Dedicated Plex Media Server - Which OS / Software to make it like a NAS

Tomtom3989

Tomtom3989

Tomtom3989

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Beccles, Suffolk
Hello, any help or guidance would be so much appreciated

Current Setup
AMD Athlon 5350
MSI AM1I
4GB Corsair RAM 1333
MSI GeForce GT 720
Samsung 120GB SSD (I know unnecessary)
WD 3TB Red
Windows 10 64bit home (this is what I want to remove and replace with another OS if possible)

What I would like to do is be able to turn on this machine (hidden out the way) and it has Plex media server running so I can access it from the Apple TV / ipad / Fire TV and also act as a backup drive that can be accessed from my pc. The main thing thou is that I would like it not to have to be connected to a monitor, mouse and keyboard after the initial setup and any changes to the machine could be made on another pc through a browser.

At the minute I've got windows with just the plex media sever and I can add movies through windows file sharing and I can update / edit the plex server remotely and windows 10 seems to update itself. But any other changes i need to use a mouse and keyboard.

I have seen something called freeNAS and something linux based however I don't know if that's any different from what I'm doing.
I hope what I am asking for makes sense and any advice, tips or links or even what you use using would be fantastic because this is rattling my brain and I don't know where to look.
Many Thanks
Thomas
 
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Thank you, I did briefly try team viewer but found it more of a pain than connecting another mouse and keyboard. I will try another remote desktop programme if I cannot find another OS that will act like a NAS
Edit; I believe I need the pro version of windows to use RDP
 
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Tomtom3989 said:
Thank you, I did briefly try team viewer but found it more of a pain than connecting another mouse and keyboard. I will try another remote desktop programme if I cannot find another OS that will act like a NAS
Edit; I believe I need the pro version of windows to use RDP
Click to expand...

Fair enough you may wish to consider an alternative OS then :)
 
is freenas compatible with pc hardware? or is it designed solely for nas systems? Could be worth a look as I've heard good things about it and plex is compatible with it.
 
Or keep Windows on it and use VNC instead of TeamViewer if you find that hassle. Windows with VNC will do that job just fine.
 
Plex on Ubuntu is what I use. Stick samba on there and you're good to go. Freenas is good and all (I use it as my NAS and a separate box with ubuntu for plex) but jails/plugins can be tedious and file share permissions a complete nightmare. They also recommend using ECC with zfs (not that I bother) . Ubuntu would be a great learning experience if that's any consideration for you.
 
How was using Teamviewer more awkward than connecting a new keyboard or mouse.

You click on it, enter a password and then you are on the desktop like you are at the machine.

I manage over a 100 machines using Teamviewer.

At home I have a windows 8.1 machine with loads of hard drives, this runs Plex and is space for storage with everyone in the house having their own mapped network drives to their own server storage area.
 
Thank you all so much for the information. I've got a lot to look through now. Just needed pointing in the right direction. Think I am going to start with the Ubuntu server and see how I get on. I'm trying to avoid the need for any remote desktop software.
 
Ubuntu isn't a bad place to start, I did. But openmediavault is more like what you are after eventually.
Click to expand...
Think you right. Just watched endless youtube videos and its looks like a lot of the linux based stuff (which i'm still gonna try for curiosity) will result in basically the same thing i'm doing with windows (plex server + homegroup for sharing). Whereas both freenas and openmediavault will turn what i have into a NAS (like a synology) that i can tweak and add plugins to like plex via a brower interface. Yaiiiii :) Think i'm making progress. Looks like freenas is a little easier too. Thank you everyone. I will post results when i'm done.
 
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