2012 i7 Mini vs Intel NUC (NUC6i5SYK)

[AaronE]

This is my dilemma. I want either a Mac Mini or Intel NUC to use as my PLEX server. I'm partial to Macs, but don't mind going with something cheaper.

I will only be using it to serve media locally in my house with minimal transcoding. No outside streaming for now.

If anyone else has had this decision to make, what option did you go with?

 

[iccb]

Do you have space for your media? If don't, U can think to by snap/synology nas which store your data and serves as flex server..

 

[burne]

I will only be using it to serve media locally in my house with minimal transcoding.

You don't need an i7. To copy a file from disk to a network connection a 386DX is overkill. Buy the cheapest Mac Mini and invest the money you saved in larger disks.

 

[EmlynDewar]

For the intended use I would get the latest i3 NUC, still hyperthreaded just no turbo.

 

[Lankyman]

I use Synology - two 4TB HDDs in RAID 1 configuration has it's own Plex app and is more versatile. With the availability of low cost modern dedicated NAS units, using something like a PC is old school now

 

[pixelatedscraps]

I use Synology - two 4TB HDDs in RAID 1 configuration has it's own Plex app and is more versatile. With the availability of low cost modern dedicated NAS units, using something like a PC is old school now

I second this approach - and own a DS214Play - but if I were buying a new NAS for home media streaming, I'd go for QNAP - their boxes have HDMI outs...

 

[Boyd01]

Wouldn't a base model i5/4gb/500gb HD mini be more than adequate for plex? You will want your media on a big fast external drive anyway. I don't use plex but I have the base mini as an iTunes and file server. I think you could argue that even the base mini is overkill. The last time I looked at boxes like Synology they had really wimpy little CPU's and tiny amounts of RAM. Basically just a cheap little Linux box with some expensive disk drives.

Surely a base Mini is way more powerful than that? And we're seeing big box stores blow the base Mini's out for $400 or sometimes less. I have regular Apple File Sharing enabled on my base mini and get sustained transfer speeds over 100MB/sec with gigabit ethernet.