My idea is to use my late 2014 Mac mini as a Plex server for the family media. I'm about to switch out the internal SSD for a 1TB internal SSD, but I want to add more storage. Can I use an external SSD in a USB enclosure? My idea is to pick up a 2TB NVMe drive and pop it into the enclosure I have. If I eventually need more storage, I would move to a dual NVMe enclosure and add another 2TB NVMe drive at that time. Could Plex deal with this? Can you have your library in more than one location? Would I be better segregating media, such as music on the internal SSD and movies/TV shows on the external?
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Mac mini as Plex server basic question re: media storage
- Thread starter zachiedoo
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Yes, Plex absolutely can do it this way. I have an external HDD on my iMac that hosts all of my Plex media. You just have to point Plex to the folders on that drive. You wouldn't want to split up your media into multiple locations. By that, all TV Shows should be on the same drive, but Movies could be on another. Just tell Plex where they are.
EDIT: Actually I took a quick gander at my Plex Server's settings and you can actually set multiple locations to pull from for any given category. I can't say I'd recommend doing that because it'd get confusing real fast from managing it, but I tend to be a little anal in this regard. "Everything in its place"!
Thanks much.
Can Plex use two locations? ie, could I have some media on the internal drive and other on the external drive?
Yes. I keep all of my media on different (spinner) HDDs (no gain at all by using expensive SSDs). Only the library is located on the internal SSD - and even there I outsourced large cache folders to the HDDs.
(screenshot is from Windows, therefore the drive letters)
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Yes.
Regarding the NVMe enclosure, I recommend not cheaping-out on that. There are plenty of low cost options out there but they don't all work reliably. Find one from a reputable brand and good ratings.
My Plex server storage currently consists of two 7 TB external spinner harddrives. I will eventually convert them to SSD but I'm not satisfied with any of the current options.
Yes. Check the edit to my last post. But yes. Just point it to wherever your files are.
The one I happen to have bought is an Orico M.2 SSD NVMe + SATA aluminum alloy shell model and they seem to be liked by the three reviews I checked (3 websites, not 3 purchasers), so I'll go with that.
Two 7TB??? I hope you didn't have to transfer all that from DVDs 😳
Yes I did...
Over 1000 films on DVD and over 4000 TV episodes on DVD. All DVDs are my own (no piracy).But the drives aren't completely full... about 3/4 full.
:fainting:Yes I did...
But the drives aren't completely full... about 3/4 full.
😂🤣
I work from home, and during the pandemic I just kept feeding discs into my DVD drive to be processed by Handbrake. It took a few months but the results are worth it. I've got all of my original DVD discs in binders (except for those in collectible cases).
So what does one do, going forward? (Once all the existing old DVD's & Blu-ray have been loaded) I haven't bought a new recent movie in quite a while. Do they all come with digital copies now and you just download and convert? Or do only Blu-ray come with digital copies? Presumably you can download them and convert them also?
I don't do anything with the digital copies other than register them to my online account. I haven't investigated the possibility of downloading the digital copies because they are fully DRM'ed. I'm content to rip the physical disc (and include things like subtitles and additional audio tracks).
While I may eventually do that, I don’t really want to lay out that kind of money right now. I have the mini on hand, I had planned on upgrading it already and can get it to where I need it more cheaply than with the NAS option. I also like repurposing tech rather than sending it to the landfill.
It won't be for naught. If the Mini doesn't work for this purpose, it'll be used for something else. No money wasted. But thanks for your concern.
Here is my set up.
2014 Mini. Came with a 500GB spinner and I've been too lazy to disassemble and replace with a SSD so I added an external Boot up Drive connected via USB which is still faster than the internal.
Then I have a 4 Bay JBOD box from MediaSonic which was only was about 110 buck.
It has crashed exactly 2-3 times in 7 years and it's up 24/7.
Movies count is 3200ish and tv is about 180 tv series all full seasons and I can stream to around 4 people at the same time.
It would make my life easier if it was on a M1 as, this mini is definitely showing it's age but, it's been a trooper for sure.
EDIT: It's headless no keyboard/mouse but, I just use screen sharing from my m2 mini to organize and populate new titles to plex. You can force the mini to use gpu memory by adding a hdmi dongle into it.
Looks like this: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADP4KHEAD/
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Our use won't be as demanding as that: it's only the two of us, and we never watch different movies at the same time. It might be only me, or both of us. And I haven't counted how many DVD's we have that I'll have to load, but if we pass 1,000 right now, it won't be by much.
My original G5 Mac mini from 2005 still works. In fact, I'm upgrading it lol. My experience has been that Macs are tough machines that last well beyond the lifespan of a PC. We still have all the Macs we've ever bought, save one, plus a couple extras I bought along the way used. They are ALL still going strong. Sure, they don't get much use on a regular basis, but they are all still quite useable. My iPods haven't always lasted, but everything else has. In fact, it looks like my original Time Capsule, gen1, that I bought when they came out, has just half-died. The router still works, but it looks like the HDD is toast. Not bad for a machine that worked every day from 2008 to now, except for a break from Feb 2022 to Jan 2023.
Oh man... I said the same thing when I started lol. I started collecting dvd's a loooonnngggg time ago but, I had made it a habit to back them up at it's highest possible settings and toss them into a box. Then I was gifted around 500 dvd's and blurays and then yeah...it spiralled out a bit.
Now you can just buy a 2-bay enclosure and a couple of 12TB drives and call it day but, it's a bit spendy to pull the trigger all at once just to watch your movies/tv shows. I build mine pretty slowly buying drives as needed or pulling them out of circulation from other things.
Now you can just buy a 2-bay enclosure and a couple of 12TB drives and call it day but, it's a bit spendy to pull the trigger all at once just to watch your movies/tv shows. I build mine pretty slowly buying drives as needed or pulling them out of circulation from other things.
At my age
, not sure I have the time left to get to where you are LOL. Especially at my current rate of consumption of DVD's...Its most likely more cost effective to invest in something like a full fledged NAS (Synology, QNAP). For the upgrade price of the SSD, you're better of with a dedicated NAS that is much cheaper to upgrade. Since it looks like you're ripping HQ it will eventually take up all your Mac Mini drives. I'm using a Synology 4 bay NAS and it has its own dedicated Plex with hardware encoding/decoding. You can buy your drives as your needs change. If your Mac Mini SSD drive fails then all your movies are gone whereas you have RAID backup on your NAS system...
My plan is to have all media files on the external 2TB SSD. Both it and the internal SSD are brand new. That gives me plenty of time to work towards an NAS system later on.
Overkill, but when I redid my setup I purchased an OWC Thunderbay 4 mini and tossed in a few 8TB Samsung SSDs. They are the "lower quality" SSDs, but for media storage and occasional access as well as Time Machine they are more than sufficient. One thunderbolt cable connects me to currently 20TB of SSD Storage.
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At minimum, that solution would cost me $350 US for the empty bay and software, plus another $230 Cdn, for 2TB of storage (ETA: buying the same make and model you did), plus the $86 for the 1TB upgrade to my mini, so a total outlay of about $800. My current solution costs me $264. It's a no-brainer for me. This just isn't enough of a financial priority for me at this time to lay out $800 on this project. Eventually, if we find it works for us, then maybe.
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You’ll be fine 😀. I did what you want to with a Wintel machine and multiple spinners. Then I re-did my whole setup and went with Infuse (full purchase) 5 Pro. I took all my legal dvd’s and turned them into .ISO’s and a few newer ones were put through Handbrake (mp4) on to a 6TB spinner, and cloned for backup every now and then.
I still use a 10+ year old Wintel machine to power the spinner. Mac mini would be perfect, and besides NAS’s are pricey and you already have a Mac mini efficiently sipping power. I just turn on my Wintel machine as needed (350w) when we watch a movie.
I know most rip their blue ray discs as well, but I don’t. I just pop them into my ps3.
I still use a 10+ year old Wintel machine to power the spinner. Mac mini would be perfect, and besides NAS’s are pricey and you already have a Mac mini efficiently sipping power. I just turn on my Wintel machine as needed (350w) when we watch a movie.
I know most rip their blue ray discs as well, but I don’t. I just pop them into my ps3.
I suggest rethinking your setup a little. If I read all the thread correctly this is just going to be a Plex server. In that case I would not bother replacing the internal drive. While a SSD would be nicer in theory you just don't need that kind of speed for a Plex server - not for the boot drive and certainly not for the media drives. You are just wasting a lot of money. I would keep it as is and just clean the drive and reload the OS. Then I would get a good external USB drive (my suggesstion: WD Black P10 5TB) and set that as your media drive for Plex.
A little bit about my setup: currently I run Plex as a service on a Windows mini-PC using 3x of these P10 drives for my media. I can do multiple simultaneous uncompressed 4K streams to my Apple TVs. If I don't need SSD-level speed you definitely don't need it.
A little bit about my setup: currently I run Plex as a service on a Windows mini-PC using 3x of these P10 drives for my media. I can do multiple simultaneous uncompressed 4K streams to my Apple TVs. If I don't need SSD-level speed you definitely don't need it.
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