Need advice from the "Pros"

[D.Riv]

I want to build a Plex media server for my home. Im on the fence about making it simple, buy another Mac Mini and install Server OS or make things a little "beefier". I have a friend who has a Power Mac G5 he will sell to me for $100. Besides the obvious fact that its cheeper, are there any other advantages to the Power Mac?

Power Mac Specs:
Apple Power Mac G5
Model Number: A1047
EMC Number: 1969C
160gb hard drive
2gb ram

 

[iemcj]

So your goal is a place to store video media and stream it to your devices right? Since 160 gigs is going to get eaten up crazy fast and you'll need to buy an external harddrive anyway, I'd suggest just buying a time capsule. Since you're going to buy at least a 1-2 tb external drive anyway, this way you can get a great time machine backup of your computers and a great networking tool for not a whole lot more than you'd pay for that clunky old g5.

I know it's not a direct answer to your question, it is however what I see as making more sense. That's the setup that I went with, time capsule is plugged into my router, then all my devices (laptop, phones, ps4, imacs) all connect to that timecapsule. I'm able to be getting time machine backups at all times, and I have a 2tb segate drive (99 dollars at best buy) hooked up the the time capsule and I have a crap ton of movies and tv shows I can watch from anywhere in the house. Hope this helped somewhat?

 

[santaliqueur]

Any money saved when buying that G5 is going to be spent on your electricity bill. Buy a recent Mac mini and connect it to external storage. Current Mac minis consume 6W at idle, 85W peak. That's less than many light bulbs. I couldn't find data on power consumption for a G5 tower, but I bet it's about 300W. Server OS X will do nothing to help your Plex experience. Any new Mac mini will likely be much faster than an old G5 from 10 years ago.

My Plex Setup:
Mac mini base model (Late 2014 1.4GHz i5)
Synology DS1813+ NAS with 15TB storage

The Mac mini sits in my tv stand, connected via HDMI. Plex Server runs on the Mac mini, but all the data lives on the Synology NAS. The mini has enough power to transcode anything I need, including very high resolution bluray rips (40GB/movie).

Just get a newer Mac mini and connect it to external storage.

 

[D.Riv]

Any money saved when buying that G5 is going to be spent on your electricity bill. Buy a recent Mac mini and connect it to external storage. Current Mac minis consume 6W at idle, 85W peak. That's less than many light bulbs. I couldn't find data on power consumption for a G5 tower, but I bet it's about 300W. Server OS X will do nothing to help your Plex experience. Any new Mac mini will likely be much faster than an old G5 from 10 years ago.

I was leaning toward the Mini just to keep everything "new". Im going to order the mid-level Mini and attach my two Seagate Externals.

Thanks!

 

[santaliqueur]

I think you'll be happier if you go new. Only get the mid-level Mac mini if you need it for other things, the base mini has plenty of power for just Plex. Have fun!