This page covers how to design and build the physical machine that runs Plex Media Server and Unmanic optimization services in the Trash Panda ecosystem.

This guide is intentionally focused on hardware selection and base OS installation only. Application configuration is covered elsewhere.

The target audience here is someone building their first serious Plex environment who wants:

• Fast, reliable playback
• Efficient transcoding
• Minimal day-to-day management
• Clear separation of concerns across the ecosystem

Before talking about hardware, it’s worth answering a common question:

Why not just run Plex on the NAS or inside a VM?

Running Plex directly on a NAS can work — until it doesn’t.

Limitations commonly encountered:

• CPU class is optimized for storage, not transcoding
• iGPU capabilities are limited or absent
• Thermal and power constraints throttle sustained workloads
• Upgrades often require replacing the entire NAS

For light, single-user setups this may be acceptable. For shared libraries and automation, it becomes a bottleneck.

Virtualizing Plex introduces a different set of tradeoffs:

• GPU passthrough adds complexity and fragility
• Transcoding performance becomes harder to reason about
• Storage and network paths lengthen
• Troubleshooting spans host + hypervisor + guest

VMs shine for control-plane services. Plex is a data-plane workload — latency and throughput matter.

A dedicated physical host:

• Provides direct access to CPU and GPU resources
• Delivers predictable transcoding performance
• Simplifies GPU usage
• Is easier to debug under load
• Can be upgraded incrementally

In this ecosystem, Plex and Unmanic are the only services that truly benefit from bare metal — so they get it.

• Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS or later

Why Ubuntu:

• Excellent hardware and iGPU support
• First-class Docker ecosystem
• Long-term security updates
• Huge knowledge base

• Minimal server install
• No desktop environment
• SSH enabled
• Automatic security updates enabled

The OS should exist solely to support Plex and Unmanic.

When sizing this machine, prioritize:

1. Transcoding efficiency
2. Fast I/O for caching and processing
3. Thermal stability under sustained load
4. Headroom for spikes, not averages

The media lives on the NAS. This machine exists to process and serve it.

This section intentionally adds a bit of pragmatic subjectivity. There is no single perfect answer for every build, but there are choices that consistently produce better real‑world results.

The guidance below balances performance, efficiency, cost, and long‑term usability for Plex and Unmanic workloads.

For a dedicated Plex + Unmanic server, what matters most is:

• Strong single‑thread performance — Plex transcoding and Unmanic jobs often bottleneck here
• Enough cores and threads to absorb concurrency — Plex streams and Unmanic tasks can overlap
• Predictable sustained performance — throttling undermines reliability

• Minimum: 4 physical cores / 8 threads
  • Suitable for light use and limited concurrent streams
• Recommended: 6–8 physical cores / 12–16 threads
  • The sweet spot for most home Plex environments
• High‑Throughput: 8+ cores / 16+ threads
  • Appropriate for heavy sharing or aggressive Unmanic pipelines

Once you are past ~6 quality cores, transcoding performance is driven far more by hardware acceleration than raw CPU power.

Both Intel and AMD CPUs can work extremely well in this role:

• Intel platforms traditionally pair cleanly with media workloads
• AMD platforms often deliver excellent core density and efficiency

Rather than chasing a brand, focus on:

• Modern architecture
• Strong single‑core boost behavior
• Adequate PCIe support for a discrete GPU

While integrated graphics can work, this guide recommends a discrete GPU for most builders.

Objectively, discrete GPUs provide:

• Dedicated video encode/decode engines
• Higher concurrent transcode capacity
• Better thermal isolation from the CPU
• More predictable performance under sustained load

Integrated GPUs share power and thermal budgets with the CPU. Under real‑world Plex and Unmanic usage, this frequently becomes the limiting factor.

The goal is not maximum shader performance — it is efficient, reliable video processing.

Pros

• Excellent NVENC / NVDEC support
• High concurrent transcode capacity
• Mature Linux drivers
• Very strong performance‑per‑watt
• Excellent Unmanic acceleration potential

Cons

• Higher upfront cost
• Overkill for single‑user or light workloads

Best for: Builders who want headroom, future growth, and minimal compromise.

Pros

• Lower cost
• Solid hardware transcoding support
• Efficient and reliable for common codecs

Cons

• Fewer concurrent streams
• Older generation feature set

Best for: 1080p‑heavy libraries with modest concurrent usage.

Modern AMD GPUs include capable video engines and are increasingly well supported by Plex.

Pros

• Strong price‑to‑performance ratio
• Efficient for batch workloads

Cons

• Hardware acceleration support can vary by driver and Plex version
• May require additional validation

AMD GPUs can be an excellent choice if you are comfortable verifying codec support for your specific workload.

Discrete GPUs reduce guesswork, isolate thermals, and deliver a smoother Plex experience — especially as libraries and user counts grow.

Plex itself is not memory-hungry, but cache is king.

• Minimum: 16 GB
• Recommended: 32 GB

This allows:

• Large filesystem cache
• Smooth concurrent transcodes
• Headroom for Unmanic processing bursts

Excess RAM is rarely wasted in this role.

This system should use local NVMe SSDs only for the OS, applications, and all transient workloads.

Media libraries live on the NAS. Local storage exists to make everything fast and responsive.

For best results, use two separate NVMe SSDs:
1. OS / Application Drive
2. Transcoding & Cache Drive

This separation improves performance, simplifies troubleshooting, and reduces wear-related surprises.

• NVMe SSD
• 500 GB minimum
• Hosts:
  • Ubuntu OS
  • Docker runtime and images
  • Plex Media Server
  • Unmanic
  • Logs and system packages

This drive benefits from fast random I/O and consistent latency. NVMe ensures system responsiveness even under load.

• Dedicated NVMe SSD
• 500 GB–1 TB recommended
• Used for:
  • Plex transcode directory
  • Unmanic processing and working directories
  • Temporary scratch data

Why this matters:

• Transcoding is extremely write-heavy
• Unmanic workloads are bursty and I/O intensive
• Separating this workload protects the OS drive
• Performance remains consistent even during heavy processing

If you can only afford one NVMe drive initially, this configuration still works — but two drives is the recommended and future-proof layout.

• Media libraries
• Long-term downloads
• Backups

Those belong on the NAS.

Fast local NVMe storage is one of the highest-impact upgrades you can make to a Plex server. It directly improves startup time, transcode speed, and overall system responsiveness.

The media server should have two physical NICs:
1. NFS VLAN NIC

• High-throughput access to the NAS
• Jumbo Frames enabled

2. DMZ VLAN NIC

• Plex remote access traffic

This mirrors the segmentation strategy used across the ecosystem and keeps storage traffic isolated.

• Use a quality power supply
• Ensure adequate cooling
• Favor cases with good airflow

Transcoding is sustained work. Thermal throttling undermines everything else.

If possible:

• Place the server on a UPS
• Enable clean shutdown on power loss

This machine is the engine of the entire Plex experience.

A well-built physical media server:

• Makes Plex feel instantaneous
• Handles transcoding quietly and efficiently
• Reduces complexity everywhere else

By dedicating hardware to Plex and Unmanic, you remove guesswork, isolate risk, and create a system that simply does its job — day after day.

That reliability is the real optimization.