automate the gathering of content to put onto my storage device?īelow is a list of applications and some background on them that comprise the setup of the perfect automated media server.easily stream content from my storage device to my TV?.While deciding on solutions for each of the problems I was having with my current workflow, I kept asking myself questions like “how can I…”: After spending some late nights doing research, sifting through Github repositories and forums, I feel that I have devised the perfect automated media management setup for me. I keep hearing about this Plex thing repeatedly, and after a few Google searches I realized there is a hidden world of people that have this whole media management thing down to a science. It seemed like a cool way to present your media library, but at the time I felt like it was overkill compared to my homegrown collection of techniques I’d gained over the years for wrangling and managing my library of ripped CDs and DVDs.įast-forward to 2017 and my media library has grown quite a bit. If you use this information for such a purpose, you have been warned 🕴.īack in 2011 I heard about this thing called “Plex”. This post is strictly and entirely an educational experiment and I am in no way condoning the use, nor advocacy, of software to acquire copyrighted media content. The upgrade in hardware allowed me to consolidate a tonne of physical and digital space to a single machine that can do the heavy lifting of multiple machines. This was primarily because the seedbox machine needed to be running on a dedicated VPN, while the Plex machine needed access to the internet unfettered (for Remote Access to work properly without workarounds). The previous iteration of my setup saw two separate physical machines with one running as the “seedbox”, and the other running everything else.

Since I wrote this guide, I’ve moved through a few slightly different setups and settled on one that I really enjoy: a single “server” running Windows 10 Pro, and on it runs several Virtualbox VMs in headless mode for the various services required. I’ve recently rebuilt my aging “server”, upgrading it from a marginally-OK gaming machine without virtualization built in 2012 to a fairly beefy dedicated server build. Thanks to everyone who’s signed up to ExpressVPN with my referral link, I’ve received over 80 months of free service so far which indicates to me that you folks love this content! 👏😊

Plex media server setup freenas 10