AtomBomb

Ugh...I think I have gone to far down the rabbit hole and got lost now. II'll try to make this as short as possible while as detailed as I can. I have been a plex user for years and have been getting away with a really shitty small thinkcenter m90 with an i3 2 core processor. Its got a couple external hdds plug in and while Not ideal but it managed to get the job done for years. However with covid and the last couple years I've added users and data and basically I was ready for an upgrade. I an not on expert level, or even intermediate level but above noob. I own a small business with about 10 employees and i also wear the "IT Hat" so i have to figure shit out all the time. I've read all the documentation I can, and watched about every video out there more then once but now I've confused myself into a black hole. Ok so here is my setup. Everything is waiting for me in the office and I was going to put it all together when I get back on Monday (also first computer build) Processor i5 13gen 13600 Board MSI z690 Tomahawk 32g ram 2 nvme samsung 970 2t 1 samsung 870 evo Ssd GpU Msi GTX 1660 4 Red Western 18t drives Plus a western digital 10t and 8t external drive I have laying around but didnt plan on using due to space a old 256g ssd 3 2t samsung hdds The goal of this machine is to 1) run plex as fast as possible with every option on. My current setup limits users and functions. I have about 15 users that want to use it but are limited to 1 or 2 streams because of the current setup. I want everyone to be able to use it with all available functions turned on. Current database is roughly 16t. So my original plan was Set one 18t as the parity Set 3 18t as the array Set 1 nvme dedicated to all things plex Set 1 nvme to dockers VM and other required app data Set the samsung SSD as the primary cache for data transfers Transpose thru the GTX Do daily/or weekly backups as I have room and not critical data BUT.....then the internet got a hold of me and there was about 300 other setups that I started to go down... So now I'm torn, should I stick with the original plan, Or Set up both NVMEs in a pool and dump all plex, VM, appdata, dockers in there as a single pool..everything so its redundant? Or use the SSD for VM, appdata, and pool the nvme for plex? Use the Intel chip for transcoding instead of the GPU as it supports quicksync Or back to the original question : What's the "best" setup for plex to be snappy, load instantly, stream to 10+ users etc. Plex is 75% of this machine...I was tossing the idea of running a VM Windows Server 2019 really just to learn active directory. Don't plan on gaming but maybe the kids would...maybe.. Any advice or direction is very appreciated and I can do research if you point me in the direction. How would you do it with what I got? Would you use some of the old hardware also? Thanks!