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Plex Server on Mac Mini M1
- Thread starter ZMA15
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Maybe I misunderstood you, I am running the Plex client on my tv and I have the YouTube app also.
When I said I couldn’t find anything in the App Store I was referring to what you said about running a wifi speed test from the LG App Store, and I thought it was a wifi utility app of some sort that you used and I couldn’t find it.
Plex reserves double the bandwith for safeguard against sudden drops or demand on the network, so if a file runs at 12mbps, plex actually utilizes 24mbps, I have this problem with files over 12-20mbps generally (outside home) because my upload is only 30mbps. on my internal network, with the apple tv close to the router, it gets enough speed to not buffer, tried the same with a mini 2014 as the client, buffers a lot on 20mbps, probably worse wifi reception and cpu.
??♂️ ?
I searched for “internet” and found it in the Life section. Initially I searched for “WiFi” and I also looked all through the Education and News&Info sections.
I ran it and the results were similar to running speedtest.net through the LG tv web browser. Roughly 25-35Mbps download rate. My theory about my 2013 iMac’s i5 processor not having enough grunt to serve the higher bit rate movies seems to have been disproved and the bottleneck is my tv. I will try an Ethernet cable to see if that helps but if not I guess handbrake is my solution. Which isn’t exactly a speedy process on my old iMac.
I searched for “internet” and found it in the Life section. Initially I searched for “WiFi” and I also looked all through the Education and News&Info sections.
I ran it and the results were similar to running speedtest.net through the LG tv web browser. Roughly 25-35Mbps download rate. My theory about my 2013 iMac’s i5 processor not having enough grunt to serve the higher bit rate movies seems to have been disproved and the bottleneck is my tv. I will try an Ethernet cable to see if that helps but if not I guess handbrake is my solution. Which isn’t exactly a speedy process on my old iMac.
Didn't think about boxes, was thinking just straight into a TV's ethernet port, might be the only optionTV does,
If you go to the Plex server dashboard when it is throttling what bandwidth are you seeing? You can also get this information from the Plex Dash IOS app.
These results are for Plex streaming a 1080p MKV to my Apple TV. Don't use the TV Plex app, but looks like the TV bandwidth could certainly be a problem for 4K given that a 1080p is hitting 46 Mbps. LG seems to hide this information as can't find in the technical specs for your TV.
I ran a test of my highest bitrate 4K MKV (Snatch). Video is ~83 Mb/s with audio ~4.6 MBS so its ~87 Mbs. Streaming bandwidth peaks at ~308 Mbps. This is via WiFi on my C8 so looks as if it has gigabit ethernet. Experienced buffering issues which you can see on graph when bitrate is 0. Not all of these were pauses though.
Had fewer buffering problems streaming to my Apple TV maybe due to greater horsepower?
Had fewer buffering problems streaming to my Apple TV maybe due to greater horsepower?
A lot of good info here. I just picked up a Mac Mini late 12 to run as a plex server for movies so I don't overload my macbook pro....only to find out that it is now unsupported as I can't run the correct OS. Will be keeping an eye out for something different though, or any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I've still got a Late 2012 Mac Mini that works fine as a Plex server. What is unsupported? The Plex Media Server software?? According to their page the PMS works on MACOS 10.9 or newer.
Mini 2012 is technically better than a 2014 for plex, and a fantastic machine even today since they use 4 cores instead of 2 cores cpus, and plex server suposedly runs on it no problem. Have you got the correct download from this page? https://www.plex.tv/pt-br/media-server-downloads/ it goes all the way back to mavericks, which is from 2013. If so, and you say it doesn't run that must mean the old owner of your machine never updated it and it's currently running Montain lion from 2012, one before Maverick, and if thats the case, i's pretty easy to solve, if you update the machine OS it can go all the way up to Catalina (oficially) or even higher with opencore.
To update the machine (via official means) download the oficial ISO of Mojave, high sierra or lower on the oficial apple site (mojave is the last one who can natively update an instalation all the way back from mountain lion, use mojave if you don't plan on running 32bit software, high sierra if you will be runnign 32bits apps, otherwise if you only want to run a plex server and nothing more, no problem going with mojave.) here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683 , and run the update.
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Hello, greetings to all.
I'm having problems lately with the plex media server and maybe someone has the same problem or an idea that can help me. Sorry if I am not understood very well, English is not my native language and above all, thanks in advance.
I have the mac mini M1 2020 with Monterey where the server is installed, and a Yottamaster system of several HDDs with USB 3.0 is connected to it.
In the living room I open plex through an apple TV connected by cable.
In the kitchen I open plex with an Amazon fire stick connected by 4G wifi.
I have always used that system and it worked fine. But for some time now I have noticed cuts in the videos, loss of quality in playback and the biggest problem: I cannot turn off the mac mini because of the Media server app. When I try to force exit it does not respond either or it takes a long time to do it.
I have not changed anything and I don't know what could be wrong.
Thanks again for your attention.
I'm having problems lately with the plex media server and maybe someone has the same problem or an idea that can help me. Sorry if I am not understood very well, English is not my native language and above all, thanks in advance.
I have the mac mini M1 2020 with Monterey where the server is installed, and a Yottamaster system of several HDDs with USB 3.0 is connected to it.
In the living room I open plex through an apple TV connected by cable.
In the kitchen I open plex with an Amazon fire stick connected by 4G wifi.
I have always used that system and it worked fine. But for some time now I have noticed cuts in the videos, loss of quality in playback and the biggest problem: I cannot turn off the mac mini because of the Media server app. When I try to force exit it does not respond either or it takes a long time to do it.
I have not changed anything and I don't know what could be wrong.
Thanks again for your attention.
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If it helps any, I’m using a mac mini 2011 (server model) and with the OS out of support I put linux (Ubuntu) on it.
the mac mini does have the internal HDD replaced with an SSD, and RAM upgraded. but the main storage for content is currently a FW800 Lacie Rugged.
Since PMS prefers Intel I’ve wondered how much benefit (if any) I’d see performance wise going to an M1 Mac Mini.
I just installed Plex on my Mac mini and noticed that the individual tv show thumbnail picture has a yellow square on the right front to denote the number of episodes in the tv show listed. Is there anyway to turn the episode number off? I find it obnoxious. I looked in settings but haven't found an answer.
I’m running plex on a 2012 mini but looking to buy the m1 or refurbished studio would they both work with plex media server ?.
I switched from a 2012 mini to the m1 mini and working great. The last Plex server update provides native arm support so Plex should now be running more efficiently too.
Kind of amazing how many of us have been using older mac mini’s! I’m running a mac mini 2011 (server version) I was using MacOS until a few months ago when I switched the Mac Mini to Ubuntu, which is “fine” and still doing plex on it, but I’m eyeing some Apple Silicon for sure.
I think my only hold ups right now are.
1) I’ve waited this long, do I see if an M2 mini will come out in the next few months? would Plex be able to utilize the additional built in media processing capabilities the “higher” M1 and now the M2 chips have?
2) I still have some minor mental barrier with storage being built into the SOC. part of the reason my mini has lasted so long is I’ve been able to swap out the storage drives. I’ll just need to get over this as it is seemingly the future, I just wonder if I’ll get 11+ years out of a M1 mini like my current one
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My 2012 mini was still going strong and flawless as a Plex server but it is my only MacOS device so use it for other tasks so it was time for the upgrade. I just grabbed an 8GB 256GB model though as I don't need a ton of RAM and the 16GB in the 2012 model was never really utilised. My Plex media is on an external drive and I just added a 2TB external NVME drive over USB-C as additional storage for things like my Photo library and downloads folder etc. The internal 256GB is always less than half full.Kind of amazing how many of us have been using older mac mini’s! I’m running a mac mini 2011 (server version) I was using MacOS until a few months ago when I switched it to Ubuntu, which is “fine” but I’m eyeing some Apple Silicon for sure.
I think my only hold ups right now are.
1) I’ve waited this long, do I see if an M2 mini will come out in the next few months? would Plex be able to utilize the additional built in media processing capabilities the “higher” M1 and now the M2 chips have?
2) I still have some minor mental barrier with storage being built into the SOC. part of the reason my mini has lasted so long is I’ve been able to swap out the storage drives. I’ll just need to get over this as it is seemingly the future, I just wonder if I’ll get 11+ years out of a M1 mini like my current one
The only negative I have is the external NVME drive drops connection every couple of weeks so I need to unplug and plug it back in. Seems to be a known issue with USB-C drives but not a major hardship in all honesty.
The Plex drive on USB 3.0 never drops.
Sort of the same boat for the M2 / M1Pro. Added benefit of either over M1 is hardware encoder/decoders as opposed to software on M1.Kind of amazing how many of us have been using older mac mini’s! I’m running a mac mini 2011 (server version) I was using MacOS until a few months ago when I switched the Mac Mini to Ubuntu, which is “fine” and still doing plex on it, but I’m eyeing some Apple Silicon for sure.
I think my only hold ups right now are.
1) I’ve waited this long, do I see if an M2 mini will come out in the next few months? would Plex be able to utilize the additional built in media processing capabilities the “higher” M1 and now the M2 chips have?
2) I still have some minor mental barrier with storage being built into the SOC. part of the reason my mini has lasted so long is I’ve been able to swap out the storage drives. I’ll just need to get over this as it is seemingly the future, I just wonder if I’ll get 11+ years out of a M1 mini like my current one