My Current Plex Server
Now at this point Plex has been around for quite some time. It’s reached a much more mature state over the past couple years. If you aren't familiar with Plex I would encourage you to check it out below.
Now I know there are many posts out there about plex servers and how to build your own, but I wanted to share my setup and the steps I took to get everything running just right for me.
First, let’s talk about the hardware
Rosewill Micro-ATX Mini Tower
To get things kicked off I picked out a case that would allow me total freedom to expand in the future. As well as plenty of cooling potential.
- 15 bays
- 7 Fans
- Rackmount
Intel Core i5–4430
At the time Intel was really the only choice for a server like this out there. More recently Ryzen came out which would be a great solution to a plex server now.
Gigabyte LGA 1150 B85
Honestly, there isn’t anything fancy about this motherboard. It is just the cheapest and the best reviews on Amazon when I was building my server.
:-)
Crucial 4GB Kit (2GBx2) DDR3–1600
Basic Memory for the machine. It didn’t need anything fancy just enough to run the OS
OS — 120gb SanDisk SSD
Because I like the ease that windows provide I opted to get an SSD for my OS and applications to sit on. The cheapest SSD out there will be fine. I chose this 120gb Sandisk because of its good reviews.
Storage — 6TB HGST NAS Drives
Now to finish the build out I decided to get two 6TB drives that I RAID“ed” together.
These drives are in my opinion the best drives for the money when it comes to network storage like a Plex server.
This setup allowed me to get started in the Plex server world without totally breaking the bank. All in all the whole setup cost me about $800. With the majority of the cost coming in from the hard drives. If you decide you wanted to have a smaller initial purchase you could reduce the size of the drives to 4tb or only pickup 1 at a time.
Check back soon for the new Plex server I am building soon!
