Plex Server SSD or HDD?

Hi All,
Building a little Plex server up and wondering if it's worth buying a 500GB SSD to house O/S/Plex and the database files or just a bog basic 120-128GB for the O/S and Plex and use an old mech drive here for the database? Extra $50 gonna speed up the interface or just a waste of money?

 

i wouldn't think so specifically for plex, unless you using the ssd to house things like tons of pics etc. That being said, I can't handle anything but an ssd for my os's. Surely you have a spare old ssd lying around?

 

If you will be using Plex with a large database or multiple users, you basically need an SSD unless you want lag when navigating.

You can easily get away with a 256GB SSD for Plex and OS.

 

600 or so movies and some TV shows and eventually yeah there may be 2 devices accessing simultaneously. Have read some stuff around the traps about the database files/metadata ending up pretty huge (like 150gb+) or is that just because it needs a clean up?

EDIT: OK so seems its the thumbnail preview indexing so you can see where you are jumping to when fast forwarding etc. As long as I can actually fast forward 2x/4x/8x etc in traditional manner I dont need that. My old popcorn hour just has straight ff and rewind and I survive.

 

Thats right, thumbnail previews take an insane amount of time to generate and are simply not practical once you get a large plex collection due to their very large size per video.

Being able to fast forward/rewind quickly is mostly reliant on fast internet or using LAN, and direct playing.

 

What? Thumbnail previews is almost instanteous and the metadata for it takes up minimal space, it’s 25gb per 100tb or so

And yes you want the database/metadata cache on SSD, it’s a massive improvement on usability speed of the UI

 

Wrong, didn't you learn from the other plex thread?

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197528-video-preview-thumbnails/

 

I think you may be confused as I was Copie. Not thumbnails and metadata for navigating the menu, the thumbnail preview feature takes a shit tonne of frames from the video and catalogues them so when you shift the scrub bar to time point 23:45 for example it shows a thumbnail of what that point is to make it easier to skip around. It seems impractical though with large collections as just takes too much space.

I'll run Plex and the base catalogue off a 256GB SSD methinks.

 

fully agree, Plex and any other system like it benefits massively from having an SSD.

 

I think the entire feature is pointless anyway, your watch progress is saved, there aren't going to be many situations where you want to start watching a movie from a certain scene, rather then the start of the movie. I was seeking a UFC fight on my server remotely and I couldn't even tell it was a remote connection, so just seeking in increments is better then bothering with thumbnails in my opinion.



Also since 256GB high end NVME drives are so cheap I would just get one of those as its a lot faster and lower latency fast scrolling through your movie collection. Its benefits mostly depend what else you are using your server for at the same time but its easier to start with that rather then move later when you've got other services running.

 

I would go

I'd go NMVE but no port for it on the mobo I'm using (old haswell build) so will have to stick with SATA but yeah it's mainly a movie server (may evolve over time as it inherits other parts) so should be OK. Agree with the seeking, I never skip through movies really so dont care about it. It will be hard wired to the network too.

 

i personally also think 500 is too big, mine has a 250GB drive and there's no danger of it running out of space.

 

I'll stick with 240/250 and save some clams, power

 

I use 120GB SSDs for my FreeNAS OS (2 for redundancy), that's more than enough for FreeNAS & Plex.

Hell I only use a 256GB NVMe for Windows on my main rig and 120GB's for my servers .

 

I use a 40gb intel ssd for plex, makes managing the system way less frustrating.

 

When an albeit fairly slow 240GB SSD is $43 (Kingston A400/WD Green) prob not much point chasing one smaller. It's no rocket but I used one in a laptop recently and it still gave it a mighty shot in the arse.

 

Looks like I'm bumping an old topic but hands down SSD or better to handle anything done by plex on the back end, when you get a large library the amount of metadata it can hold you better hope it has good iops and 4k speeds however