD , will it constantly spin, or go into power saving until you use plex from whatever device you are accessing it from?

[@NikhchansGaming]

I'd like to know the answer to this too! Does it idle spin down!??

[@ponydisco106]

where did you get 8tb for 86? I looked everywhere only picked up 10tb for 150.

[@ETAPRIME]

My local Walmart had a stack of 8tb and 6tb drives

[@fragilechinaa]

@@mokubakaiba1751 Seagate is fine nowadays. Sure they were a mess for most of this past decade, but now they're more than reliable enough for the average consumer both in my experience and statistically (last I checked, anyhow). Just gotta make sure you avoid the few bad batches that got sent out before (2016 2tb barracuda drives with green labels had a bunch of issues if I recall correctly, but everything else is fine enough)

[@MakilHeru]

What has your data consumption been with your ISP? Any overage issues?

[@urmassulg1534]

Which is better OS for running Plex Server, Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi OS ?! Thank you

[@spuds7677]

I have been messing with Plex for the past few months. On the Pi 4, if you plan on having more than 1 person streaming at once, get a PC. While testing once 2 or 3 people stream from it at once, the PI has issues keeping up and tended to crash. Even Over clocked to 2100 MHz on the 4 Gig model I had issues. Less than 2 weeks ago I setup Ubuntu on a PC that we retired from work but still ran fine. I put a SSD in it, 8 Gigs of RAM a 4TB storage drive (For Movies) and setup Plex. The issue I have with Ubuntu and other Linux Distros is the ease of use. So in Windows adding a 2nd hard drive is super easy to do. To get Plex to use the storage drive in Ubuntu was absolutely bonkers. I was just given another one of those PCs from work. I plan to mess with other Linux Distros to see if there is a better/easier one to use for a Plex server. If nothing else, I will just install Windows 10 and run the Plex from it.

[@EdgarAyabarreno]

could you do a video setting up a Pi4 NAS + plex? any Pi4 case suggestions that hold two or more 3.5 inch drives?

[@Emulator73]

UP

[@piyushshandilya5176]

You could try an external hdd bay!

[@Champabay]

I've been using a cheap celeron NUC for years as a Plex server and love it. Just wish there was a cheap multi bay 3.5 drive enclosure but my docks work fine.

[@lucaslac124]

I've always wanted to do this!

[@XellosMetallium]

works great for x264 videos not for hevc

[@jacobbaranowski]

VUDU dose this already and you don't need a raspberry pie or ...

[@robertthompson5716]

@@jacobbaranowski dont you have to buy there movies though? This is for your own personal media.

[@jacobbaranowski]

@@robertthompson5716 there are free movies 🎥 on can watch on VUDU but your going to get adds, I convinced mt my collection, there is a way you can get your DVD's and Blue Ray's Disk to DIGITAL 10 or more 50% off

[@RaduUrsache]

for Apple users i suggest a simple SMB share and Infuse on iOS/iPadOS/AppleTV. VLC or IINA is perfect for this on macOS until Infuse will be available on that as well just plug in the external hdd, install samba and configure it. you'll be done in less than 15mins. this is what i'm using for years and it's perfect. it also won't "kill" the rpi with transcoding as the real work is done on the clients

[@nargalda773]

hey, nice guide, as always, can you do Emby Server too ?? like run some compare tests, in speed, media support etc ? i run it on my larkbox and it looks like a little faster then plex

[@mcbprimero]

Is there any performance difference between Ubuntu and Raspberry OS for Plex Server??

[@cspyker]

This is my question too. What is the purpose of using Ubuntu?

[@boon1580]

is this setup good enough to stream uhd mkv video files to the tv? each uhd file is roughly 40gb. assuming just using this setup for 1 tv, no other users/client.

[@coreysheerer8199]

Im not sure you can power that external expansion hard drive with your raspberry pi port. Im seeing about 2A needed and the pi 4 max usb amps is 1.2A. perhaps look for an externally powered hard drive if you go that route

[@esunsalmista]

Is there something you'd recommend that can handle two to three 4K streams at once? I've seen some people say they have trouble with the raspberry pi with even a single 4K stream.

[@oc4725]

Thx alot for this guide now I can share to friends who don’t have money for media they enjoy

[@tommyvanpelt2408]

What are the advantages of plex over something like osmc? Or kodi?

[@aliasgher6235]

if you could guide please, we are looking to setup a setup where we want atleast 10 connections using the client/server model, a 1 TB SSD, 32GB RAM Xeon server. and 10 raspberry PI connected to it as clients. We want to setup an obser setup for our ongoing googlemeet live classes. will this setup work? would appreciate insight on this idea.

[@bramlane2030]

great video as usual 1 question for from a noob can you still play the videos using plex on the pi connected to the tv as if it was a kodi player

[@aidengreen343]

Yep

[@EricTingler]

Cant I do this with an old laptop, and in theory, get better performance? Am I missing something on that thought process?

[@DigitalJedi]

In theory any computer can be a server. The pi is just a cheap, small, and user friendly way to get this type of thing set up. Make sure you clean the old laptop and possibly repaste it though, as a server will be running all the time.

[@nargalda773]

you can, but you need atleast 2ghz cpu and bigger ram, actually streaming HD content is pretty demanding, not mention 4k

[@RanjitSingh-fr3yd]

When we are streaming on device that is on same wifi network as that of pi, will it stream locally or uses internet to send data from pi or directly from pi to local device? 2. If it is using local network to stream data directly, can we use it over the internet at other device (on different network) and still access our library? Kindly guide

[@woodiemarv]

Locally its all internal network and free. To stream on the go, u have to purchase the app or buy plex pass.

[@NewmanOnGaming]

I can say this.. using the 8gb pi4 with the Argon One m.2 kit with a 2TB m.2 sata SSD running Raspberry Pi OS lite with usb boot enabled makes one hell of a mini Plex server.

[@dbamaro]

I use my plex on the rp3 and on raspbian... it runs fine on 1080p

[@prodical666]

I want to create this set up. But how do I ensure when I move my Pi elsewhere to the house and plug it back into power that plex will start running? I dont want to have to move a monitor and M/KB around everytime.

[@WatsitTooyah]

When installed, a service is created that automatically runs the server application.

[@prodical666]

@@WatsitTooyah Thanks

[@JohnnyDoesntCare]

Got it working, but the next morning I couldn't access any media from other devices. The pi was asleep or the drives went into standby or something. I had to reboot it. Any way to keep connection active 24/7?

[@GH-dx9lr]

Would you say this build is better than using a fire stick? My uncle streams with Cinema on the fire stick, and I think using a pi would be better

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

I have a spare Raspberry Pi 4, plus an external 6 TB HDD, so I'd like to give it a try. I wonder if the Pi could do double duty as a NAS, so that I can rip DVDs and Blu Rays to the hard drive from a PC, using MakeMKV, Handbrake, etc. I'm not terribly concerned with *SIMULTANEOUSLY* ripping to the NAS drive while serving video stream(s), just that I could do either without physically moving the drive back and forth between the PC and the Pi.

[@mrperea]

I'm looking to build a Plex server with a RP4, but i got a question... Can a plex server run a shared folder or so in order to use another computer with a torrent client and move all downloaded content (via wifi or ethernet) in a external SDD plugged in the Pi?

[@navinadv]

Which Raspberry Pi compatible board would have enough power to handle 5 streams of 1080 or 5 audio streams of FLAC or Tidal? I am looking to build a more high end server but also having compatibility with RPi so I could use RPI HAT reclocker for high end audio. Thanks

[@mobileuser2923]

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W could enough for this project? Thanks

[@VineshSookun]

Thank you for the video. Can you explain how to add libraries that are on a Network Attached Storage to this type of Plex Server running on the PI4

[@wa8khp-468]

Plex is GREAT, THANKS. How about a link to the fan U are using?

[@coolhit5]

Hello, How do i connect external hard drive to it bcoz It needs more power usb to run it right?

[@Zeric1]

"external hard drives" have their own power supply, "portable hard drives" depend on USB power. The largest "portable hard drives" are around 5-6TB, the largest "external hard drives" are 14TB currently. The cost/tb is also less on "external hard drives" vs "portable hard drives". They are designed for different purposes.

[@mykalimba]

When sending audio/video media to other devices, the RPi isn't doing any decoding, it is? It's just streaming the file in buffered chunks to the client device, which does the decoding itself, correct?

[@burgersnchips]

Tried following this with my already-installed Raspberry Pi OS installation. I can see why he used Ubuntu, RPiOS has weirdness with USB Drives and getting access inside Plex. It is fixable but complex.

[@iLLuzor]

Is it streams via local network or via the internet?

[@IbanMieZ]

Does overclocking the Pi help with Plex performance if running with a Fanshim or in an ArgonOne enclosure?

[@eurogeorge]

What is ETA Prime using as a Plex server?

[@chokeizm]

Do we need to fwd ports or anything to set it up ?

[@dotmatrixmoe]

I have this super old laptop I modded the heck out of. My brother wants to listen to his high bit rate music/videos normally, so I'll just set this up for him with my poor laptop. Luckily I know a script that prevents the laptop from sleeping even when its lid is closed. So yeah, I'm excited!

[@Hyydrotoo]

Is it also possible to install the operating system on the external drive aswell? Without the SD card?

[@pavan13]

I have installed Plex media server on my raspberry pi 3b+ on raspberry pi os and I installed plex media server using snapd it can stream 1080p videos at 2-3 devices at the same time and I haven't had any issues it works perfectly fine.

[@ThePawerStation]

@@shy6892 Yes. Just don't go up to 4K and beyond. 1080p is a safe bet.

[@pavan13]

@@shy6892 I don't think because I have copied many movies on the server which I have downloaded from torrent and I haven't faced any issues it has been over 2 months

[@pavan13]

@@ThePawerStation Ya you are absolutely right when I try to stream 4k videos I can stream a single second

[@bukt]

@@pavan13 Have you heard about Radarr? I use it to torrent movies from my phone and it automatically adds them to Plex.

[@RetroReels]

Best Plex server I’ve used is the Nvidia Shield for consistency - I don’t think the pi will cope very well for larger libraries

[@ryanlillie8469]

Is this still relevant? As in is there a faster system? I really want a plex server and I have many tb worth of media. Could this play 4k over my network to a roku or cc?

[@RCD295]

Does this also mean it will work outside my home network if I'm on a different wifi network?

[@seeking9145]

The raspberry pi has an ethernet port. Is it possible to host the server from one raspberry pi to another? I want to build two screens in a tiny network for my car, so my back-seat driver can watch all my movies and series

[@Randomgamingplus]

Very interesting. How well it can stream to a Chromcast? Can we use a SSD drive or a flash drive and if there is a limit for storage? How big should be the videos / music / pictures? Thank for sharing the video