Plex Media Server – Review, Uses, Functionality, Installation for your personal media library

Something that caught my eye recently was Plex Media Server. I was looking for a solution that gave me a few tools including –

1) Central storage of my media files without the need to ‘sync’ the data to my local device

2) All media accessible anywhere with an internet connection

3) Ability to share my content easily to my friends without physically sending them huge files

STORAGE

I recently purchased a Lenovo Ideacentre 300 pc in a stick (will review this later in another post) as a replacement for my ageing laptop. I am very happy with it, but its biggest limitation is its lack of space in order to store all my media. I therefore wanted a solution that gave me remote storage of my media collection (mp3s and movies) that did NOT require syncing to my Lenovo stick. That instantly ruled out something like dropbox, onedrive or other similar tool.

ACCESS

One of my vps servers has provided me the space to store my media, therefore my next step was to find a solution that could give me access it from anywhere.

Firstly I added Samba which means I can map a drive from my lenovo stick to the server to enable me to upload new media manually.

Plex Media Server has a free option which allows you to connect via a browser from any device. It also has paid apps for android, ios and more if you want something nicer for each platform. You can register your Plex username HERE

SHARING

Within the Plex Media Server browser app you are then able to share ‘collections’ to other plex users. This means within a group of friends you can each share your content to one another.

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS

An additional option to add further flexibility and ease of use for your Media Centre, is to set any torrent downloads you run locally to save to your samba shared drive, therefore auto populating in Plex Media Server when they have completed. Or run something like Deluge (or other server based torrent client) to download your torrent movies directly on the server into your Plex media library. I have installed, configured, and have this working for one of my clients on his own server and it works fine.

If you are looking for something like this to use for yourself, then CONTACT ME and I can rent you a server, and configure it all for you

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