Plex Media Server - Getting out of Jail

[ViciousXUSMC]

Pun Intended

I not too long ago moved my Freenas from bare metal to virtualized under ESXi.
That went smooth and I am very glad I made the change.

I now have more running on my server and better utilize my resources.

I still have 3 things running under Freenas instead of ESXi as FreeBSD jails.

Transmission Torrent Client #1 (No VPN Direct Internet Access)
Transmission Torrent Client #2 (OpenVPN Always On & Kill Switch Firewall Rules)
Plex Media Server

I just bought a lifetime Plex membership and know you get some goodies and lots of release builds.
Since I use the jail version, I know its a bit behind current release, so thats one reason to perhaps move.

The other is just like my other VM's better control over the environment and allocation of resources.

The bad thing is, instead of simply mounting media directories as jail storage, I would need to access media via shares. I would prefer Linux but all my shares are SMB and I know NFS has better performance. It is also bad to have two shares to the same location with different protocols.

Linux also can tie directly into my share permissions as they are Unix based instead of NTFS based.

With all the data I am collecting and considering, I guess bottom line is; Has anybody else made this transition, and if so do you think it was worth it?

For those who considered and did not transition, what were the reasons that prevented you from doing it?

 

[StammesOpfer]

I never did run Plex in a jail but do run it on Windows and Linux both use SMB shares served by FreeNAS. Don't over think performance too much Plex is not going to max out your storage performance. Even Ultra HD Blu-ray theoretical max bitrate is 128Mbit/s or 16MB/s. Storage performance is much less important than capacity for Plex. Use whichever protocol you have setup or are most comfortable with.

 

[ViciousXUSMC]

I am comfortable with both, though I think I read the Windows version has additional plugins that Linux does not have.
I prefer Linux in general for "server" tasks as I feel its more stable, less overhead, and upgrading things is seamless usually.

 

[StammesOpfer]

I am comfortable with both, though I think I read the Windows version has additional plugins that Linux does not have.
I prefer Linux in general for "server" tasks as I feel its more stable, less overhead, and upgrading things is seamless usually.

I can't think of any feature that is windows only for plex maybe a 3rd party add on. With a little scripting Linux does stay up to date a little better than windows but overall both are solid.

 

[whitey]

I've been a Plex on Linux VM running on ESXi w/ lifetime sub for a few yrs now, all NFS mounts back to freenas AIO stg appliance, works like a dream and that is my preferred setup FWIW. Upgrades are seamless, LiveTV/DVR works great off my HDHR, the metadata 'snatch' move pissed me off a bit but I believe they have relaxed that a bit.