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Plex + GDrive?
Soooo, this seems a feasible solution. But won't I need a server with enough CPU anyway for transcoding? I bought PlexPass but... Seriously. I get that it integrates with GDrive, but wont I need a powerful server to transcode anyway?
Can anyone explain me this properly? I will keep the PlexPass and setup a GDrive account, some people mention its 1TB others mention its unlimited. I get confused.
Someone please explain this me.
Much love,
Mr El Cheapo ™
Comments
Officially its 1TB for <5users. But google isnt applying this limit currently, so its "unlimited".
Ok I get that part tho it seems that it should show 1TB as they also have 10TB plans... And not for cheap.
But, anyway, need help with the Plex thing + PlexPass + GDrive + Transcoding.
@MikePT cant really help there atm. I am only planning to look into plex stuff soon, so no idea if PlexPass can do any transcoding.
Yeah. I guess it wont, ill still need a server for that... And subtitles require the movies to be transcoded etc. Would be cheaper this way.
Technically you wouldn't need a VPS/dedi at all for Plex Cloud (included with PlexPass) unless you're using one to download and upload media.
Plex Cloud does transcoding. Though you're at the mercy of their servers and how many users are using them at the same time. I had a bad experience with Plex Cloud -- would pause for buffering and more importantly scans for new content would take for-fucking-ever. Though to be fair, I tried out Plex Cloud when it was just released and they may have worked out the kinks between then and now.
Ended up renting a dedi to do the downloads (to local), uploads (to gdrive), and the download/transcoding during playback. rclone is a godsend to make all the magic happen. I made my own scripts to do automated uploads and Plex scans (in my sig if you're curious). If using a mounted gdrive (via rclone), you'll need to turn off auto scans so that you don't hit the api limit and get a temp ban -- hence the need for custom scripts for a large Plex library.
Happy to help out / lend my 2 cents if you decide to get this going
Damn that was perfect! Thank you.
What I am planning to do is to use Plex Pass and sync with GDrive but ill be downloading the isos from a VPS. I think this would work well...?
So I would be using rclone to mount GDrive and download directly to the mounted folder then play on Plex.
I'll check your script cant check now because im in cellphone
Thank yoooouu!
No problem!
Yuppers. As long as your provider allows it. I've had good upload speed to Google Drive just about anywhere I've tried (US, France, Romania) so you should be fine there. The main thing is you'll want to keep the isos organized (name of iso, season of iso, etc.).
You'd have two options. Have the gdrive mounted and move the content into the respective directory (when moving the content to the mounted directory, rclone handles the upload magic). Or the other way would be to not mount the gdrive and use the rclone copy command to upload to the right directory in your gdrive account.
Here's a link for your viewing pleasure: https://github.com/masonr/PLEXiDRIVE. If you go the Plex Cloud route instead of having a local Plex server, then you wouldn't need to worry about the plex-scan script, just the uploading scripts.
GSuite is the one with the "unlimited" option, not the regular Gdrive on drive.google.com where there's 10TB plans.
https://gsuite.google.com - Gsuite business
Just requires a domain to sign up
I'm surprised so many people are prepared to use cloud storage for Plex, given the amount of times the providers have changed direction suddenly. Your data may be safe, but it doesn't look like you can rely on them to continue supporting your use case.
@Nekki pretty much why I am not going to use Google. (that and, well, its Google, so I stay away when I can). Especially considering its more of an exploit in that its simply unlimited because Google isnt checking yet. It could change at any point, which makes it a bit too annoying to think about for me.
isn't there rclone for plex (plexdrive): https://github.com/dweidenfeld/plexdrive?
It's basically rclone mount optimized for Plex (smart caching of directory structure, better block download settings, etc.).
I noticed that when I tried it, it worked well, while rclone didn't at all.
Only issue I've had with rclone mount is that I've received a ban a couple times when the in-laws were using their Samsung Smart TV's Plex app. I think the app was just poorly optimized and was buffering the media in minuscule chunks and it triggered the API limit. May try out plexdrive to mount the gdrive and have them try the app again to see how it holds up.
I totally missed that you have your own version of plexdrive. Sorry for that...
Please, post feedback of your experience with plexdrive.
My project is poorly named as it has little to do with plexdrive. I found out of plexdrive's existence shortly after making my project public. I've been considering a rename to something different so the two aren't confused.
My project, PLEXiDRIVE, deals more with automation of uploading media that's been presorted (via radarr, sonarr, sickrage, etc.) to the right location in your gdrive using the
rclone copycommand. Then a scan script can be fired off to scan only the locations where new media exists (movies in their own folder or specific seasons of shows) so that an API limit isn't hit. The scripts are to be used in conjunction with plexdrive or rclone mount, whichever is preferred, as it doesn't matter to the scripts which one is being used.I'm honestly considering several options here, hence why I started this thread (the other threads vanished from the first/second page and was in mobile).
I still don't know wtf I'll do about Plex. :P
What's your specific use case? There's a good chance you can do this really cheaply if you plan ahead.
I have a problem. I cant stick with 2TB because then I'll want 4TB, then 8TB, you know how it ends. El Cheapo data hoarder. I would be happy with 2/4TB, preferably the later. 8TB would be enough. Thing is, I have set my monthly budget for 25 USD per month and I want raid/redudancy. Using Cloud or not.
I also need the transcoding to work well, all movies will have portuguese subtitles etc. When I tried this on a Time4VPS it didnt really work out. It was getting the subtitles embeded IIRC and it was always buffering etc.
Then I got Dacentec. They are great. But I'll give it another use or maybe just cancel it. I have no idea.
I'm the wrong person to help you with a storage obsession, even I don't know where to get that much disk at that kind of price.
If you're careful in your subtitle selection, you can get away without transcoding. From memory, external .srt doesn't need transcoding, and internal .srt is fine in an .mkv container. Not extensively tested on my part, though.
Yeah I think so. External subs would be more than enough. Then somehow I would simply disable transcoding and watch movies in original quality... That way it wouldn't require much CPU.
I need to think about this.
Obviously you need to make sure your Plex client doesn't require transcoding for the file types - a good client can save you a fortune in infrastructure costs over the course of a year. I very happily ran a 5+ user Plex server on a KS1 for 18 months, I only switched up because I needed transcoding for a lot of old anime.
Hmhm. I use Plex in my tvs native apps. Samsung and Hisense. So dunno. I think the Samsung App is much better tbh.
If you're keen on using Google Drive, you can just mount it at home if you have good enough peering.. Avoiding transcoding and resource abuses on VPS's :P
A lot of the TV apps are notoriously badly put together, they have a tendency to buffer a lot.