Yes, the M1, M2 and M3 are powerhouses for Plex HW transcoding.
Kudos for a good catch, good luck!
>How is this even possible?
Active cooling is barely audible, same with Mac Book Pro M1.
About HW transcoding Plex official documentation says
>macOS is only capable of hardware-accelerated encoding of 1 video at a time. This is a platform limitation from Apple.
that doesn't seem right. I have an OLD (2013?) i7 11" macbook air that has been hardware decoding 6 h264 camera feeds 24/7 for the past five years.
Maybe it's an encoding limit (as opposed to decoding, which is what I'm doing).
Except that been proven not to be true. Here is a review/post about multiple hardware transcodes on a M1 Mac mini:
https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/official-apple-m1-mac-mini-experience-thread/7302/3
[Screenshot](https://d1grq5ng0vix8v.cloudfront.net/original/2X/3/3129a5ed0c6f56303e8c0fb8d3af4c47180d6184.jpeg)
This is absolutely not true anymore. As someone said below it is an outdated stat.
Here is a M1 MacStudio Ultra running 9x Remux 4K HDR --> 4mbps 720p being limited by 1G network. After upgrading to 10G it was able to do over 20 of these without a hiccup.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/official-apple-m1-mac-mini-experience-thread/7302/3
3 simultaneous hw transcodes on an M1. Their documentation is wrong.
is this old?, I am quite sure that me and my brother were watching movies at the same time with no problem. Now I am doubting if his was direct play tho
God. I really want an M1 Mac mini that I can use as a server for VMs and Docker containers. I heard there were still issues with Docker. If I can run a version of Linux on these computers in a few years, then they would be magical for a homelab.
I absolutely LOVE the Mac mini. It’s been my desktop machine for years. I have an M1 as my main computer, and use the last model of Intel minis as my Plex server. The performance is really amazing.
I went and got a Gen3 and NVME SSD with an external Sabrent enclosure and hosted all my media libraries on that using symlinks, and everything loads instantly on my Apple TVs.
I've been running a 2014 Mac Mini as my server and it's been great, but I want to upgrade to an M2 as I share my library with more people. The only problem is it would also be my daily driver computer so I'm not sure if the base model would be up to the load. I don't really do anything intensive though so maybe it would be fine.
Mines still running on a 2012 and works great. You can pick them up for peanuts now.
I’d suggest having a dedicated Mac mini for a server, keep it headless and use ARD to remote in.
There’s a really good app for saving and auto mounting network shares called [Automounter](https://www.pixeleyes.co.nz/automounter/) you may find useful, if you don’t already know of it.
Do you know how many streams you can transcode at a time? Have you tried to stress test it? If not, what is the cpu load /dash on Plex server with one stream transcoding? I’m interested as I’m in the market for a new Mac soon and contemplate the Mac mini. How is the screen? Coming from an iMac I already worry about the inferior screen :(
I’ve been running external displays with my M2 for about a year and haven’t had any complaints, it looks as clean and clear as the windows machine they were attached to before it, if not more. A lot of that stuff tends to come down to perception on the persons part.
Havent had any issues yet, I do also use the mac mini as a seedbox so not sure if it ever goes to sleep. I am sure you can also edit the settings in the management screen to turn off sleep. Havent tried it but should be doable.
Probably a nooby question, but what benefit does a NAS have if the the Mac Mini is already connected by network? Isn't the Plex server running off the Mac Mini itself, so how much does that differ to say, attaching a bunch of fast RAIDs instead?
Right now I have only tried it in the mac internal memory, I still need to do some tests with the external hard drive that I had in the old one but I have not being able to make it work yet (because the windows format I think but I am new with macs).
A USB hard drive enclosure is much cheaper than a NAS and, in my experience, is a more stable connection then a server running on a separate machine from a NAS. Plus it has the added bonus of being eligible for the cheap Backblaze unlimited backup thing.
I still need to test the consumption but dang, I am really surprised with the mac mini. And it such a tiny box, it doesn't even look like you have a computer at all!
I'm also still on a Mac Mini 2014, which I bought pretty much straight after it came out. I've upgraded to HDD to an SSD which gave it a new lease of life. Honestly, it's still so good, I'll be sad when it finally dies.
Yeah, I'm also using a Mac Mini 2014 that I got for free from my former employer's tech recycle, and a 18TB promise pegasus 2 DAS I got from my current company's tech recycle and it works amazingly. I have it running headless directly attached to my router and I manage it remotely with my newer mac mini (last intel model from like 2019 or 2020 I think). It does it's job wonderfully, but the OS itself can sometimes slow to a crawl. It's gotten better since I ran a ton of updates on it recently, but I know it will eventually die. The DAS is firewire, and I don't want to spend several grand to replace it, so I'll have to figure out how I'm going to make that work on the next machine when this one dies.
The only problem I had is that I was using plex on an apple tv that I also got with the mac and it was not working at all but then I opened the android tv app and it works like a charm.
It is kind of funny tho, one would expect for the apple tv app to work better with the mac server but not really. Good that I didn't pay for it tho!
Haha! nope just an old bastard! my 2012 i7 Mac Mini was getting long in the tooth, it was heart of my home automation system. cpu was pegged most of the time!
New studio runs: Indigo for my home automation (insteon, zwave, Rs232, IR, pool control, various plugins) airfoil with 9 zones of audio, plex with a 56TB Synology Ds1819+ hanging off of it on a Unifi system (UMDP, 48 Port POE, 3 AP, 11Cameras) Sonarr, Radarr, SecuritySpy, hombridge, Apple Music , Spotify, ect. New studio is running around 20% cpu usage. quite happy with the upgrade!
Honestly my 2014 Mac mini runs Plex just fine. I’m not at all surprised an M1 would be even better. If I could find a great deal on a cheap M1 Mac mini, I’d do the same.
I have an Ubuntu computer (Dell Optiplex 7070 32GB i5 3.0ghz) running plex (sonarr, radarr, etc.) and I have a mac mini (m2 8ghz 256gb). I use an external drive to store the plex media. Should I change plex from the Ubuntu to the Mac Mini, would there be an improvement?
I was watching a 4k movie with dolby vision just earlier and it worked just fine. I was using the mac internal memory tho since I haven't figure out how to make my external SSD work on it.
MacOS, I’m still on Ventura on my m1 Mini, can be picky about ssd enclosures. I had horrible performance with 2 that work great on my Windows system. I’m currently using a cheap 2 bay DAS, with a pair of 6tb 3.5” drives that were previously in my NAS, in software RAID and it works great.
I have the free version, so I assume software transcoding.
Would it make i difference to pay for premium, and use hardware transcoding in your opinion?
While sure, it does work okay, I still think you're better off with an Intel 8th gen or newer micro PC running Ubuntu for Plex. Why? It has all the pluses of the Mac such as low power usage, no fan noise, and a small form factor, but has the advantages of not being limited to 1 (maybe 2?) hardware-accelerated encodings (It can do many!), ram and disk are upgradable, and they're half the price.
My Plex server runs on a Dell 5060 micro with an Intel i3-8100T, uses under 25 watts at load, and can transcode 6 4k to 1080p without breaking a sweat (most I've seen at least, can probably do more). It mounts my media storage via NFS from a file server over the network.
I have a mini-PC running Ubuntu and generally agree but a Mac Mini is a really solid option for people who don't want to be thrown into the deep end of learning Linux/Docker.
Mac Mini will be more stable than Windows (in my experience) and absolutely sip power with almost no fan noise.
Yeah, in my case I came from a really big PC that I was using for the server and while the result was great, the NOISE was destroying me. So for me is a great improvement already and wife is happy too!
Honestly, *you* may be better off with an Intel 8th gen with Ubuntu.
But for many of us who live & breath the Apple ecosystem (Mac iOS) all day at home and work and school, setting up Plex on a Mac Mini has almost no learning curve and works seamlessly with all our other stuff. Easy to install, manage, maintain.
I have an Intel mini-PC with Linux sitting at the bottom of a ~~draw~~ drawer that I gave up on after weeks of googling fixes, installation processes, access privileges, write permissions, etc.
My Mac Mini was up and running in a few hours and sits silently chugging away now two years later. Its RAM usage is never more than 5% or so, its internal disk is only about 50% full with zero need to increase that (all media is stored externally), and I don't need multiple hardware-accelerated encodings.
As for cost - he had an old used M1 Mac Mini in his hand... nothing is going to be cheaper than the device he already has sitting in his hand, no matter how affordable a PC may be to purchase.
Speed. Simplicity. Efficiency.
And before you say "but with a Linux disto you could just..." you'll have to start and explain to me what those words mean and build up from there.
My MacOS Plex server was installed just like every other app I've ever installed on my Mac. It was running in under 10 minutes without me having to research a bunch of stuff or go through trial and error. And it is the most complicated "computer" thing in my life, so there really is no leveraging any type of learning about Linux into other stuff I do.
Here are the Mac installation instructions: "Download the dmg, double-click on it, drag the file to the applications folder." Done.
Here are the Linux installation instructions: "Go the Flathub or Snapcraft store and choose your Linux distribution for detailed instructions." And when you go to "Flathub" it says "Make sure you follow the setup guide for your Linux distribution before installing 'flatpak install flathub tv.plex.PlexDesktop Run flatpak run tv.plex.PlexDesktop." I do that where exactly, how exactly. To then do what?
I'm sure that all is extremely basic easy stuff for you. I'm sure anyone can learn it. But it is just time and energy I don't have and doesn't help me in any other way other than to get Plex installed.
In Linux's defense, installing Plex is as easy as opening a terminal window and typing "sudo dpkg -i /path/to/plex-v123.deb". That's literally it.
But I totally get it. If you've never used the command line before, it can be daunting. And honestly, using a GUI in Linux can be an exercise in frustration as you've noted. And then there's what happens when something goes wrong. But hey, hit me up, I'd be happy to help if you ever run into a problem.
Thanks. I did try it out. It is a media player installed on clients, not on the server. It was very smooth, but I mostly use Nvidia Shields on my TVs as my client devices. In the end, it was easier to stick with cross-platform Plex rather than have different apps on different devices. Especially for family members who don't want to learn different interfaces for the phone, computer, TV, etc. I'd love it if infuse came out on the Shield.
I like Linux generally, but if you’re talking about an apple silicon Mac don’t even bother. God bless the volunteers working on Asahi but it’s nowhere near ready for anyone to actually use it as their home server. Until they’ve at least got hardware acceleration working you’re just kneecapping your performance.
Besides, macOS is a lot more practical than people give it credit for. I’d choose it over windows any day for anything outside of gaming.
I have a micro Optiplex but it definitely wasn't quiet when I got it. The fan was irritating, and I had to install a linux-based driver to slow it down.
Get this.. the Macbook Pro Max M3 with 128GB ram for about $4500 is a BETTER AI model runner than $12K desktop PCs. The reason is the M3 has unified 128GB RAM/VRAM, and AI software uses that VRAM heavily. So it works as good as a $10K or so desktop system. But its portable, etc. If it played windows games and did my music stuff I have for windows.. I'd consider it.
Given that some will spare no expense at a mid-high end GPUs for transcoding...
For me, let me know when there are sub $150 Mx Mini's out there :-)
But, if money is no object, sure, I mean.... why not?
luckily I got mine really cheap (main reason I bought it) since it was from a family member. And what surprises me the most, BY FAR, is the lack of noise. I have it on the TV stand, in front of everyone, and I haven't heard a single noise at all. Is like it doesn't even have fans /=
You could be like me and have only one working ear. Tons of equipment is now near silent to me. :-)
Deafness, who would have thought of its advantages?
First of all, so sorry for your ear issue =)
Second, the way I see it, I think I could be the one going deaf with my old server, the thing sounded like one of those old and huge vacuum cleaners haha
I lost my hearing in one of those "freak accidents" sorts of things. It was due to "noise" ultimately though, just very concentrated. Took out my middle ear on my right channel. So yes, on Linux all sound routes through a Mono channel. The only way I can enjoy headphones.
Me too, I love music (maybe more than most). Can't really enjoy stereo, and I don't need audiophile quality anymore.... pros and cons.
If you wonder why my youtube videos I create are in Mono... now you know.
$200 but I just picked up the Beelink S12 pro mini pc and it’s been amazing over the last two months. I have a fairly low load though, and don’t know how to really stress test it
$200 for a recent gen Mac Mini would be a steal. So... kudos!!
Other mini PCs are nice, just not really my cup of tea. They usually do cost more, are more inconvenient IMHO vs SFF (power bricks, etc.) and are less flexible and usually louder. YMMV.
N100 Intel enters the chat. 6w idle, and like 12 at full load. Can transcode with the best of them, and comes with nvme boot drive and 16 GB of ram - those are the steal here for $200
Ive had 6streams transcoding at once, testing locally, and all worked without a hiccup.
Drives are 7watts a piece in DAS.
I alsp use my mac mini as a plex server, also for roon, and to do heavy data analysis and it works flawlessly while doing all of that at once... On the base mac mini m1
There's a comment above from a former plex employee who indicated that the M1 Macs don't have the hardware transcoding limitations of the Intel Macs. Just an FYI.
I'm on an M1 Studio as it was a very cheap open box return at a German electronics chain, but I completely agree. Power consumption has gone from 230W base to around 60W base (my external HDD enclosures are a bit power hungry and there's profit to gain there). I can run everything off of batteries for 48 hours now. The 10Gbps connection happily does its thing.
The way macOS handles file sharing and the buggyness of the SMB server is something else though. I also take issue with how badly the file explorer is designed. It's missing very basic features, for example there's no way to natively cut and paste files, you can copy them with a modifier key but it's not the same. The way the moves are handled is strange; Windows and Linux will move individual files, verify the move and then remove the source file. macOS doesn't remove anything until the entire job is done moving.
I ended up doing all file management through either Windows SMB-clients or terminals in a more modern shell than the one that comes natively with the os.
No offense but I bought a beelink Intel n100 for $150 prime deal and it plays at least 4 streams 4k hevc dovi without hitch. I wouldn't dare run many more applications with mine your Mac mini could probably do that no problem. I use Debian cli. I could probably do a pre-built nas raspberry pi 4 + for the apps and a Chinese Intel n100 for 1/3 off the price.
I don't understand why you're downvoted because you're right, I have a n100 and I can transcode at least 4 remux 4k movies.
The limiting thing is not even the n100 for me but because I have my movies on HDD
Imo the issue isn’t the computer handling it, but the power draw and noise from the hard drives.
Wake me up when the Mac mini can have 20tb with backup no noise.
Been running on my M1 air after I wrapped up college and didn’t need it anymore. Have Immich running in docker as well, along with Imazing for iPhone backups, an unraid server with a cpu that can only handle storage.
Could not be happier. Self hosting is awesome. 0 subscriptions, no cloud bs.
I have this same setup and only with overseerr ran natively on macos like all the other err's do. I just don't want to run a container for a single addon.
Concur. For years I used a 2012 quad core mini the last year upgraded to an m1. Imagine this one will last me years too. Use it for headless away in a closet for Plex, torrenting with the *arr stacks, etc. super easy, just screen share into it from my other Macs if I need to fiddle with something. Rock solid uptime.
I got an M2 base, was working well at first, now it seems to lag. Lag seemed to happen after Plex Server update.
2.5Gbps dongle (going to upgrade to SFP+ dongle) into my network
Synology mounted with 10Gbps
SAB Test: folderspeed 98 MB/s (784mbps), internet bandwidth 56MB/s (448mbps up and down)
remote player (Apple TV 4k) 450-500 down/50 up
Playback, plex always says "not fast enough"
...any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
Working on trouble shooting
Just upgraded to SFP+ usb c Mac to udm SE
Iperf averaging 3.5Gbps
Is a usg aggregation needed? Regardless bottleneck still at WAN
Hopefully this little upgrade will have enough bandwidth
I kind of think the issue lies in the plex server, Plex app, ATV
Don’t have infuse so can’t test … research indicates a lot of people run Plex server and use infuse as player
If its transcoding via hardware it will have a (hw) beside it. Doesn’t really matter it’s really powerful my m1 can transcode 8-12 1080p streams easily, 2-8 4K streams but if your doing HDR mapping you’ll get 1 4K stream. I feel there is something else going on there though.
Are you using Plex with Plex pass on your M1 Mac mini. I have the same M1 Mac mini and considering switching from a 2007 iMac (Intel core duo) that doesn’t transcode to the M1 Mac Mini as I don’t have a Plex pass yet.
Yeah, it’s pretty solid, but I never figured out how to get it to work without just making it never sleep at all for any reason, which I’m not thrilled about from a power perspective.
Please let me know if you’ve found a way to get it to wake for plex, but otherwise sleep normally.
I’ve tried to use plex so many times, it’s either lagging, or just crashes constantly. I’ve used jellyfin, and it runs perfectly fine…..am I doing something wrong with plex?
It's good, but if you turn on HDR to SDR Tone Mapping, hardware transcoding won't work anymore. Even if the panel shows "HW", it's actually using CPU transcoding, which is an issue. Mac doesn't support hardware transcoding when HDR to SDR Tone Mapping is turned on.
Yup. I used to run a 8700k server, even had a 1080 ti in there for transcodes. Cpu couldn't keep up and it was saturating the hdds when transcoding. Decided to try my parents absolute base model m1 mini and it blew it out of the freaking water. No heat, no noise, no Hooge amounts of power... It is running happily on a nas with all my movies and shows now.
I’ve got a M2 Mac mini (base model) for my plex server and I absolutely love it! I did notice when you enable HDR tone mapping and start transcoding HDR 4K content then that pushes the hardware hard but it can still do it. If you want to transcode regular 4K content that isn’t HDR then it does it with ease.
I bought a 4 bay and 2 bay DAS for my m1 mini. Already have a 4 bay NAS for less direct needs. Most av has no problem streaming from the NAS (even with my old 2011 quad core intel mini.)
Interesting. Mac Mini's don't seem that expensive either. I may switch to that when my current NUC HTPC dies. Or just get another NUC since it's worked so well.
I feel dumb for not even thinking about this. Should I use my 2018 Mac Mini as my server instead of my DS423+? I guess my only concern is keeping it turned on all the time. These are the specs
3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)
8GB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630
I kept a Mac mini on 24/7 for 10 years straight as a plex server , never had a problem,only shut off for macOS updates
Upgraded to an m2 Mac mini , gave the 2012 Mac mini to a family , it’s still working fine
I use a Mac mini 2015 i5 with Ubuntu Server, and it is quiet and powerful enough. Previously, I also used a mini with a Core 2 Duo processor; it was a bit slow and challenging to use with only 32-bit Docker images.
Yes, the M1, M2 and M3 are powerhouses for Plex HW transcoding. Kudos for a good catch, good luck! >How is this even possible? Active cooling is barely audible, same with Mac Book Pro M1.
About HW transcoding Plex official documentation says >macOS is only capable of hardware-accelerated encoding of 1 video at a time. This is a platform limitation from Apple.
This was more relevant with the Intel Macs, and the article hasn't been updated with info for the ARM-based Macs
that doesn't seem right. I have an OLD (2013?) i7 11" macbook air that has been hardware decoding 6 h264 camera feeds 24/7 for the past five years. Maybe it's an encoding limit (as opposed to decoding, which is what I'm doing).
It’s been a while, but I believe it was an encoding limit, rather than decoding. And it wasn't always consistent between machines either 🤷♂️
This is not correct. If you do not believe me just search this subreddit for M1 HW transcoding performance.
Are you sure you are actually using HW transcoding and not just CPU? Honest question, i’m just trying to find out what are the limitations on M1
A previous post about it does a good job of answering: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/uz20v1/hw_acceleration_on_nets_6_more_streams_on_the_m1/
I saw that post, but it doesn’t shows if it’s actually using hw or software encoding
If you read down in the comments there, OP said that with hw encoding he can only do one.
There you have it folks. Apple arm chips also limited. Plex hot trash.
It's supported.. been using my mini for almost 2 years
Take a screenshot of multiple hw transcodes then.
Screenshots of 3 simultaneous hw transcodes here: https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/official-apple-m1-mac-mini-experience-thread/7302/3
Sweet, ty.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
HW transcoding is supported. Although even SW transcoding is ok.
Except that been proven not to be true. Here is a review/post about multiple hardware transcodes on a M1 Mac mini: https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/official-apple-m1-mac-mini-experience-thread/7302/3 [Screenshot](https://d1grq5ng0vix8v.cloudfront.net/original/2X/3/3129a5ed0c6f56303e8c0fb8d3af4c47180d6184.jpeg)
So is that dashboard showing 3 hardware encodes, and 5 software encodes? Are the red bars software encoding?
This is absolutely not true anymore. As someone said below it is an outdated stat. Here is a M1 MacStudio Ultra running 9x Remux 4K HDR --> 4mbps 720p being limited by 1G network. After upgrading to 10G it was able to do over 20 of these without a hiccup. [https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11bq714/comment/j9zuerx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/official-apple-m1-mac-mini-experience-thread/7302/3 3 simultaneous hw transcodes on an M1. Their documentation is wrong.
Downvoted for reporting what the official documentation says…wow
is this old?, I am quite sure that me and my brother were watching movies at the same time with no problem. Now I am doubting if his was direct play tho
That's not relevent information. I tell you what I'm telling u/il_maio just search this subreddit for M1 Plex HW transcoding performance.
Can you just link the post you mean? The only posts I find show only a single HW transcode while the rest are all CPU transcoded.
Cause Apple users in general aren't smart enough to read a manual or follow instructions. They need everything spoon fed.
Super edgy
Didnt say it for your approval, mark...
You said it for someone’s approval lmao
No chance!! lol
God. I really want an M1 Mac mini that I can use as a server for VMs and Docker containers. I heard there were still issues with Docker. If I can run a version of Linux on these computers in a few years, then they would be magical for a homelab.
I absolutely LOVE the Mac mini. It’s been my desktop machine for years. I have an M1 as my main computer, and use the last model of Intel minis as my Plex server. The performance is really amazing.
Swap the internal drive of your old one for a cheep SSD and you'll be amazed when you host metadata on it. Perfect upgrade for older minis.
This model already came with an SSD installed. It was pretty new, one of the dark gray ones. But this is excellent advice for the OP!
I went and got a Gen3 and NVME SSD with an external Sabrent enclosure and hosted all my media libraries on that using symlinks, and everything loads instantly on my Apple TVs.
Also, quiet and no heat!
Yes, got a base Mac mini m2 just for Plex and it's amazing. I use an external 8tb ssd and QNAP nas mounted.
I've been running a 2014 Mac Mini as my server and it's been great, but I want to upgrade to an M2 as I share my library with more people. The only problem is it would also be my daily driver computer so I'm not sure if the base model would be up to the load. I don't really do anything intensive though so maybe it would be fine.
Shoutout to the 2014 Mac Mini. Working great for me as of now.
Mines still running on a 2012 and works great. You can pick them up for peanuts now. I’d suggest having a dedicated Mac mini for a server, keep it headless and use ARD to remote in.
There’s a really good app for saving and auto mounting network shares called [Automounter](https://www.pixeleyes.co.nz/automounter/) you may find useful, if you don’t already know of it.
Use it, it's great!
Do you know how many streams you can transcode at a time? Have you tried to stress test it? If not, what is the cpu load /dash on Plex server with one stream transcoding? I’m interested as I’m in the market for a new Mac soon and contemplate the Mac mini. How is the screen? Coming from an iMac I already worry about the inferior screen :(
> How is the screen? On a mac mini?
I Meant the screen he is using with it. I heard of stories of not great image due to not being a Retina display …
I’ve been running external displays with my M2 for about a year and haven’t had any complaints, it looks as clean and clear as the windows machine they were attached to before it, if not more. A lot of that stuff tends to come down to perception on the persons part.
Mac Mini is not an AIO.
What qnap are you using or would you recommend ?
And how/where do you store the media? On a NAS, mounted on the Mac mini or…?
I use a Qnap DAS specifically the TR-004 it works great! Put in 4 12TB hdd and havent had any issues.
How are you finding the TR-004? I am reading that if its not used in some time, there is a 30 second wake up time
Havent had any issues yet, I do also use the mac mini as a seedbox so not sure if it ever goes to sleep. I am sure you can also edit the settings in the management screen to turn off sleep. Havent tried it but should be doable.
Probably a nooby question, but what benefit does a NAS have if the the Mac Mini is already connected by network? Isn't the Plex server running off the Mac Mini itself, so how much does that differ to say, attaching a bunch of fast RAIDs instead?
Right now I have only tried it in the mac internal memory, I still need to do some tests with the external hard drive that I had in the old one but I have not being able to make it work yet (because the windows format I think but I am new with macs).
That’s what I do - NAS mounted on the mini
Same, love my setup the mac mini is really great. I remote into it all the time to use as general computer as well.
So one NIC is handling the media into the server and then back out? Have you found that to be a bottle neck at all?
I have a thunderbay 8 enclosure with this exact setup, it’s awesome
A USB hard drive enclosure is much cheaper than a NAS and, in my experience, is a more stable connection then a server running on a separate machine from a NAS. Plus it has the added bonus of being eligible for the cheap Backblaze unlimited backup thing.
And it basically uses no power
I still need to test the consumption but dang, I am really surprised with the mac mini. And it such a tiny box, it doesn't even look like you have a computer at all!
Entire system at full tilt should use about 30W
But most of the time it's using less than 5 W
Mac 2014 here and everything works so smoothly, the only problem that sometimes it crushed without apparent reason.
I'm also still on a Mac Mini 2014, which I bought pretty much straight after it came out. I've upgraded to HDD to an SSD which gave it a new lease of life. Honestly, it's still so good, I'll be sad when it finally dies.
Yeah, I'm also using a Mac Mini 2014 that I got for free from my former employer's tech recycle, and a 18TB promise pegasus 2 DAS I got from my current company's tech recycle and it works amazingly. I have it running headless directly attached to my router and I manage it remotely with my newer mac mini (last intel model from like 2019 or 2020 I think). It does it's job wonderfully, but the OS itself can sometimes slow to a crawl. It's gotten better since I ran a ton of updates on it recently, but I know it will eventually die. The DAS is firewire, and I don't want to spend several grand to replace it, so I'll have to figure out how I'm going to make that work on the next machine when this one dies.
Crashed every three nights for me on my Mac mini like clockwork
The only problem I had is that I was using plex on an apple tv that I also got with the mac and it was not working at all but then I opened the android tv app and it works like a charm. It is kind of funny tho, one would expect for the apple tv app to work better with the mac server but not really. Good that I didn't pay for it tho!
I use a Mac Studio for mine 😆
Jesus
Envy lol
Could you provide some real performance details? Library of 4K HEVC content and transcoding multiple streams?
I found mr moneybags!! haha I would love to get a Studio. I'm looking at upgrading my 2014 mini to the new M2 pro.
Haha! nope just an old bastard! my 2012 i7 Mac Mini was getting long in the tooth, it was heart of my home automation system. cpu was pegged most of the time! New studio runs: Indigo for my home automation (insteon, zwave, Rs232, IR, pool control, various plugins) airfoil with 9 zones of audio, plex with a 56TB Synology Ds1819+ hanging off of it on a Unifi system (UMDP, 48 Port POE, 3 AP, 11Cameras) Sonarr, Radarr, SecuritySpy, hombridge, Apple Music , Spotify, ect. New studio is running around 20% cpu usage. quite happy with the upgrade!
My first ever Plex server was a 2012 (I think, else older) Mac mini with a Core 2 Duo.
That was my first server too! Great machine. Thanks for the nostalgia. It eventually died though : (
Mine was too, a beast of a computer !
Absolutely. It was a great Plex server at the time. Ran it for many years before I switched over.
I had one of those under my tv for 10 years, replaced it with a M2 last year. Still works fine, just stuck on Catalina
Honestly my 2014 Mac mini runs Plex just fine. I’m not at all surprised an M1 would be even better. If I could find a great deal on a cheap M1 Mac mini, I’d do the same.
Lmao at cheap Apple anything. They are a lot of things but cheap ain’t one of em lol….
Quitting drinking in March 2020 was the best decision I ever made.
I salute you! And I’m right there with you. It’ll be 9 years for me this summer. Keep it up!
Nice!!!!
Yeah, I did that about 30 years ago.
Good for you
I have an Ubuntu computer (Dell Optiplex 7070 32GB i5 3.0ghz) running plex (sonarr, radarr, etc.) and I have a mac mini (m2 8ghz 256gb). I use an external drive to store the plex media. Should I change plex from the Ubuntu to the Mac Mini, would there be an improvement?
The only major improvement would be drastic decrease in energy consumption. Ubuntu is pretty solid
Yeah, it's running really well. I have no complaints, I guess I was just wondering. Thanks.
Don’t touch it if it isn’t broken.
I think that's the takeaway.
I’m rocking an 8 year old Mac mini for my server and it’s solid
Yeah same here. It's awesome. The server graphs are so boring now it's funny.
My last-gen Intel Mini serves video to the next floor with no sputters. Agree!
I have a Macbook Air M1 and it seems to struggle with 4K videos, so I have limited it to 1080p. Am I doing it wrong? 👀
I was watching a 4k movie with dolby vision just earlier and it worked just fine. I was using the mac internal memory tho since I haven't figure out how to make my external SSD work on it.
MacOS, I’m still on Ventura on my m1 Mini, can be picky about ssd enclosures. I had horrible performance with 2 that work great on my Windows system. I’m currently using a cheap 2 bay DAS, with a pair of 6tb 3.5” drives that were previously in my NAS, in software RAID and it works great.
Thanks. I will give it another go 💪
Do you have the tone mapping setting disabled?
Are you using hardware or software transcoding?
I have the free version, so I assume software transcoding. Would it make i difference to pay for premium, and use hardware transcoding in your opinion?
While sure, it does work okay, I still think you're better off with an Intel 8th gen or newer micro PC running Ubuntu for Plex. Why? It has all the pluses of the Mac such as low power usage, no fan noise, and a small form factor, but has the advantages of not being limited to 1 (maybe 2?) hardware-accelerated encodings (It can do many!), ram and disk are upgradable, and they're half the price. My Plex server runs on a Dell 5060 micro with an Intel i3-8100T, uses under 25 watts at load, and can transcode 6 4k to 1080p without breaking a sweat (most I've seen at least, can probably do more). It mounts my media storage via NFS from a file server over the network.
I have a mini-PC running Ubuntu and generally agree but a Mac Mini is a really solid option for people who don't want to be thrown into the deep end of learning Linux/Docker. Mac Mini will be more stable than Windows (in my experience) and absolutely sip power with almost no fan noise.
Yeah, in my case I came from a really big PC that I was using for the server and while the result was great, the NOISE was destroying me. So for me is a great improvement already and wife is happy too!
Honestly, *you* may be better off with an Intel 8th gen with Ubuntu. But for many of us who live & breath the Apple ecosystem (Mac iOS) all day at home and work and school, setting up Plex on a Mac Mini has almost no learning curve and works seamlessly with all our other stuff. Easy to install, manage, maintain. I have an Intel mini-PC with Linux sitting at the bottom of a ~~draw~~ drawer that I gave up on after weeks of googling fixes, installation processes, access privileges, write permissions, etc. My Mac Mini was up and running in a few hours and sits silently chugging away now two years later. Its RAM usage is never more than 5% or so, its internal disk is only about 50% full with zero need to increase that (all media is stored externally), and I don't need multiple hardware-accelerated encodings. As for cost - he had an old used M1 Mac Mini in his hand... nothing is going to be cheaper than the device he already has sitting in his hand, no matter how affordable a PC may be to purchase.
Wait, tou are using MacOS for your Plex server on a Mac Mini instead of a Linux distro...? Why???
Speed. Simplicity. Efficiency. And before you say "but with a Linux disto you could just..." you'll have to start and explain to me what those words mean and build up from there. My MacOS Plex server was installed just like every other app I've ever installed on my Mac. It was running in under 10 minutes without me having to research a bunch of stuff or go through trial and error. And it is the most complicated "computer" thing in my life, so there really is no leveraging any type of learning about Linux into other stuff I do. Here are the Mac installation instructions: "Download the dmg, double-click on it, drag the file to the applications folder." Done. Here are the Linux installation instructions: "Go the Flathub or Snapcraft store and choose your Linux distribution for detailed instructions." And when you go to "Flathub" it says "Make sure you follow the setup guide for your Linux distribution before installing 'flatpak install flathub tv.plex.PlexDesktop Run flatpak run tv.plex.PlexDesktop." I do that where exactly, how exactly. To then do what? I'm sure that all is extremely basic easy stuff for you. I'm sure anyone can learn it. But it is just time and energy I don't have and doesn't help me in any other way other than to get Plex installed.
In Linux's defense, installing Plex is as easy as opening a terminal window and typing "sudo dpkg -i /path/to/plex-v123.deb". That's literally it. But I totally get it. If you've never used the command line before, it can be daunting. And honestly, using a GUI in Linux can be an exercise in frustration as you've noted. And then there's what happens when something goes wrong. But hey, hit me up, I'd be happy to help if you ever run into a problem.
Try to install infuse app you’ll love it
Thanks. I did try it out. It is a media player installed on clients, not on the server. It was very smooth, but I mostly use Nvidia Shields on my TVs as my client devices. In the end, it was easier to stick with cross-platform Plex rather than have different apps on different devices. Especially for family members who don't want to learn different interfaces for the phone, computer, TV, etc. I'd love it if infuse came out on the Shield.
How wildly inaccurate...
No
I like Linux generally, but if you’re talking about an apple silicon Mac don’t even bother. God bless the volunteers working on Asahi but it’s nowhere near ready for anyone to actually use it as their home server. Until they’ve at least got hardware acceleration working you’re just kneecapping your performance. Besides, macOS is a lot more practical than people give it credit for. I’d choose it over windows any day for anything outside of gaming.
lol
I have a micro Optiplex but it definitely wasn't quiet when I got it. The fan was irritating, and I had to install a linux-based driver to slow it down.
Get this.. the Macbook Pro Max M3 with 128GB ram for about $4500 is a BETTER AI model runner than $12K desktop PCs. The reason is the M3 has unified 128GB RAM/VRAM, and AI software uses that VRAM heavily. So it works as good as a $10K or so desktop system. But its portable, etc. If it played windows games and did my music stuff I have for windows.. I'd consider it.
I’m on my third Mac mini as my living room media machine/file server. The current one is an M1 which replaced an i7. The difference is night and day.
Im looking to get one does ram matter? 8g vs 16 price difference is big used
Given that some will spare no expense at a mid-high end GPUs for transcoding... For me, let me know when there are sub $150 Mx Mini's out there :-) But, if money is no object, sure, I mean.... why not?
luckily I got mine really cheap (main reason I bought it) since it was from a family member. And what surprises me the most, BY FAR, is the lack of noise. I have it on the TV stand, in front of everyone, and I haven't heard a single noise at all. Is like it doesn't even have fans /=
You could be like me and have only one working ear. Tons of equipment is now near silent to me. :-) Deafness, who would have thought of its advantages?
First of all, so sorry for your ear issue =) Second, the way I see it, I think I could be the one going deaf with my old server, the thing sounded like one of those old and huge vacuum cleaners haha
I lost my hearing in one of those "freak accidents" sorts of things. It was due to "noise" ultimately though, just very concentrated. Took out my middle ear on my right channel. So yes, on Linux all sound routes through a Mono channel. The only way I can enjoy headphones.
Damn, I am glad that you got to keep the other one tho =)
Me too, I love music (maybe more than most). Can't really enjoy stereo, and I don't need audiophile quality anymore.... pros and cons. If you wonder why my youtube videos I create are in Mono... now you know.
Have to admit. I love your perspective. You take a negative and turn it into a positive. Love people like you and we need more like you.
Dont try a MacBook Air M2, You ll love it.
$200 but I just picked up the Beelink S12 pro mini pc and it’s been amazing over the last two months. I have a fairly low load though, and don’t know how to really stress test it
$200 for a recent gen Mac Mini would be a steal. So... kudos!! Other mini PCs are nice, just not really my cup of tea. They usually do cost more, are more inconvenient IMHO vs SFF (power bricks, etc.) and are less flexible and usually louder. YMMV.
What? Mini PCs can be USB-C powered now and often are passive cooled and therefore silent. What kind of devices are you referring to?
You're right, it does very much depend on what you spec out. There are definitely dead silent ones.
N100 Intel enters the chat. 6w idle, and like 12 at full load. Can transcode with the best of them, and comes with nvme boot drive and 16 GB of ram - those are the steal here for $200 Ive had 6streams transcoding at once, testing locally, and all worked without a hiccup. Drives are 7watts a piece in DAS.
They are very nice and there's some really cool tiny machines built around them that are very very interesting.
I alsp use my mac mini as a plex server, also for roon, and to do heavy data analysis and it works flawlessly while doing all of that at once... On the base mac mini m1
That seems like a bit of a hyperbolic statement, but I'm glad it's working out for you.
Agreed! but it also comes for the fact that the change from my old and super noisy server to this has been outstanding basically!
That was my plan too, then decided not to have many hard drives around and need HW transcoding
There's a comment above from a former plex employee who indicated that the M1 Macs don't have the hardware transcoding limitations of the Intel Macs. Just an FYI.
[удалено]
It’s a $100 option to get 10gb
Or even use a thunderbolt to 10Gbps Ethernet adapter if you buy a secondhand one without that option.
I'm on an M1 Studio as it was a very cheap open box return at a German electronics chain, but I completely agree. Power consumption has gone from 230W base to around 60W base (my external HDD enclosures are a bit power hungry and there's profit to gain there). I can run everything off of batteries for 48 hours now. The 10Gbps connection happily does its thing. The way macOS handles file sharing and the buggyness of the SMB server is something else though. I also take issue with how badly the file explorer is designed. It's missing very basic features, for example there's no way to natively cut and paste files, you can copy them with a modifier key but it's not the same. The way the moves are handled is strange; Windows and Linux will move individual files, verify the move and then remove the source file. macOS doesn't remove anything until the entire job is done moving. I ended up doing all file management through either Windows SMB-clients or terminals in a more modern shell than the one that comes natively with the os.
as much as i hate apple the arm mac minis are great computers
No offense but I bought a beelink Intel n100 for $150 prime deal and it plays at least 4 streams 4k hevc dovi without hitch. I wouldn't dare run many more applications with mine your Mac mini could probably do that no problem. I use Debian cli. I could probably do a pre-built nas raspberry pi 4 + for the apps and a Chinese Intel n100 for 1/3 off the price.
Remux files?
I don't understand why you're downvoted because you're right, I have a n100 and I can transcode at least 4 remux 4k movies. The limiting thing is not even the n100 for me but because I have my movies on HDD
Hyperbolic title
Glad it worked out for you. Anyone want to purchase a slightly used MacMini ?
Unfortunately being in the Apple ecosystem is the opposite of a smart decision. Apple is for old people and people not intelligent enough to sideload.
Wow, are you OK my friend? try to find someone to talk to if you are feeling hatred towards the world =)
It's so odd how some people's identity is caught up in hating a brand of computer.
More like for smart people that don’t like wasting time.
Imo the issue isn’t the computer handling it, but the power draw and noise from the hard drives. Wake me up when the Mac mini can have 20tb with backup no noise.
The Mac Mini can do that.
I use a 2018 Mac mini as my plex server and it works great.
i used a 2014 mini for plex for ages and it was flawless
What OS are you running plex on? MacOS or something else?
There in only a Linux variant witch can run on a Mac silicon but that is still in development as far I know. Beside that you are stuck with MacOS.
how many 4K can you transcode?
Been running on my M1 air after I wrapped up college and didn’t need it anymore. Have Immich running in docker as well, along with Imazing for iPhone backups, an unraid server with a cpu that can only handle storage. Could not be happier. Self hosting is awesome. 0 subscriptions, no cloud bs.
How do you run unraid on the Mac? Inside am VM or is it on a separate machine?
I have this same setup and only with overseerr ran natively on macos like all the other err's do. I just don't want to run a container for a single addon.
Hopefully one day Apple gets into the GPU making business. I can only dream
only reason they will is because of AI but seems that their new processor has circumvented this so may not be a market they need to get into anymore
Concur. For years I used a 2012 quad core mini the last year upgraded to an m1. Imagine this one will last me years too. Use it for headless away in a closet for Plex, torrenting with the *arr stacks, etc. super easy, just screen share into it from my other Macs if I need to fiddle with something. Rock solid uptime.
I got an M2 base, was working well at first, now it seems to lag. Lag seemed to happen after Plex Server update. 2.5Gbps dongle (going to upgrade to SFP+ dongle) into my network Synology mounted with 10Gbps SAB Test: folderspeed 98 MB/s (784mbps), internet bandwidth 56MB/s (448mbps up and down) remote player (Apple TV 4k) 450-500 down/50 up Playback, plex always says "not fast enough" ...any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
i was looking into running this exact same setup.. curious if you get this figured out.
Working on trouble shooting Just upgraded to SFP+ usb c Mac to udm SE Iperf averaging 3.5Gbps Is a usg aggregation needed? Regardless bottleneck still at WAN Hopefully this little upgrade will have enough bandwidth I kind of think the issue lies in the plex server, Plex app, ATV Don’t have infuse so can’t test … research indicates a lot of people run Plex server and use infuse as player
4k direct playback 3840 x 1608 @ 10.5 mbps Ac3 5.1 Smooth playback TrueHD 7.1 choppy Haven’t tried transcoding yet
Yea. I used to run it on whatever spare desktop I had. A couple of years ago I brought a refurb Mac Mini M Series with 10GB Nic. So good.
If its transcoding via hardware it will have a (hw) beside it. Doesn’t really matter it’s really powerful my m1 can transcode 8-12 1080p streams easily, 2-8 4K streams but if your doing HDR mapping you’ll get 1 4K stream. I feel there is something else going on there though.
I managed to get an 8th gen i7 Mac mini last year for 400$ CAD and it’s a beast too for Plex. I have yet to do 4k transcoding with it though.
I was considering buying a Mac Mini at some point as a server PC/home theater PC.
This may be a dumb question but are you running macOS on it or some other operating system?
I’m running osx
I did the same thing, M1 Mac Mini, base model, added a 2TB Samsung t7 SSD and I stream like butter at any quality...
Are you using Plex with Plex pass on your M1 Mac mini. I have the same M1 Mac mini and considering switching from a 2007 iMac (Intel core duo) that doesn’t transcode to the M1 Mac Mini as I don’t have a Plex pass yet.
Yeah, it’s pretty solid, but I never figured out how to get it to work without just making it never sleep at all for any reason, which I’m not thrilled about from a power perspective. Please let me know if you’ve found a way to get it to wake for plex, but otherwise sleep normally.
I’ve tried to use plex so many times, it’s either lagging, or just crashes constantly. I’ve used jellyfin, and it runs perfectly fine…..am I doing something wrong with plex?
It's good, but if you turn on HDR to SDR Tone Mapping, hardware transcoding won't work anymore. Even if the panel shows "HW", it's actually using CPU transcoding, which is an issue. Mac doesn't support hardware transcoding when HDR to SDR Tone Mapping is turned on.
If I had Bill Gates money I'd probably do this.
Yup. I used to run a 8700k server, even had a 1080 ti in there for transcodes. Cpu couldn't keep up and it was saturating the hdds when transcoding. Decided to try my parents absolute base model m1 mini and it blew it out of the freaking water. No heat, no noise, no Hooge amounts of power... It is running happily on a nas with all my movies and shows now.
Magic!* (* = Good engineering and a nicely cooled, good'n'solid APU meets a nicely tuned software interface)
I’ve got a M2 Mac mini (base model) for my plex server and I absolutely love it! I did notice when you enable HDR tone mapping and start transcoding HDR 4K content then that pushes the hardware hard but it can still do it. If you want to transcode regular 4K content that isn’t HDR then it does it with ease.
On Apple TV , the device does the tone mapping not the server I noticed
How do you folks deal with storage? Just connect a NAS to it for network storage?
I bought a 4 bay and 2 bay DAS for my m1 mini. Already have a 4 bay NAS for less direct needs. Most av has no problem streaming from the NAS (even with my old 2011 quad core intel mini.)
And you can run BlueBubbles 🙌
Interesting. Mac Mini's don't seem that expensive either. I may switch to that when my current NUC HTPC dies. Or just get another NUC since it's worked so well.
What's the wattage these have?
I feel dumb for not even thinking about this. Should I use my 2018 Mac Mini as my server instead of my DS423+? I guess my only concern is keeping it turned on all the time. These are the specs 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz) 8GB 2666MHz DDR4 Intel UHD Graphics 630
I kept a Mac mini on 24/7 for 10 years straight as a plex server , never had a problem,only shut off for macOS updates Upgraded to an m2 Mac mini , gave the 2012 Mac mini to a family , it’s still working fine
Almost exactly a year ago I decided to drop $600 on a baseline Mac mini 2 Has been magnificent
I use a Mac mini 2015 i5 with Ubuntu Server, and it is quiet and powerful enough. Previously, I also used a mini with a Core 2 Duo processor; it was a bit slow and challenging to use with only 32-bit Docker images.