Plex Server on the Cheap? Intel N100 Mini PCs are a Great Choice

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VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
01:02 - Windows vs Linux
02:00 - Hardware Transcding
03:53 - Downloading & Installing
07:21 - Transcoder Settings
08:40 - Transcoding Examples
12:14 - Conclusion

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[MarkmacYT]

Switched to $150 Intel NUC with N5105 chip a few years ago. Also switched to Ubuntu Linux. Had zero experience with Linux. The server hasn’t crashed or failed to hardware transcode…ever. Anyone still running Plex on Windows hasn’t experienced Plex on Linux. If they did they’d never go back. It’s simply flawless and requires zero maintenance. This chip is even better than the N5105. And power consumption is nil. Doubt the fan would ever even kick on. Unless you’re running Windows, that is.

[ryanw]

Would love to see a walkthrough on installing Linux and Plex on this exact machine.

[Mario]

Thanks for this video Lon. Right now I’m running rpi4 Plex but would prefer this as it can do transcoding. I’d prefer to use Linux though for stability. A video showing how to setup this device with Plex and Linux would be very much appreciated.

[ShoelessJP]

Love the Plex content as always, keep up the great wrok Lon!

[richardremmele]

I use Plex for my recorded streaming content. I went with a Neosway 5105 at first which allowed me to do everything but one thing at a time. I tried the N200, but it seemed worse. I skipped the N100. I finally went with an i7 GMKTec. Here is a review that I had on one of your videos previously.

my Celeron N5105 which was 2 GHz and does PlayOn record from On demand from various services and includes downloading of 4K streams and light editing. The N5105 ran that app at about 2.8 turbo and 60% to 70% of CPU. I decided to try the N200 version and was disappointed. It is 1 GHz and mostly ran at 1.7 turbo and never got anywhere near 3.7 and about 95% to a constant 100% of CPU and mostly failed to record the content. In my initial email to them, they said a cryptic “It's about what we get” or something to that effect, I returned it.

[davedillehunt]

Great review as always! Recently bought a couple of Beelink minis with the n100 chip and they perform pretty much like this one. Not as cheap but have 16gb. I’m a windows guy (and Mac) but would love to see you do the Linux version of this. I might change to Linux if I think I can handle it. 🙂

[JonKho]

Thank you for this video and it gave me answers on how well does Intel N100 Mini PCs work well with Plex Server.

[alansmithee.]

As Windows 10's 2025 EOL approaches, many of us with Plex servers running on unsupported 7th gen and older Intel CPUs are faced with trying to modify a Win11 ISO to install or transition to Linux.

A Linux installation and Plex migration guide would be a huge boon to this segment of the userbase, especially since there are some tricky hurdles with Plex on Linux when it comes to user permissions to access media library folders (e.g., external drive library folders)

[argetech]

No only does the GMKtec Nucbox make a good Plex server, it also makes a great everyday PC!
Mine is the earlier 2023 G1 version N95 with 16gigs of ram and 1TB NVMe SSD. Dual booting Windows 11pro and Xubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS!

[mikehenika]

This video helped me, I shut off tone mapping and was able to play AV1 video on my N100 much better, on Chrome anyway.

[SoySauceJohnny]

Using this as a daily driver. I like it. Zorin OS, upgraded from 8gb ram to 16gb Klevv ram off of Amazon.

[nrnoble]

Thanks for video. I have a Plex Pass server and been using it for many years. A suggestion for a future Plex video is how to deal with data corruption such as when suddenly no movies or videos show up in plex, but the media files are still there and playback just fine using VLC. I have had the corruption problem a couple of times over the years and it can be solved if the persons knows the steps to rebuild the Plex DB thus saving having to reinstall everything.

[john_in_phoenix]

I have been very pleased with this GMKtec device (really nice it has 2.5gb ethernet). I did load Ubuntu on it and serve 4k video from my embedded Ryzen NAS. Well worth the money.

[meatbunftw]

Hey Lon, thanks for the vid. It would be interesting to take another look at the AMD side of things. With lots of mini/nuc style PCs coming out with AMD laptop SoCs like the ones from minisforum or Beelink, it would be nice to see how the situation has improved(or regressed) since that last look.

[KevinDouglas]

Currently have my Plex Server running on an old Optiplex I got from an old job. The Optiplex is running an i5 3470 and all content is hosted on some local NAS devices.
In the last year I started bringing in and backing up a ton of UHD BluRays and I think it is finally time for me to move this server off the Optiplex and over to something like this.
The power savings and graphics encode/decode capabilities alone would make it worth it.
Plex almost never tosses work to the 1050ti I have installed, so I may as well downsize.

[JimSturney]

Better alternative than some of the cheaper NAS devices with ARM processors. Intel processor = ability to use sonic analysis for music, a feature I very much enjoy in Plex!

[mneagle]

I Bit the bullet on a 600.00 I9 mini PC and wow! That thing is a beast.

[simonbyrd]

YES, I want a transcoder. Something to take the burden off of my main (but old) PC.

[dansanger]

Not only does it make a great media server, but I use my N100 mini-PC to transcode videos down to a smaller file size to save disk space. It's not as fast as my main PC, but it's fast enough, and way quieter.

[Maginone]

Great movie selection. JAY AND SILENT BOB😍