Plex Server setup questions

[pio]

Curious if anybody else in here utilizes Plex Server?  What settings do you guys change on your servers for best optimization?  I've got I think 32 threads dedicated to mine, and I just feel like its not really using them enough.  I also feel like the buffer length could be a LOT better since I've got 25Mbps upload, and the 32 threads.....surely there's enough power and speed there to make the buffering less severe outside of the house.

 

Any points or anything would be helpful since I just set mine back up again.  It's all bone stock install right now.

[bonami2]

Did you ever figure out your issue?

Gonna try to setup one in the coming week with my main pc. Got like 4tb of stuff i wanna have easy access from anywhere.

And i got the same 25-30mb upload and 120 download.

 

Already installed my 8tb and 4tb drive in my 719 enthoo just need to plug them now 

Edited May 9, 2022 by bonami2

[pio]

  On 09/05/2022 at 00:55, bonami2 said:

Did you ever figure out your issue?

Gonna try to setup one in the coming week with my main pc. Got like 4tb of stuff i wanna have easy access from anywhere.

And i got the same 25-30mb upload and 120 download.

 

Already installed my 8tb and 4tb drive in my 719 enthoo just need to plug them now 

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No I still have everything left at defaults.

 

Also, I lost my fast internet recently and now only have 10 down / 0.5 up.  So not hosting ANYTHING these days.  

[bonami2]

  On 09/05/2022 at 04:09, pioneerisloud said:

No I still have everything left at defaults.

 

Also, I lost my fast internet recently and now only have 10 down / 0.5 up.  So not hosting ANYTHING these days.  

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Oh crap sorry for the internet am lucky i got a 45$ month sub for my bandwith. Well for a canadian it good. 

Will report back how it working. Just installed it on my main pc with remote control just need to plug my hard drive and setup sharing. And maybe get a sub if it worth it.

 

 

[ENTERPRISE]

I have a couple of optimizations I believe. I will try to look them up and let you know.

[ENTERPRISE]

I cannot recall all of them.  If I stumble on the others I will let you know as I know I have done more messing around than below, but alas, it was a while since I did my initial setup.

 

I know I definitely moved my Temporary Transcoding directory off of my main drive and onto another SSD to avoid stressing the main drive. : 

Transcoder | Plex Support

SUPPORT.PLEX.TV

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Transcoder settings related to your Plex Media Server. You can access these under Settings > Server > Transcoder in Plex...

 

 

Some also will create RAMDISKS for this as well as they see a large improvement in performance (Obviously) and another takeaway is that  if on a RAMDISK, then any transcoding you are doing will not be wearing the SSD.

[firedfly]

  On 10/05/2022 at 07:43, ENTERPRISE said:

Some also will create RAMDISKS for this as well as they see a large improvement in performance (Obviously) and another takeaway is that  if on a RAMDISK, then any transcoding you are doing will not be wearing the SSD.

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I've done this.   I had an issue in the past where the ram disk would fill up.  The issue was user's pausing and, I guess, transcoding continued.  I fixed this by increasing the size of the ram disk and configuring Plex to kill sessions that have been paused for X minutes (15 min?).

 

I also have a gtx1660 handling transcoding duties.  It works quite well and greatly minimizes the load on the CPU.

[ENTERPRISE]

  On 10/05/2022 at 19:33, firedfly said:

 

I've done this.   I had an issue in the past where the ram disk would fill up.  The issue was user's pausing and, I guess, transcoding continued.  I fixed this by increasing the size of the ram disk and configuring Plex to kill sessions that have been paused for X minutes (15 min?).

 

I also have a gtx1660 handling transcoding duties.  It works quite well and greatly minimizes the load on the CPU.

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Out of interest, how large did you make the RAMDISK ? Wondering about doing the same. What software are you using ?

[The Pook]

  On 11/05/2022 at 20:27, ENTERPRISE said:

Out of interest, how large did you make the RAMDISK ? Wondering about doing the same. What software are you using ?

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what OS? 

 

[ENTERPRISE]

  On 11/05/2022 at 22:58, The Pook said:

 

what OS? 

 

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My bad, Windows 11.

[firedfly]

  On 11/05/2022 at 20:27, ENTERPRISE said:

Out of interest, how large did you make the RAMDISK ? Wondering about doing the same. What software are you using ?

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I have my Plex server running on my Unraid system.  The ramdisk is 8g.  I generally cap out at about 3 simultaneous streams, so I'm not sure how much space would be needed with more streams.

 

As I mentioned before, my only issue with using the ramdisk was when users would pause what they were watching.  Transcoding would continue and fill the ramdisk.  I changed some settings a long time ago and have not seen that issue in quite a while.  The only setting I remember changing is killing a session after it has been paused for a set amount of time.  This is in the network settings:

 

 

For anyone else running Plex on their Unraid system, I have a user script setup to create the ramdisk when the array first starts.  This is the script.  You'll need to make sure to update the Plex docker settings to use the ramdisk for the transcoding directory.

  Quote

#!/bin/bash
mkdir /tmp/PlexRamScratch
mount -t tmpfs -o size=8g tmpfs /tmp/PlexRamScratch

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[The Pook]

  On 12/05/2022 at 06:50, ENTERPRISE said:

My bad, Windows 11.

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ImDisk Toolkit download | SourceForge.net

SOURCEFORGE.NET

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Download ImDisk Toolkit for free. Ramdisk for Windows and mounting of image files. This tool will let you mount image files of hard drive, cd-rom or floppy, and create one or several ramdisks with various parameters...

 

Plex recommends size of the source + 100MB but you can give it less. 8GB should be plenty for most people. 

 

Transcoder | Plex Support

SUPPORT.PLEX.TV

---

Transcoder settings related to your Plex Media Server. You can access these under Settings > Server > Transcoder in Plex...

 

  Quote

The directory used (whether default or not) needs sufficient free space, roughly equal to the size of the source file of the transcode plus 100MB.

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[ENTERPRISE]

  On 12/05/2022 at 17:29, The Pook said:

ImDisk Toolkit download | SourceForge.net

SOURCEFORGE.NET

---

Download ImDisk Toolkit for free. Ramdisk for Windows and mounting of image files. This tool will let you mount image files of hard drive, cd-rom or floppy, and create one or several ramdisks with various parameters...

 

Plex recommends size of the source + 100MB but you can give it less. 8GB should be plenty for most people. 

 

Transcoder | Plex Support

SUPPORT.PLEX.TV

---

Transcoder settings related to your Plex Media Server. You can access these under Settings > Server > Transcoder in Plex...

 

 

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Nice, Thanks. I was looking for a free solution as I was going to purchase ramdisk software from Romex (I use their PrimoCache Software)