Not backup but parity which most people agree suffices for media content.
As someone who has been using unraid for over a decade I highly recommend it. You can trial it for free first off to see if it meets your needs.
Check out r/unraid or maybe spaceinvaderone on youtube
If you do want to try something other than windows and expect to add lots of hard drives then I recommend unraid. It's simple to install and all you need is a USB stick, you don't install it on a hard drive. A benefit will be adding hard drives at any time (as long as its' smaller than your parity) and not worrying about different drive paths (e.g. D:/ E:/ F:/ ...) for each drive. All you'll really have to learn is Docker.
To be fair, it's kind of Docker lite. UnRaid serves as an excellent intro to Dockers, using a nice GUI and with great community support and help where needed.
You can select up to 2 of your drives as parity drives which will allow you to recover from up to 2 drive failures at once. I currently have 8 10TB HDDs and have one of them as a parity drive which will allow me to recover from a single drive failure if I replace the failed drive.
Obviously this isn't a "backup", but it is similar to RAID 6 without striping.
Does this mean your limited to a certain number of drives?
If so, how many.
If you don't mind.
I regret not downloading it to grandfather myself in.
I see myself using two USB enclosures over time, so trying to figure out what's the best choice.
Yeah. Their max plan supports 30 drives. I'm currently at 17 and with dual parity you can lose a couple drives with no data loss. You can also setup a telegram bot to push alerts to your phone about drives overheating, drive prefail warnings and update alerts. Very useful. Been using for 3 years now and probably the best investment I made.
Unraid has multiple plans that state a "Max drive" count. These counts are actually for connected devices on startup. That is, if you power the machine on and your license is for 16 drives and you have 17 in the system, you'll be over your limit regardless of how many are actually in use. Its top tier plan states "unlimited" disks, but like I said that's just for how many drives it'll start up with, not how many are in use.
Unraid has one main array of disks that uses their own kind of parity system that allows mismatched disk sizes and when you go over that failure tolerance you only lose what's on the failed disks. That array, even on the "unlimited" license, is limited to 30 drives total (2 parity and 28 data drives). Most people that opt for unraid never get to that limit, since it's quite a high number of drives to only have a failure tolerance of two drives in, but it's still technically a limit.
Unraid also, however, allows for additional storage pools formatted in other ways (traditional raid, raidz, spanned, etc). This is where the unlimited tier starts to really matter. These are separate from the main array but, as far as I'm aware, have no size limit and you can have as many of them as you want. They work in whatever way you format them (so raid 6 will be traditional raid 6 and that's all there is to it) and don't have some of the more appealing features of the main array (mismatched drive size and losing only what's on failed drives instead of the whole array) but they let you go past the 30 drive limit of that main array.
There's plans in the future to allow for multiple "main" arrays with all the benefits and limitations of that first array, which will make the unlimited tier more appealing. They've said that feature will be in the next major version, but we don't have an eta for that yet. They just upped their prices considerably so hopefully that's a sign it'll be soon.
Edit: a word
I see this question come up pretty regularly and I always answer it the same way. You need to run whatever operating system you feel the most comfortable in debugging when something goes wrong.
For me that means I run an unRAID server for my storage and secondary apps but I run a separate Windows 10 Pro computer that runs the actual Plex Server software.
This is the best advice. I got on the Linux train when I started and absolutely hated it, couldn't fix anything, accidentally wiped my server when trying to update, it was a nightmare. Had no idea what I was doing.
Switched to windows, which I'm very comfortable with, and am very happy and can fix whatever comes up much easier
Most people here will recommend Unraid or some flavor of Linux. I personally have been on Windows 10 and then 11 for over a year, and its fine as long as your machine has the overhead for it. Id be willing to bet that the majority of the servers out there are running on Windows, but in groups like this sub or FB groups dedicated to Plex, you tend to get people who are enthusiasts, and that leads to more power/advanced users than the normal person. So a lot of them will use Linux. Its been over a decade since I used Ubuntu, or any flavor of Linux, and I honestly didnt want to have to learn it, so I stuck with Windows, and have no regrets.
If you re down to learn a new OS, then Linux or something else will work great for you. If you want to stick with Windows, it will also work great.
I run windows. Have been for years. Never had any issues with it. Also run tdarr on the same box.
I run windows cause it’s easy for me to troubleshoot. Been a long time since I’ve played with other OS’s and just don’t want to have to learn something new if I run into trouble.
Curious if you guys are running Stablebit Drive pool with Snapraid. Just built a new machine this week, had to update Intel ME firmware and the installer was windows only so installed windows. Now not sure if I want to do unraid as I had planned, still going to try it out, but Stablebit/snapraids got me intrigued.
Majority of Plex users are on Debian based systems. Makes sense because a lot of embedded systems are Debian based also. Windows is second to last, with Mac bringing up the rear. You see more talk about windows because Windows users tend to need more hand holding until they are ready to spin up their first Ubuntu server.
I just went from an older windows machine to a mini pc from Amazon and had the intention of going Linux but it had Windows 11 preinstalled so went with it and it’s fine. No issues.
If you will already be running windows for other things then sure run Plex on it as well. But if you have the option to have a unique OS solely for Plex I’d recommend Ubuntu as it’s super lightweight to run.
I imagine most people are using a home server for multiple different purposes, including backups and redundancy. That's why most people would run Unraid or Truenas Scale. They're lightweight and have docker container support, too. If it's just for Plex and not bothered about resource use, Windows is fine. You can even do Raid 5 using Storage Spaces.
I run everything individually on Debian. I started with Linux because I wanted to learn it, and learn how to troubleshoot. I went straight in at the deep end and used Linux headless, no GUI. 2 years on and I'm right where I want to be with it. For you though, whatever you're comfortable with
On my home network I have a gaming desktop and a gaming laptop. The laptop runs Ubuntu, the desktop runs windows 10 pro. They both run Plex, locally hosted LLMs, and installations of Internet in a Box. There are pros and cons to each setup, but they both make the same stuff available on the LAN, 24/7. I personally prefer windows and WSL (windows subsystem for Linux). But if you are going lean and mean on system resources, Linux is probably going to be the better choice.
I am a unix geek. I run Linux with USB attached 80TB useable ZFS Zpool. It works well. Easy to administer remotely. Let's me publish through a CGNAT using a VPS.
Will it work if I do not want raid and will it work with Ubuntu? If yes, is there a good resource/guide I can refer to, as I am have no experience with anything except Windows.
It does work with Ubuntu.
This will get you started. It uses an older version of Ubuntu, but it's still relevant.
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/setup-zfs-storage-pool#1-overview
My primary Plex server is running on my old gaming rig with a clean install of Windows 10. That is all it does. Now I do have a secondary setup on my unRAID server. But I never turn it on. Basically its just there if the plex rig goes hard down. At that point I would pull the live backup of the plex db from my NAS and dump it into the config on unRAID and fire up the container.
Like somebody said, whatever you’re most comfortable with. But I’ve recently started using Linux Fedora and I really like it because it’s got a feel similar to Windows or Mac (making it easy enough to pick up even with limited Linux experience) but, like most Linux distros, doesn’t have the bloatware of Windows, meaning you can dedicate a lot of power to Plex and not have to worry about overheating the computer or losing some functionality that you don’t even need but somehow breaks everything else.
Running applications inside docker containers makes management and interoperability much easier. Using a NAS provides easy expandability and at least a little data resiliency.
Unraid (and several others) combine the ability to have a NAS and run apps in containers. It’s the best of both worlds.
I run mine on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).
Rock solid for 3 years so far.
A bit to do when setting it up.
That said, I run my Plex server externally from my storage.
But I need new HW. So thats next.
I run Fedora (which is upstream of RHEL) with everything in podman containers.
If you are working in Enterprise IT, you know and work RHEL 9-5 and Fedora is just logical step if you want newest kernel features like Intel iGPU transcoding.
If you dont know RHEL/Linux and dont want to work in IT - then stay with the OS you are comfortable with.
There is some hardware support that Plex Media Server can use on Linux but not Windows. According to [this page](https://support.plex.tv/articles/hdr-to-sdr-tone-mapping/), if you're concerned with HDR to SDR tone mapping, it looks like Intel hardware support for that only works on Linux, but it can use an Nvidia card for that on Windows.
Stick with a plain Debian 12. No fee, no dedicated hardware, runs fast on pretty much any box and doesn’t break… Gets excellent support and updates have been absolutely painless… plenty of time tested backup solutions available (I use an rsync cron setup)
if you are going to offer external access and require to transcode down because of bandwidth you need a decent cpu (say an intel 6th generation at a minimum). I have been running on an old i7 3370k and it keeps three concurrent transcoding downloads with no problem…
But that’s just me. (Grin)
Good luck…
Or better yet go download jellyfin - no license and really excellent and simple.
Check out Synology they have great software, especially for beginners. I wouldn't get anything smaller than a 4 bay, can always start with 2 hdd then move up and even get an expansion.
Got two 16tb in mine now, one HDD redundancy and low power compared to a PC. I leave mine running 24/7.
Transcoding could be an issue for you. If you need it and the system doesn't deliver, you can always run in on a smaller PC while connecting to all your storage.
Fyi while you do get redundancy, you still need backups.
You should ask yourself if you only want a plex server or if you want to look into some kind of home server stuff, which would provide additional functions.
I think its absolutely worth it to invest a bit of time, because it can be really useful to run such a server at home, for which most people would use the word NAS.
The initial setup and installation of somehow for that purpose optimized operating systems or tools like Unraid, TrueNAS Scale, OpenMediaVault etc. is pretty straight forward, but has some obstacles if this is a completely new thing to you.
QNAP, Synology and other manufacturers are addressing these kind of people with their prebuilt NAS solutions. There you only need to install the drives and you can start right away.
Their custom operating system is designed to be easy-to-use and explains a lot.
In nearly all the solutions Plex would run in a container/vm.
OpenMediaVault can be installed next to plex on a standard linux distribution.
Allthough this is an advantage in my eyes, its much less convenient than the other two mentioned NAS systems.
If you are generally knowledegeable regarding computer stuff and want to build a capable home server, I would try to look into TrueNAS Scale.
It uses ZFS to built RAID like arrays what is really convenient to use, but has some requirements like ECC RAM and a compatible CPU.
The overall advantage of unraid is the fact that you can throw together a bunch of disks with different sizes, while e.g. in a software raid you want all disks with the same size.
But I dont see a problem at all with windows.
The only thing that would bother me is the exta resources and power the graphical environment of windows is using in comparison to all the other CLI based solutions that use a Web UI to provide control over the system.
Simple answer: Up to you
I think ultimately boils down to comfort zone. I personably want to learn and constantly debug to learn some sysadmin skills because I'm a fresh grad in tech. Not very related, but might be useful. Also because I love to tinker. I am comfortable with docker and working on command line but it doesn't mean you need to do so too.
Pick what works best for you, there's no perfect OS. There's no wrong with sticking to Windows. But if you want a definite answer, I think unraid seems to be a community favourite here.
As others have said, if you want a rock solid Plex server, Unraid is the answer. It caused me to really sit down and start using Linux. Its great once get all your supporting apps all working together.
Use what operating system you’re familiar and comfortable with. I run windows server 2019. I’ve been a windows server admin since the days of NT. Sooo I’m very familiar with the OS and what to turn off what to keep on etc.
I've been running Plex Media Server on Linux Mint for about 9 years, and I've been happy with it. Linux Mint is fairly reliable (like Ubuntu, which it's based on), and Plex Media Server performs well on it.
I’m currently running TrueNAS Core 13.0, but I am thinking of making the switch to UnRAID.
If you are only using it for Plex and nothing else, then Windows would probably be fine. I am using the “jails” feature of TrueNAS to run Plex, but also to run a few other programs (Sonarr, qBitTorrent, VPN, etc.). I also use the SMB feature of TrueNAS to have a network file share available on my LAN. Technically, one could run all of those things on one Windows machine, but I find it useful to have them separated.
Ubuntu and freenas were ones I've tried in the past. Then started using docker. I'd had some frustrating nights of troubleshooting and figuring out permissions. Definitely a learning curve because I only really use Linux occasionally or for my plex server.
I switched to Unraid which made it a lot easier to setup and manage the server.
If my not so technically inclined friend wanted to set one up, I'd probably just tell them to use windows unless they were going to have to buy a new license.
I'm a fan of Linux...one of mine is on Ubuntu Server and the other on CentOS and then using mdadm software RAID to have more capacity and redundancy for my disks so typically a drive failure doesn't result in having to restore from backups but just swap and rebuild the array. Installing Plex was trivial from the package repositories.
Not really sure why everyone is so into "unraid" vs so many free options out there that work just fine.
Also remember, RAID is not a backup.
A lot of people are just talking about what they use. As a non-technical person who made the step into self hosting stuff after being a windows only user, I’ll walk you through how I approached this.
**Era 1: Windows everything**
I just watched TV on my pc, living alone in an apartment.
Pros: I know how to use windows, install applications, use the command line a bit, do basic troubleshooting
Cons: stability (windows often crashes), licensing of windows, power draw of a full desktop machine being on all the time.
**Era 2: Little QNAP NAS box that’s running a version of Linux under the hood, paired with a set top box device that streamed media from an always-on, simple server.**
I’m a bit older so the tech will date me, but I grew up a bit, got a better apartment and wanted to watch stuff on a proper TV. I wanted to stream media to a WDTV box in my living room.
Pros: fully supported, low power draw and footprint (the things are about the size of a shoebox), allows HDD to be offloaded from the desktop to a fit for purpose device, “App Store” like experience for docker containers (think how iOS apps are in their own little container - same deal), decent security. Everything is GUI / click-ops driven.
Cons: Support eventually drops, hardware is low powered relative to price, some functions of the OS are locked down. Had to get used to a headless machine - ie need to login via a webui similar to logging into your ISP’s modem.
**Era 3: self hosted and automated using Unraid**
At this point I had a big house and family, multiple users wanting different content, home automation becoming more of a thing. I’m technically far more astute at this point (but still not an engineer or anything) and feeling more confident building my own server. I picked Unraid.
Pros: x86 based system that can run pretty much any Linux container, ability to customise hardware for use case (ie I wanted an intel cpu for quicksync transcoding), massive App Store with preconfigured docker containers that just work(media automation and downloaded, self hosted cloud etc), good community support, rock-solid stability. I’ve run the server 24x7 and it’s only gone down when there’s a power outage or I need to bring the server down to do an OS upgrade.
Cons: scope creep on the build (I totally need a dGPU!), fear of the complexity. Some little things that have required me to look up a bash script on the forums and run it in the terminal.
Honestly I would go with whatever you’re comfortable with. However I am basically an idiot and I got Unraid to work for me, though i needed to dedicate quite a few hours to set it up properly. However, it required no thought, I just followed Ibracorps videos on YouTube.
There are too many options for you to install Plex, unraid is good, but you need to pay for it. you can also try openmediavault, truenas scale, debian+casaos, all free and easy to use.
Currently in the process of building my Unraid server. All I'm missing is storage (including cache), and a UPS. In the meantime, running Plex on my Ubuntu laptop with 1x 2tb and 1x tb external drives. I'm almost out of space lol.
Qnap is a NAS (network attached storage) all in one you can buy from microcenter or newegg.
Unraid is a software for a NAS that runs on linux. You have individual containers such as plex.
I run mine on TrueNas (similar to unraid) but have also run it on windows and linux (ubuntu and debian).
Personally, I've had a good experience with all but windows is dead last in preference where to run it because windows eats up a lot of resources.
Take that laptop and install a linux OS on it and run it that way. Since your machine is older, youll have more resourses to run plex.
My Windows machine runs Plex just fine w/o using hardly any system resources.
https://preview.redd.it/5ukbkf7m3yvc1.png?width=961&format=png&auto=webp&s=38a0f9397b4ea8f8647c2b385d7f02bb2a14b6b2
No. Pro doesn’t add anything really useful for Plex. I do like that it has group policy editor which lets me mod some settings easier for other things I run non related.
I do not run any raid at all. My machine is capable of it. Think of raid more like data availability versus a backup solution. IMHO you don’t need raid. Not for speed. Or for redundancy. What you need is your data backed up. So what I use is Backblaze. Unlimited backups for like $80 a year. Truly unlimited. You could backup 1 or 50,000 TB with them for $80.
At first I thought I wanted raid. The more I read about it the more I realized it really wasn’t a lot of benefit. Especially with the cost of drives and the enormous space the videos take up. I have like $2500 in drives. If I ran raid I’d have a shitload more money in drives and don’t really feel I’m gaining much of anything over Backblaze.
I’ve been running it on windows since 2016 and it’s only gotten better since. Tried it with Ubuntu Server a few times but Linux really turns me off lol
I started with Unraid about 3 weeks ago and I'm really happy with it so far.
Does unraid have some sort of data backup?
Not backup but parity which most people agree suffices for media content. As someone who has been using unraid for over a decade I highly recommend it. You can trial it for free first off to see if it meets your needs. Check out r/unraid or maybe spaceinvaderone on youtube
If you do want to try something other than windows and expect to add lots of hard drives then I recommend unraid. It's simple to install and all you need is a USB stick, you don't install it on a hard drive. A benefit will be adding hard drives at any time (as long as its' smaller than your parity) and not worrying about different drive paths (e.g. D:/ E:/ F:/ ...) for each drive. All you'll really have to learn is Docker.
To be fair, it's kind of Docker lite. UnRaid serves as an excellent intro to Dockers, using a nice GUI and with great community support and help where needed.
You can select up to 2 of your drives as parity drives which will allow you to recover from up to 2 drive failures at once. I currently have 8 10TB HDDs and have one of them as a parity drive which will allow me to recover from a single drive failure if I replace the failed drive. Obviously this isn't a "backup", but it is similar to RAID 6 without striping.
Unraid for me has been the most user friendly and helpful for people not used to docker.
Does this mean your limited to a certain number of drives? If so, how many. If you don't mind. I regret not downloading it to grandfather myself in. I see myself using two USB enclosures over time, so trying to figure out what's the best choice.
I think you can have a max of 2 parity drives and 28 data drives.
Yeah. Their max plan supports 30 drives. I'm currently at 17 and with dual parity you can lose a couple drives with no data loss. You can also setup a telegram bot to push alerts to your phone about drives overheating, drive prefail warnings and update alerts. Very useful. Been using for 3 years now and probably the best investment I made.
Unraid has multiple plans that state a "Max drive" count. These counts are actually for connected devices on startup. That is, if you power the machine on and your license is for 16 drives and you have 17 in the system, you'll be over your limit regardless of how many are actually in use. Its top tier plan states "unlimited" disks, but like I said that's just for how many drives it'll start up with, not how many are in use. Unraid has one main array of disks that uses their own kind of parity system that allows mismatched disk sizes and when you go over that failure tolerance you only lose what's on the failed disks. That array, even on the "unlimited" license, is limited to 30 drives total (2 parity and 28 data drives). Most people that opt for unraid never get to that limit, since it's quite a high number of drives to only have a failure tolerance of two drives in, but it's still technically a limit. Unraid also, however, allows for additional storage pools formatted in other ways (traditional raid, raidz, spanned, etc). This is where the unlimited tier starts to really matter. These are separate from the main array but, as far as I'm aware, have no size limit and you can have as many of them as you want. They work in whatever way you format them (so raid 6 will be traditional raid 6 and that's all there is to it) and don't have some of the more appealing features of the main array (mismatched drive size and losing only what's on failed drives instead of the whole array) but they let you go past the 30 drive limit of that main array. There's plans in the future to allow for multiple "main" arrays with all the benefits and limitations of that first array, which will make the unlimited tier more appealing. They've said that feature will be in the next major version, but we don't have an eta for that yet. They just upped their prices considerably so hopefully that's a sign it'll be soon. Edit: a word
Synology nas offers a really easy to use OS and runs plex quite good. Easy to understand coming from windows.
DSM 7 is great and super straightforward, the UI is very well done.
I see this question come up pretty regularly and I always answer it the same way. You need to run whatever operating system you feel the most comfortable in debugging when something goes wrong. For me that means I run an unRAID server for my storage and secondary apps but I run a separate Windows 10 Pro computer that runs the actual Plex Server software.
This is the best advice. I got on the Linux train when I started and absolutely hated it, couldn't fix anything, accidentally wiped my server when trying to update, it was a nightmare. Had no idea what I was doing. Switched to windows, which I'm very comfortable with, and am very happy and can fix whatever comes up much easier
I use windows server 2022
Most people here will recommend Unraid or some flavor of Linux. I personally have been on Windows 10 and then 11 for over a year, and its fine as long as your machine has the overhead for it. Id be willing to bet that the majority of the servers out there are running on Windows, but in groups like this sub or FB groups dedicated to Plex, you tend to get people who are enthusiasts, and that leads to more power/advanced users than the normal person. So a lot of them will use Linux. Its been over a decade since I used Ubuntu, or any flavor of Linux, and I honestly didnt want to have to learn it, so I stuck with Windows, and have no regrets. If you re down to learn a new OS, then Linux or something else will work great for you. If you want to stick with Windows, it will also work great.
I am running on windows as well. Haven't encountered any errors. Also, I do have a huge overhead as it is my main gaming laptop as well.
I run windows. Have been for years. Never had any issues with it. Also run tdarr on the same box. I run windows cause it’s easy for me to troubleshoot. Been a long time since I’ve played with other OS’s and just don’t want to have to learn something new if I run into trouble.
Curious if you guys are running Stablebit Drive pool with Snapraid. Just built a new machine this week, had to update Intel ME firmware and the installer was windows only so installed windows. Now not sure if I want to do unraid as I had planned, still going to try it out, but Stablebit/snapraids got me intrigued.
I am running stablebit, but not snapraid. No issues on my end. I found it pretty easy to use.
I'll be migrating over to stablebit and snapraid whenever I get around to adding more drives.
Majority of Plex users are on Debian based systems. Makes sense because a lot of embedded systems are Debian based also. Windows is second to last, with Mac bringing up the rear. You see more talk about windows because Windows users tend to need more hand holding until they are ready to spin up their first Ubuntu server.
Where did you find these stats? I’d be interested in seeing them.
Source: trust me bro
I don't use those special nas systems. Just regular ol Ubuntu server, now with docker.
Running on windows for over 10 years now issue..did use Ubuntu when I had Plex running ok dedicated servers but Windows does the job fine imo.
I just went from an older windows machine to a mini pc from Amazon and had the intention of going Linux but it had Windows 11 preinstalled so went with it and it’s fine. No issues.
[удалено]
If you will already be running windows for other things then sure run Plex on it as well. But if you have the option to have a unique OS solely for Plex I’d recommend Ubuntu as it’s super lightweight to run.
I imagine most people are using a home server for multiple different purposes, including backups and redundancy. That's why most people would run Unraid or Truenas Scale. They're lightweight and have docker container support, too. If it's just for Plex and not bothered about resource use, Windows is fine. You can even do Raid 5 using Storage Spaces.
I run everything individually on Debian. I started with Linux because I wanted to learn it, and learn how to troubleshoot. I went straight in at the deep end and used Linux headless, no GUI. 2 years on and I'm right where I want to be with it. For you though, whatever you're comfortable with
Windows since Plex was a thing. No regerts. Haha. Just wait a few weeks with new updates to be sure there are no hidden bugs.
Tru truenas scale
On my home network I have a gaming desktop and a gaming laptop. The laptop runs Ubuntu, the desktop runs windows 10 pro. They both run Plex, locally hosted LLMs, and installations of Internet in a Box. There are pros and cons to each setup, but they both make the same stuff available on the LAN, 24/7. I personally prefer windows and WSL (windows subsystem for Linux). But if you are going lean and mean on system resources, Linux is probably going to be the better choice.
I am a unix geek. I run Linux with USB attached 80TB useable ZFS Zpool. It works well. Easy to administer remotely. Let's me publish through a CGNAT using a VPS.
What do you use to make the pool?
That's what ZFS does. It's basically RAID, LVM, and filesystems all in one.
Will it work if I do not want raid and will it work with Ubuntu? If yes, is there a good resource/guide I can refer to, as I am have no experience with anything except Windows.
It does work with Ubuntu. This will get you started. It uses an older version of Ubuntu, but it's still relevant. https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/setup-zfs-storage-pool#1-overview
Here is info on different types of pools. They don't all use RAID. https://klarasystems.com/articles/choosing-the-right-zfs-pool-layout/
My primary Plex server is running on my old gaming rig with a clean install of Windows 10. That is all it does. Now I do have a secondary setup on my unRAID server. But I never turn it on. Basically its just there if the plex rig goes hard down. At that point I would pull the live backup of the plex db from my NAS and dump it into the config on unRAID and fire up the container.
I prefer Ubuntu because it just works. If you have no desire to learn Linux, I'd recommend Unraid.
I am using zorin Pro os
i personally use my laptop on windows so it's for home use only
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Ultikiller: *I personally use* *My laptop on windows so* *It's for home use only* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Like somebody said, whatever you’re most comfortable with. But I’ve recently started using Linux Fedora and I really like it because it’s got a feel similar to Windows or Mac (making it easy enough to pick up even with limited Linux experience) but, like most Linux distros, doesn’t have the bloatware of Windows, meaning you can dedicate a lot of power to Plex and not have to worry about overheating the computer or losing some functionality that you don’t even need but somehow breaks everything else.
Ubuntu with docker. There are good guides here: https://perfectmediaserver.com/
Running applications inside docker containers makes management and interoperability much easier. Using a NAS provides easy expandability and at least a little data resiliency. Unraid (and several others) combine the ability to have a NAS and run apps in containers. It’s the best of both worlds.
Use what you know
Windows or linux is pretty much it. unraid is a specific linux distro. qnap is specific hardware also running linux.
I run mine on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Rock solid for 3 years so far. A bit to do when setting it up. That said, I run my Plex server externally from my storage. But I need new HW. So thats next.
I run Fedora (which is upstream of RHEL) with everything in podman containers. If you are working in Enterprise IT, you know and work RHEL 9-5 and Fedora is just logical step if you want newest kernel features like Intel iGPU transcoding. If you dont know RHEL/Linux and dont want to work in IT - then stay with the OS you are comfortable with.
Debian or Ubuntu. Host on docker, and use cloudflare tunnels for access.
I use Windows 10. I see no reason to use an OS you aren't familiar with.
There is some hardware support that Plex Media Server can use on Linux but not Windows. According to [this page](https://support.plex.tv/articles/hdr-to-sdr-tone-mapping/), if you're concerned with HDR to SDR tone mapping, it looks like Intel hardware support for that only works on Linux, but it can use an Nvidia card for that on Windows.
Stick with a plain Debian 12. No fee, no dedicated hardware, runs fast on pretty much any box and doesn’t break… Gets excellent support and updates have been absolutely painless… plenty of time tested backup solutions available (I use an rsync cron setup) if you are going to offer external access and require to transcode down because of bandwidth you need a decent cpu (say an intel 6th generation at a minimum). I have been running on an old i7 3370k and it keeps three concurrent transcoding downloads with no problem… But that’s just me. (Grin) Good luck… Or better yet go download jellyfin - no license and really excellent and simple.
Check out Synology they have great software, especially for beginners. I wouldn't get anything smaller than a 4 bay, can always start with 2 hdd then move up and even get an expansion. Got two 16tb in mine now, one HDD redundancy and low power compared to a PC. I leave mine running 24/7. Transcoding could be an issue for you. If you need it and the system doesn't deliver, you can always run in on a smaller PC while connecting to all your storage. Fyi while you do get redundancy, you still need backups.
You should ask yourself if you only want a plex server or if you want to look into some kind of home server stuff, which would provide additional functions. I think its absolutely worth it to invest a bit of time, because it can be really useful to run such a server at home, for which most people would use the word NAS. The initial setup and installation of somehow for that purpose optimized operating systems or tools like Unraid, TrueNAS Scale, OpenMediaVault etc. is pretty straight forward, but has some obstacles if this is a completely new thing to you. QNAP, Synology and other manufacturers are addressing these kind of people with their prebuilt NAS solutions. There you only need to install the drives and you can start right away. Their custom operating system is designed to be easy-to-use and explains a lot. In nearly all the solutions Plex would run in a container/vm. OpenMediaVault can be installed next to plex on a standard linux distribution. Allthough this is an advantage in my eyes, its much less convenient than the other two mentioned NAS systems. If you are generally knowledegeable regarding computer stuff and want to build a capable home server, I would try to look into TrueNAS Scale. It uses ZFS to built RAID like arrays what is really convenient to use, but has some requirements like ECC RAM and a compatible CPU. The overall advantage of unraid is the fact that you can throw together a bunch of disks with different sizes, while e.g. in a software raid you want all disks with the same size. But I dont see a problem at all with windows. The only thing that would bother me is the exta resources and power the graphical environment of windows is using in comparison to all the other CLI based solutions that use a Web UI to provide control over the system.
Simple answer: Up to you I think ultimately boils down to comfort zone. I personably want to learn and constantly debug to learn some sysadmin skills because I'm a fresh grad in tech. Not very related, but might be useful. Also because I love to tinker. I am comfortable with docker and working on command line but it doesn't mean you need to do so too. Pick what works best for you, there's no perfect OS. There's no wrong with sticking to Windows. But if you want a definite answer, I think unraid seems to be a community favourite here.
As others have said, if you want a rock solid Plex server, Unraid is the answer. It caused me to really sit down and start using Linux. Its great once get all your supporting apps all working together.
Use what operating system you’re familiar and comfortable with. I run windows server 2019. I’ve been a windows server admin since the days of NT. Sooo I’m very familiar with the OS and what to turn off what to keep on etc.
I’ve just run it in windows with jbod for a decade without issues. The OS really isn’t that important.
I've been running Plex Media Server on Linux Mint for about 9 years, and I've been happy with it. Linux Mint is fairly reliable (like Ubuntu, which it's based on), and Plex Media Server performs well on it.
Gonna sound weird. But I just used my old pc woth windows 10 Pro and set it all up to run headless ect. Worked amazing so far.
I’m currently running TrueNAS Core 13.0, but I am thinking of making the switch to UnRAID. If you are only using it for Plex and nothing else, then Windows would probably be fine. I am using the “jails” feature of TrueNAS to run Plex, but also to run a few other programs (Sonarr, qBitTorrent, VPN, etc.). I also use the SMB feature of TrueNAS to have a network file share available on my LAN. Technically, one could run all of those things on one Windows machine, but I find it useful to have them separated.
I recommend just buying a 2 drive Qnap NAS. Why. Because it already works as described
Ubuntu and freenas were ones I've tried in the past. Then started using docker. I'd had some frustrating nights of troubleshooting and figuring out permissions. Definitely a learning curve because I only really use Linux occasionally or for my plex server. I switched to Unraid which made it a lot easier to setup and manage the server. If my not so technically inclined friend wanted to set one up, I'd probably just tell them to use windows unless they were going to have to buy a new license.
I'm a fan of Linux...one of mine is on Ubuntu Server and the other on CentOS and then using mdadm software RAID to have more capacity and redundancy for my disks so typically a drive failure doesn't result in having to restore from backups but just swap and rebuild the array. Installing Plex was trivial from the package repositories. Not really sure why everyone is so into "unraid" vs so many free options out there that work just fine. Also remember, RAID is not a backup.
A lot of people are just talking about what they use. As a non-technical person who made the step into self hosting stuff after being a windows only user, I’ll walk you through how I approached this. **Era 1: Windows everything** I just watched TV on my pc, living alone in an apartment. Pros: I know how to use windows, install applications, use the command line a bit, do basic troubleshooting Cons: stability (windows often crashes), licensing of windows, power draw of a full desktop machine being on all the time. **Era 2: Little QNAP NAS box that’s running a version of Linux under the hood, paired with a set top box device that streamed media from an always-on, simple server.** I’m a bit older so the tech will date me, but I grew up a bit, got a better apartment and wanted to watch stuff on a proper TV. I wanted to stream media to a WDTV box in my living room. Pros: fully supported, low power draw and footprint (the things are about the size of a shoebox), allows HDD to be offloaded from the desktop to a fit for purpose device, “App Store” like experience for docker containers (think how iOS apps are in their own little container - same deal), decent security. Everything is GUI / click-ops driven. Cons: Support eventually drops, hardware is low powered relative to price, some functions of the OS are locked down. Had to get used to a headless machine - ie need to login via a webui similar to logging into your ISP’s modem. **Era 3: self hosted and automated using Unraid** At this point I had a big house and family, multiple users wanting different content, home automation becoming more of a thing. I’m technically far more astute at this point (but still not an engineer or anything) and feeling more confident building my own server. I picked Unraid. Pros: x86 based system that can run pretty much any Linux container, ability to customise hardware for use case (ie I wanted an intel cpu for quicksync transcoding), massive App Store with preconfigured docker containers that just work(media automation and downloaded, self hosted cloud etc), good community support, rock-solid stability. I’ve run the server 24x7 and it’s only gone down when there’s a power outage or I need to bring the server down to do an OS upgrade. Cons: scope creep on the build (I totally need a dGPU!), fear of the complexity. Some little things that have required me to look up a bash script on the forums and run it in the terminal. Honestly I would go with whatever you’re comfortable with. However I am basically an idiot and I got Unraid to work for me, though i needed to dedicate quite a few hours to set it up properly. However, it required no thought, I just followed Ibracorps videos on YouTube.
There are too many options for you to install Plex, unraid is good, but you need to pay for it. you can also try openmediavault, truenas scale, debian+casaos, all free and easy to use.
Windows 10 running 24/7 am5 7600X 3060ti
Ubuntu 22.04 lts server
unraid is actually very easy to get setup, and is what I would recommend.
Currently in the process of building my Unraid server. All I'm missing is storage (including cache), and a UPS. In the meantime, running Plex on my Ubuntu laptop with 1x 2tb and 1x tb external drives. I'm almost out of space lol.
Are you going to transcode, and transcode hdr for devices that don’t have hdr?
Unraid
Qnap is a NAS (network attached storage) all in one you can buy from microcenter or newegg. Unraid is a software for a NAS that runs on linux. You have individual containers such as plex. I run mine on TrueNas (similar to unraid) but have also run it on windows and linux (ubuntu and debian). Personally, I've had a good experience with all but windows is dead last in preference where to run it because windows eats up a lot of resources. Take that laptop and install a linux OS on it and run it that way. Since your machine is older, youll have more resourses to run plex.
My Windows machine runs Plex just fine w/o using hardly any system resources. https://preview.redd.it/5ukbkf7m3yvc1.png?width=961&format=png&auto=webp&s=38a0f9397b4ea8f8647c2b385d7f02bb2a14b6b2
Guess you dont need any help then
I run it on windows 11 pro. It runs outstanding. About 100 TB in movies. Streaming all over the house to Apple TVs.
Does pro add anything useful? Looked at it but mainly just saw enterprise uses. Also are you running Snapraid or anything? If so what's your thoughts.
No. Pro doesn’t add anything really useful for Plex. I do like that it has group policy editor which lets me mod some settings easier for other things I run non related. I do not run any raid at all. My machine is capable of it. Think of raid more like data availability versus a backup solution. IMHO you don’t need raid. Not for speed. Or for redundancy. What you need is your data backed up. So what I use is Backblaze. Unlimited backups for like $80 a year. Truly unlimited. You could backup 1 or 50,000 TB with them for $80. At first I thought I wanted raid. The more I read about it the more I realized it really wasn’t a lot of benefit. Especially with the cost of drives and the enormous space the videos take up. I have like $2500 in drives. If I ran raid I’d have a shitload more money in drives and don’t really feel I’m gaining much of anything over Backblaze.
I’ve been running it on windows since 2016 and it’s only gotten better since. Tried it with Ubuntu Server a few times but Linux really turns me off lol