October 23, 201312 yr I have a test UnRAID / Plex server with a single drive. Plex is installed on the disk in an applications folder. I'd like to move plex off the array but I understand that it's not recommended to intstall to a USB stick. Most people have it installed on a cache drive but I'm not really fussed about using cache. I'm thinking about buying a low capacity SSD to install Plex to. Is there a way I can set this up as a non-array drive but without caching data copied to the array? How much storage do I need for the Plex install? Would a 32GB drive be big enough?
October 23, 201312 yr Why not set the SSD as the cache drive but switch your shares to not use the cache drive. That is what I've done and you can do it all through the UnRAID UI with no 3rd party customizations. The size you need for plex is determined by size of your library and whether you are indexing videos and how much space you need for transcoding. I would assume 32GB is ok but can't guarantee TheWombat
October 24, 201312 yr Author Thank you for your suggestion. That sounds like the setup I need. Can anyone else advise on SSD size for a Plex insall?
October 24, 201312 yr You could also mount SSD outside the array via /boot/config/go script, but like TheWombat suggested, using cache and excluding shares just seems less hassle. My plex folder (850 movies and about 1200 episodes, so about 2000 library entries) takes up 3.2GB of disk space, so I'm quite positive 32GB should be enough, unless You have MASSIVE Plex library.
October 24, 201312 yr I have a small library of 1000 movies, and 75 series with around 7000 episodes. The library takes less than 7 GB on my 64 GB SSD. So if you don't have a really large library 32 GB should be sufficient. The prices for 64 GB vs 32 GB are relatively close however. In the end you'll have the decide for yourself.
October 24, 201312 yr joyless and SirG: out of curiosity, have you generated the BIF index files yet for your libraries yet?
October 24, 201312 yr Author Thanks everyone. Does anyone use Plex Sync? I understand it uses one of the Plex directories to store the transcoded files and wondered if this might warrant a 64GB drive instead? Does anyone recommend a particular SSD? I've seen good deals on Crucial and OCZ but both get very poor reviews.
October 24, 201312 yr joyless and SirG: out of curiosity, have you generated the BIF index files yet for your libraries yet? sorry, i'm not sure what exactly BIF index is (i don't have plexpass subscription of that in any way related)
October 24, 201312 yr Thanks everyone. Does anyone use Plex Sync? I understand it uses one of the Plex directories to store the transcoded files and wondered if this might warrant a 64GB drive instead? Does anyone recommend a particular SSD? I've seen good deals on Crucial and OCZ but both get very poor reviews. You know I JUST played about with plexsync but I can't tell you where it is stored on PMS. If you would like I can check it out tonight.
October 24, 201312 yr joyless and SirG: out of curiosity, have you generated the BIF index files yet for your libraries yet? sorry, i'm not sure what exactly BIF index is (i don't have plexpass subscription of that in any way related) Well that answers my question and might inform OP / others. The feature used to be plexpass only but I believe it has moved into general availability. The bif index files are transcoded SD images made every second of a video which can be used by players (like Roku) to show you an film strip view while seeking within a movie. Basically make Plex-Roku look just like Netlix-Roku. It is a killer feature IMO and is why I bought plexpass back when it was a requirement. Anyway the reason I ask is because as you can imagine having nominally 1/24th of all your videos (one frame out of 24/second), even at SD size, duplicated into your plex library folder can turn out to be quite large. I don't have that many videos, and I have not checked how much of my 64gb SSD is in use, but given the size of some of your libraries it might be something to worry about. And yes it takes a LOOOONG time (3 days at 200% cpu on an amd 7750 x2 2.8GHz) to generate those indexes but they are oh so worth it. I hate trying to guess how far to seek to skip "previously on" and opening credits, not to mention knowing how far to seek to find a bit I just missed. For a huge library I suppose I'd cherry pick all new stuff + stuff I know I watch regularly.
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