Unraid+P(MS)+/-RasPlex+/-?

[mvanhooff]

Hi all,

 

I finally got all my parts for my nas and it's up and running:

 

• M/B: ASRock H370M-ITX/ac Version - s/n: M80-C5016100327
• BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. Version P4.10. Dated: 05/08/2019
• CPU: Intel® Pentium® Gold G5400 CPU @ 3.70GHz
• HVM: Enabled
• IOMMU: Enabled
• Cache: 128 KiB, 512 KiB, 4096 KiB
• Memory: 16 GiB DDR4 (max. installable capacity 32 GiB)
  029E CMK16GX4M2A2400C16, 8192 MiB DDR4 @ 2400 MT/s
  029E CMK16GX4M2A2400C16, 8192 MiB DDR4 @ 2400 MT/s
• Network: bond0: fault-tolerance (active-backup), mtu 1500
  eth0: 1000 Mbps, full duplex, mtu 1500
  eth1: interface down
• Kernel: Linux 4.19.56-Unraid x86_64

 

It is next to my tv and connected via HDMI.

 

I used to have my raspberry 3b connected with Kodi, which runs openelec or freebsd or ... 

When the OS started, it eventually launched Kodi and showed up on my tv.

I hoped this would account as wel as for Unraid (maybe it still is?)

 

I got it working now with plex installed as a docker, installed plex on my phone and streaming it via chromecast.
But for some reason, I think I am loosing quality via this method and I want to take out the phone and use my remote control instead!

 

I have some thoughts on how it might work, but maybe all ideas are nonesens and you have a better solution

 

1. I can only see the terminal now via the HDMI that is connected to my TV, is it possible to start Plex via the terminal and still get to my files in Unraid?

2. I have no GPU, but a iGPU from intel, I read some forums on passthrough working with Intel nowadays... is it possible to install a lightweight VM, intall plex and send it through my HDMI to my TV (this looks like a (very) difficult method (unless there is a great manual out there), and I suppose I lose a big part of my CPU/RAM while I have to split it)

3. Put my NAS somewhere hidden, hook up my raspberry pi with rasPlex and optimize all settings as much as possible to not lose any quality

4. Put my NAS somewhere hidden, put the LAN in the TV instead of Wifi and do it via chromecast.

 

My mediafiles vary from 2gb 1080p to 25gb 4kuhd

Most files are MKV, most music files are FLAC.

 

OR do you guys have a better solution?

 

 

[whipdancer]

unRaid is a NAS first.

Option 2 is technically viable, but I wouldn't go down that path.

Option 3 is quite reasonable.

Option 4 is also reasonable.

I use a Roku Premier+ because it was easier than my RPi to use as a plex client, connected to my TV.

[Jcloud]

 

On 10/24/2019 at 1:27 AM, mvanhooff said:

3. Put my NAS somewhere hidden, hook up my raspberry pi with rasPlex and optimize all settings as much as possible to not lose any quality

This is roughly my setup I'm using.  Plex Docker (Plex's official container from CA Apps), allocated four CPU threads - basically 1-4 streams in theory (Threadripper / no gpu), Streaming to a Raspberry Pi3 - RasPlex, pushing out 1080p on local network; however pushing over the internet my Plex clients get 720p - set on purpose due to limited upstream bandwidth.  Media is MKV, some mp4, mostly H.264 encoding some H.265, file sizes 2 - 14GB;  I've found the RP3 tends to choke on my H.265 media as it gets directplayed and not transcoded (RPi3 doesn't have the hardware to do H.265 decoding native).  

 

A friend of mine has Roku with Plex, which he streams from my library all the time. 

 

Edit:  added some pictures of my config, in case it helps.  First picture you can see I've allocated some free CPU threads to container; I've also pointed the container's /transcode folder to Unraid's ram-drive /tmp - although with 16GB of ram for your system you might want to test that.  Next two are from inside Plex Server configs; transcoder directory matching container config and setting max simultaneous video transcode to number of CPU threads I allocated to container. 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Jcloud
Added pictures of config