Plex + external mount of media drives

[equx]

Hey,

I'm new to FreeNAS, but wanted to try something new for my media server.

I put up a FreeNAS 9.10 + plex media server setup, that have worked great for 3 months now.
But when i upgraded to 11.0, it wouldn't boot, problems with the nfs mount.

That asside, i now want to set up a fresh install of 11.0 and do everything the "correct" way.
There are probably better solutions than what i used for the 9.10 setup.

I have two main "issues" that i hope i can get some feedback on.

1. External mount of drive.
I get it working with running this command:
mount -t nfs 192.168.1.2:/volume1/Filmer /mnt/SSD_240GB/plexmediaserver_1/media

In the 9.10 setup to make it mount automatic after reboot i edited the etc/fstab file with this command:
192.168.1.2:/volume1/Filmer /mnt/SSD_240GB/plexmediaserver_1/media nfs ro 0 0

This worked great in the 9.10 setup, but is this the recommended solution or are there other ways to do it smarter?

2. Plexmediaserver-plexpass
When i manually install plexmediaserver-plexpass i use:
pkg install plexmediaserver-plexpass and then make the service start automatic

To upgrade i use:
pkg upgrade plexmediaserver-plexpass

I don't see it in the plugin gui list but i guess you don't do that when you install it manually.
I get the media server working this way, but do you have to do other things to make the plugin work 100% ?

 

[eldo]

Hey,

I'm new to FreeNAS, but wanted to try something new for my media server.

I put up a FreeNAS 9.10 + plex media server setup, that have worked great for 3 months now.
But when i upgraded to 11.0, it wouldn't boot, problems with the nfs mount.

That asside, i now want to set up a fresh install of 11.0 and do everything the "correct" way.
There are probably better solutions than what i used for the 9.10 setup.

I have two main "issues" that i hope i can get some feedback on.

I upgraded from 9.3 to 11 and had no issues with my plex setup.
What does your deployment look like? I'm assuming you're running plex in a vm/jail through freenas, is this correct?
Or do you have a seperate plex box, and are pulling your content down over the wire?

1. External mount of drive.
I get it working with running this command:
mount -t nfs 192.168.1.2:/volume1/Filmer /mnt/SSD_240GB/plexmediaserver_1/media

In the 9.10 setup to make it mount automatic after reboot i edited the etc/fstab file with this command:
192.168.1.2:/volume1/Filmer /mnt/SSD_240GB/plexmediaserver_1/media nfs ro 0 0

This worked great in the 9.10 setup, but is this the recommended solution or are there other ways to do it smarter?

I have an fstab line similar to the following. it works fine on my ubuntu 16.04 VM:
10.0.0.10:/mnt/tank/path /dest nfs auto 0 0

2. Plexmediaserver-plexpass
When i manually install plexmediaserver-plexpass i use:
pkg install plexmediaserver-plexpass and then make the service start automatic

To upgrade i use:
pkg upgrade plexmediaserver-plexpass

I don't see it in the plugin gui list but i guess you don't do that when you install it manually.
I get the media server working this way, but do you have to do other things to make the plugin work 100% ?

You won't see plex in the plugin list unless you're running the plex plugin from the slection box.
It's out of date, and its so easy to install plex in a jail I would think about just creating a new jail, configuring plex, then migrating the plex db/metadata from your current install to the new jail.

Which begs another question. If you're using a plugin/jail for plex, why are you using nfs for content sharing? since plugins run in a jail, whichever method you use to run plex you should be able to configure the jail to have /volume1/Filmer auto-mounted by FreeNAS in your jail. This will cut out the network layer and give you (most likely)increased performance.

 

[equx]

I upgraded from 9.3 to 11 and had no issues with my plex setup.
What does your deployment look like? I'm assuming you're running plex in a vm/jail through freenas, is this correct?
Or do you have a seperate plex box, and are pulling your content down over the wire?

I'm running plex in a jail through freenas and my media files is stored on an external NAS that can't run the plex media server by itself.

I have an fstab line similar to the following. it works fine on my ubuntu 16.04 VM:
10.0.0.10:/mnt/tank/path /dest nfs auto 0 0

So is editing the fstab line the most common thing to do when you want to mount external drives or is it recommended to do it thru scripts?
If that's the case i was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

Which begs another question. If you're using a plugin/jail for plex, why are you using nfs for content sharing? since plugins run in a jail, whichever method you use to run plex you should be able to configure the jail to have /volume1/Filmer auto-mounted by FreeNAS in your jail. This will cut out the network layer and give you (most likely)increased performance.

I have an old synology NAS that i have used as a media storing device for ages with a windows pc that ran plex media server.
Wanted to try something different so i installed FreeNAS on that PC instead.

The reasoning for my configuration is just by grabbing bits and pieces from different guides and making it work.
If there is a better way to do it i'm all for it, but need tip on where to go.

 

[eldo]

I'm running plex in a jail through freenas and my media files is stored on an external NAS that can't run the plex media server by itself.

Oh, ok that makes sense enough I guess. it would be preferable to keep the storage local to the plex server so you don't have to double dip on bandwidth. However constraints are constraints

So is editing the fstab line the most common thing to do when you want to mount external drives or is it recommended to do it thru scripts?
If that's the case i was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

I've manually edited fstab entries for more than a decade. I honestly don't know of another way to manage the fstab file.
Go through the fstab man page, or look for examples of a correct line. your 'ro' segment in your fstab is an option, not sure at the moment, but I think 'auto' is needed to tell it to mount on boot.
You can try manually with mount /mnt/SSD_240GB/plexmediaserver_1/media .

I have an old synology NAS that i have used as a media storing device for ages with a windows pc that ran plex media server.
Wanted to try something different so i installed FreeNAS on that PC instead.

The reasoning for my configuration is just by grabbing bits and pieces from different guides and making it work.
If there is a better way to do it i'm all for it, but need tip on where to go.

So it seems to me that if you have the storage space on your FN box that'd be a great place to put everything -- However if I read that right you've installed FN on an existing PC (i'm guessing consumer kit). If that's the case your best bet would be to look through the HW reqs and read about why we (mostly)all use and recommend server class hardware instead of re-purposing consumer kit.

If your constraints are the above, without more information there's not really a lot to be recommended.

1) Keep your flow the same -- storage on Syn, plex on PC. This means for every video you're pulling the entire video across the wire, then transcoding (most likely) and serving it again to a remote viewer (unless you're watching off of the pc's monitor/HTPC?)
2)look to see if you can install a plex SYN plugin. Not familiar with the platform but I want to remember this being an option
3) move your library to the FN box, use local storage mapping, only hit the network 1 time.

-- at least that's my best guess at the moment.

 

[eldo]

.

The reasoning for my configuration is just by grabbing bits and pieces from different guides and making it work.
If there is a better way to do it i'm all for it, but need tip on where to go.

What are your end goals? Are you looking for an all in 1 replacement for your current system? Just trying to play around and see how things work? Trying to find the optimal configuration of your existing hardware?
If you're just testing out plex on FN, do you have any other planned uses for FN?

If you only plan on using FN for plex, and only plex, you may be better served by a different platform, though it should still operate fine under FN.

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