- #OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC FOR MAC#
- #OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC INSTALL#
- #OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC OFFLINE#
- #OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC TV#
- #OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC MAC#
#OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC MAC#
Your vintage Mac mini might have a built-in optical (CD/DVD) drive. Aren’t you glad you have that 8TB miniStack attached to your media server? You need to manually add your personal content to the server. It can’t take music from your Apple Music account or even “see” your iCloud Drive. Webhooks for connecting your server to your home automation systemĮverything has been pretty straightforward up to this point, right? Well, Plex can’t grab your photos from the Photos Library, which is one big file.
#OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC TV#
Live TV & DVR (add a tuner and antenna to record free over-the-air broadcasts).A Server Dashboard for keeping track of what you watch and how much bandwidth you use.
#OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC OFFLINE#
#OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC FOR MAC#
Setting Up Plexġ ) Download a copy of Plex for Mac (64-bit) from the downloads page.
#OPEN PLEX MEDIA SERVER MAC INSTALL#
After a clean install of macOS 10.15 Catalina, we got to work setting up Plex. We had a spare USB keyboard and mouse, and connected to an already-existing monitor. This external drive works great with any Mac mini! It matches the looks of the mini and sits directly underneath the computer. To provide sufficient storage for photos, music, videos, and more, we added an 8TB OWC miniStack.
A large “hatch” on the bottom of the device makes memory and storage upgrades easy to accomplish. The Mac mini is one of the few remaining user-upgradeable Mac models. The specifications? A 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM, and a 120GB SATA SSD. We used a mini with fairly modest hardware to create our media server. eBay lists many Mac minis, and used Mac stores do a bustling trade in these popular Macs. Fairly recent Mac minis are listed on Apple’s refurb page. Where can you find a used Mac mini? OWC often has pre-owned minis available. The minimum operating system requirement is macOS 10.9 Mavericks, so even an early 2009 Mac mini can fit the bill. You don’t need a new operating system to turn a Mac mini into a media server. We chose one with the ability to run modern versions of macOS (10.15 Catalina and 11 Big Sur in particular). For the purpose of this article, we looked no further than the OWC website to find a Mac mini. There’s another very compelling reason to use a Mac mini – older models are inexpensive. Why use a Mac mini instead of a Mac with a built-in screen? You probably have a large-screen TV to watch your content on, and the mini can use that as a “monitor”. Stream online content and make use of the media you've already bought and paid for. You can stream online content and make use of the media you’ve already bought and paid for.
With fast internet service and purchased physical media, a media server running Plex offers the best of both worlds.