Cheap media device for Plex Streaming

Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

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I can get a laptop with Pentium 3825u and 4gb ram with 1tb hdd for about £190 or I can go the mini pc route for about £90 exc HDD. What's the best way to go to get a streaming device for Plex?

Thanks
 
Roku device or NowTV box with the Plex app sideloaded (if that still works?)

Assume you have nothing else like a games console that can run the app, or a Smart TV with either the app or a web browser?
 
are you talking about building a plex server, or something to watch it on?

If it's a server you need, greatly depends on your requirements. Do you intend you direct stream the media across the LAN, or do you need transcoding to support a range of devices both on and off the LAN?

Transcoding 1080p requires a CPU with a passmark score of 2,000. Do you need future growth to scale out?

My plex server started back in 2010ish? and has grown across a 4 blade (48 core xeon) server estate with 1gbps upload speed
 
Last edited:
glen8 said:
are you talking about building a plex server, or something to watch it on?

If it's a server you need, greatly depends on your requirements. Do you intend you direct stream the media across the LAN, or do you need transcoding to support a range of devices both on and off the LAN?

Transcoding 1080p requires a CPU with a passmark score of 2,000. Do you need future growth to scale out?

My plex server started back in 2011ish? and has grown across a 4 blade (48 core xeon) server estate with 1gbps upload speed
Click to expand...

Talking about a server, not a client device.

I just want to direct stream and remotely connect to it. Will the pi 2 B model work for this?
 
The issue you'll have is rendering the catalog. Those cloud based hard disks from seagate and WD have the ability to run PMS, and although it works, it's not a great user experience. It's slow, even just direct streaming, accessing it and viewing the cover art is slow.

Not seem PMS on a pi, but a low powered desktop pc would be better I'd have thought
 
I've seen desktop i3 and i5 processors on ebay with a passmark of around 2,500 sell for between £10-£20

Just need to bag a cheap case, psu, mobo, ram and os drive (or perhaps run a linux usb stick)

I'd have thought you could build something decent for £100
 
Trojan Horse said:
Talking about a server, not a client device.
Click to expand...

Not a Roku then! OP should have been clearer...

I had a Celeron NUC running Plex Server for years without issue, should be able to pick one of those up cheap <£100.00 second hand. Very small footprint and low power.
 
I bought an end of life HP micro server a threw a couple of disks in with FreeNAS loaded to a USB stick. I watch on a tablet and cast to my TV using a 2nd gen Chromecast. Works very well and cost around £300.
 
My setup is plex server on a HP microserver in the living room with a few disks in it for RAID and a couple of Pi's round the house connected to it via home plugs for streaming. Cheap and effective :)
 
another alternative if it's solely used for LAN direct streaming, would be a router which has an onboard dlna server. Just attach a large disk, enable ftp / samba / dlna and copy media to it via windows. It will automatically appear on your clients (so long as they have dlna player). Kodi works well, as when you access a dlna server, it downloads coverart for you.

Asus routers even have a cloud player app which works across the internet.
 
The hp gen8 microservers are often on offer. Mine came to about £185 including hard drive after cash back.

Base unit enough to run 1 1080 transcode (if needed).
Memory can be upgraded and the cpu can be upgraded (a xeon E3- 1220v2/1230v2/1265Lv2) if you feel you need to add to it at a later date.
 
glen8 said:
I've seen desktop i3 and i5 processors on ebay with a passmark of around 2,500 sell for between £10-£20

Just need to bag a cheap case, psu, mobo, ram and os drive (or perhaps run a linux usb stick)

I'd have thought you could build something decent for £100
Click to expand...

I would do that but I want to use my £10 off code on a rainforest site. Also, finding a Socket 1156 motherboard, and a small enough case, for cheaps, is pretty hard. I might just have to go the Pi 2 route ;(
 
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