Plex
Plex is an application (software) that can run on a number of different devices. It organizes all of your videos, music and online content and streams them to any device such as a television, tablet, phone or laptop. You can add a TV tuner and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and record television content as well.
The device that the Plex application is on is called the Plex server and it must be running any time you want to watch content on Plex so keep that in mind when decided where you want to install the application. The device must be capable of taking the video and presenting it to wherever you want it displayed. In order to run the Plex Media Server, you’ll need to make sure that the computer/NAS is compatible and that it will support what you want to do.
Plex Media Server is compatible with:
Windows
OS X / macOS
Linux
NVIDIA SHIELD
Netgear Nighthawk X10 router
Many popular NAS devices such as Drobo, Netgear, Synology, and more
If you already have computer/laptop that you don’t mind leaving on, this could be a great option if it meets all of the systems criteria:
Operating System
Tip!: You’ll generally want to ensure that you’ve installed all “critical” type updates or service packs for your current operating system.
Windows
Windows 7 SP1 / Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012
Windows 8.1 (with Update) / Windows Server 2012 R2 (with Update)
Windows 10
OS X
OS X / macOS 10.9 Mavericks or newer (including Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra)
Linux
Ubuntu 10.04 or newer
Fedora 14 or newer
CentOS 6 or newer
FreeBSD
Plex Media Server releases are available for FreeBSD 9.1 or newer.
CPU
As a minimum, Intel Core i3 (or equivalent) or faster
If you will have multiple people accessing content simultaneously you will need something faster than the minimum such as an i5 o i7 Intel Core processor. The faster the better!
RAM
In general, Plex Media Server doesn’t require large amounts of RAM. 2GB of RAM is typically more than sufficient and some installs (particularly Linux-based installs) can often happily run with even less. Of course, more RAM won’t hurt you and will certainly be helpful if you’re also doing other things on the computer.
