Source
r/raspberry_pi•
Waslay

Plex Media Server + Sonarr/NZBDrone + Couchpotato + Deluge on the same Raspberry Pi

I've been doing some research into whether or not a Raspberry Pi would be strong enough to handle finding, downloading, and streaming all at once. So far I've found people saying that this is possible, but even with the RPi 3 it won't be able to transcode or do 1080p.

I've already gotten all of these programs up and running on a spare laptop I have, but this uses up a lot of power and it's really big for what I use it for. I also have set up Rasplex on an RPi 2 so I have some experience with RPi's, but not a ton.

Ideally, I would like to put all of this (except Rasplex, I'll use my Xbox/phone/computer as clients) on a single RPi. Since this does not seem to be possible, is there a way to set up 2 separate RPi's so that one handles the finding/downloading and the other stores the data and acts as a Plex Media Server? If so, is there a guide? Which model RPi(s) should I get? Could I transfer all my current settings/selected movies and shows from my old computer to the RPi?

Thanks in advance for all the help. I'm really hoping to get this working well soon but I haven't bought any hardware yet - I want to know exactly what I need so I don't end up with something that doesn't work or isn't needed. Any advice is much appreciated.

Posted Jun 15, 2016, 11:49 PM UTC

08
ultradip•

Basically, run Plex on a separate Pi, while everything else runs on another. The one doing all the downloading should also be your file server that Plex points to for it's media.

1
WaslayOP•

Do you mean pointing the Plex media server to the Pi downloading everything to the hard drive to access it over the network? Or are you talking about pointing a plex client to a plex server on the Pi that's downloading everything? Your answer was a little vague so I'm not sure which you meant, sorry.

1
ultradip•

Basically, the Pi doing all the downloading would be attached to a hard drive to act as a NAS.

But if you've already got a NAS, then you could point the downloading Pi to that as it's destination for completed downloads, and then have the Plex Pi use the NAS as it's media source.

1
quicksilver_101•

I'm running PMS, Sonarr, transmission and plexpy on a Rpi3 - streaming to an apple tv3, iPad and iPhones (no transcoding). No issues so far, have seen 4 concurrent streams all 1080p. I use a fast external hdd for the plex transcode folder.

I guess it might struggle with a larger amount of downloads in parallel to streaming but that's not been an issue for me.

1
WaslayOP•

Right, but I don't stream to any apple devices. Won't I need the transcoding if its going to such different devices such as windows 10, xbox one, and android? Especially because many of the files I'm streaming come in different formats completely and with the automation I can't really choose which I get.

Also, how is transmission compared to Deluge? I mainly use Deluge but have been looking at other options.

2
quicksilver_101•

You're right - some combinations of files and clients might not work, I guess it'd be trial and error.

Transmission on Linux is fine - stable but nothing fancy. Deluge plugins are probably the main difference I noticed, but I don't need them right now.

1
coconutoctopus•

I'm buying Rpi3 for the first time, and will have almost the same setup as you (streaming to apple tv/iphone). Kinda new to this, as I understand, transcoding takes a lot of CPU power, how do you set it up so no transcoding is required? Do I download video files that is natively compatible with Apple's system? Or just by having Plex client on the device I want to stream to?

1
quicksilver_101•

I think the key is to only put compatible files into your plex library.

So far the rpi streams 1080 mkv files fine - so I guess they are supported by the official plex app on the atv and iPhones. I haven't touched the transcode settings besides the temporary folder path to point to an ext hdd.

1