Home Media Server

In an effort to detach myself from streaming services and take ownership of the media I consume, decided to set up a home media server. I probably could have set this up much cheaper using old parts or spending more effort looking for deals, but for just shy of $400, I’m happy with what I’m currently working with.

Software - Plex & Plexamp

In a sea of streaming services, Plex is sort of the odd one out. Yes, it does let you stream movies (via Plex) and music (via Plexamp) to your devices and charges you a monthly fee for it. However, the media you stream is supplied by you. When you download Plex, you point it to where your media lives on your computer and that is what becomes available to stream.

In short, you pay for the ability to stream your own content and not the content the service provides to you. I have a lot of music that was never on Spotify, so this is a great way to enjoy the music that I’ve collected over the years. Streaming the things you own also ensures that the service can’t take your favorite shows and movies offline.

Server - Beelink Mini S13 Pro Mini PC

Comparing benchmarks and hardware specs does not excite me and frankly, make my head spin. I wanted to choose hardware that would “just work” with minimal configuration. I opted to go for a mini PC instead of network attached storage (NAS) since I don’t think my storage requirements justify that yet and I am not familiar with the NAS software environment and did not feel like learning.

The Beelink Mini S13 Pro runs for about $259 on Amazon. Some highlights:

• Intel N150 chip
  • An N100 would have been just as capable and a little cheaper.
  • Intel chips are recommended for their hardware transcoding capabilities. In other words, they excel at streaming your media to other devices.
• 16 GB RAM
  • probably overkill for my use case but I would eventually like the ability to run other services without issue (Home Assistant, etc.)
• Seagate 4TB External Drive
  • I’ve attached an external drive to the mini PC that functions purely as the media library for Plex.
• Linux Mint
  • The machine comes installed with Windows 11 and all the bloatware that comes with it. I removed that and installed Linux Mint.

Configuration

The general setup is as follows:

• Plex is installed on the mini PC and pointed to the media that lives on my 4 TB hard drive at the path /media/SEAGATE-4TB
• In order for Plex to see the media library, all folders and media are assigned the plex user and plex group. You’ll need to add your current user to that group and change permissions to be able to add and remove media from that drive.
• On my main pc, I have the 4TB drive mounted as a network share drive so I can easily manage the media. I also have a remote desktop connection set up in case I need to do more in depth troubleshooting.