![]() ![]() (Remember, Plex cannot play any DRM-protected videos purchased from the iTunes Store or elsewhere.) My music library, as well as my iTunes Store movies and TV series, are stored on my iMac, but I’ve shunted the rest of my videos to the Mac mini. I only use Plex for videos movies and TV shows that I’ve ripped from DVD or Blu-Ray. ![]() You can probably find a similar model used for a few hundred dollars. It has a Thunderbolt port, but it does not have USB 3. I also bought the Mac mini with a 256GB SSD and a second internal drive of 750GB. The 2.7GHz Core i7 is fast enough to transcode video and handle several other tasks at the same time. I’m running a 2011 Mac mini that I tricked out with the fastest available processor when I bought it. For $699, you get a Mac mini with a 2.6GHz processor and 1TB hard drive, which will handle most people’s media collections. But the entry-level model with a 1.4GHz processor is a bit pokey. The current model, starting at $499, includes Thunderbolt and USB 3 connections, and while it doesn’t have the largest (or fastest) hard drive, its 500GB might be enough for your media collection. ![]() Its small form factor and quiet operation makes it easy to integrate into a home entertainment system or use as a server stashed away in a corner. Requirements for a Plex media server can be found here.The Mac mini is the cheapest Mac you can buy. (One caveat: iTunes purchased content cannot be played via Plex). The new Apple TV (forth generation) has a Plex client you can download, so if you are an only-Apple technology household, you can still take advantage of the better Plex media server. And everything listed above is compatible with running the Plex client software, which is what you will use to enjoy all your content! Apple TV Smart TVs, Android, Windows, Playstation 3 and 4, the Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, and ROKU (just to name a few). While we all love Apple and Apple products, we also live in a world with numerous other technologies. ![]() Even cooler? Any time you add something new, Plex will update your library automatically at a set interval. Simply connect a large external hard drive, or even a RAID, to your Mac, configure Plex to look on that drive, and your all set. Running a large media library via a Plex server is no problem. Interested in Buying an Old Mac for Cheap? It will scour the internet to provide movie descriptions, album artwork, keep television series tagged correctly for season and episodes, provide album data for your music, and much more. And you know you always wanted to play around with Linux a little, right? Here is your chance!Ī Plex media server does something really cool that we only wish Apple’s iTunes did: it takes care of all the meta data for you. Ubuntu 10.04 can be run on many older Macs, and will make a fine server. If you have an older Mac that does not run Mac OS 10.8, you could install Linux on the machine and run a Plex media server that way. The biggest software requirement for an older Mac to become a Plex media server is that it has to run Mac OS 10.8 or later, otherwise known as Mountain Lion. Plex does what iTunes does, serving up your content over your network, but it does so much more, and it does it so much better.ĭo you have an older Mac sitting around with nothing to do? You have to really watch those old Macs, they get lazy if you don’t tell them what to do! Why not repurpose that Mac to be a Plex media server? OS X Minimum Requirements PlexĪ much better solution has gained widespread adoption over the last few years, and that is Plex. It worked decently enough, but the user really had to take the time to manage file information, metadata, album or movie artwork, and much more. For long time Mac users, iTunes became the default media server for all your movies, television shows, music, home videos, and the like. ![]()
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