Advertisement
Quick Links
Plex is a media management system that takes your entire collection of movies, music,
and photos making them available to all media devices in the connected home. With
support for streaming music, high definition video, and photo sharing, Plex is an
excellent way to centralize and share all of your rich media content on a Drobo. This not
only provides significantly increased throughput supporting multiple simultaneous
streams, but also ensures that data is stored in a redundant manner protecting content
from data loss due to a potential hard drive failure.
Like a Drobo, Plex does not require advanced IT knowledge to configure and interface with the devices. Utilizing
standards based DLNA technology; Plex offers out of the box support by nearly all network enabled televisions and
media devices. On the go, MyPlex offers access to all content stored on the Drobo streaming to mobile (iOS and
Android) devices using a standard broadband internet connections.
NOTE - Plex supports multiple video, audio, and photo formats for full details please visit their website. There are
features that Plex offers that we will not be covered in this guide.
Topics
Provisioning Drobo Storage
Configuring Plex Media Manager
Accessing Plex Content Locally
Accessing Plex Content from DLNA enabled devices
What You Will Need
Drobo NAS (FS/5N/B800FS) or DAS (Mini/5D)
•
The Latest Drobo Dashboard management software
•
http://www.drobo.com/support/updates.php
OS X 10.7/10.8 or Windows 7/8
•
Latest version of Plex Media Center
•
http://www.plexapp.com/download/plex-media-center.php
Latest version of Plex Media Server
•
http://www.plexapp.com/getplex/index.php
Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage
drobo.com | Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage
Drobo How-To Guide
1
Advertisement
Related Manuals for Drobo DRDS4A21
Summary of Contents for Drobo DRDS4A21
- Page 1 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage Plex is a media management system that takes your entire collection of movies, music, and photos making them available to all media devices in the connected home. With support for streaming music, high definition video, and photo sharing, Plex is an excellent way to centralize and share all of your rich media content on a Drobo.
- Page 2 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage Prerequisites This document assumes that the Drobo to be utilized with Plex has been installed and is accessible from the host computer. If the initial configuration has not been completed, reference the URL below for installation instructions. http://www.drobo.com/start/ Both Plex Media Server and Plex Media Center must be installed on the host computer.
- Page 3 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage As both the NAS and DAS Drobos are compatible with Plex, the next steps are split between connectivity types. • If the Drobo has been previously formatted/initialized, move to step #4 •...
- Page 4 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 2B To take advantage of thin provisioning and instant expandability features of BeyondRAID, it is recommended that a 16TB thinly provisioned volume be created. Click Next to continue. STEP 2C Enter a name for the volume that will be...
- Page 5 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 3A While a dedicated share is not required for Plex, it is recommended. Click the Shares link on the left pane to access the share list. STEP 3B If no administrator username and password...
- Page 6 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 3C Enter an administrator username and password that will be used to manage the Drobo. Enter a Username and Password and click OK to save the account settings.
- Page 7 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 3E Once the share has been added, click to have it mapped to the host. NOTE – On Windows hosts the Dashboard will prompt for a drive letter. Any available drive letter can be selected.
- Page 8 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 2 The default web browser will be automatically launched and the Media Manager application loaded. STEP 3 To add a folder to the Media Server, click the + button in the My Library section drobo.com | Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage...
- Page 9 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 4 For this example, a directory containing movies will be added to Plex. Click the Movies icon. STEP 5 In the Name field, enter a name that describes the content being added.
- Page 10 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 8 Continue to navigate to the content directory. Highlight the directory and click Add Folder. In this example the folder HD located on the Drobo 5D contains videos that will be added to Plex.
- Page 11 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 10 Once the scan is complete, icons for the media type added will now be available. Click on the Movies icon and verify that content is now available in the Media Manager.
- Page 12 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 2 Once Plex Media Center has loaded, use the arrow keys to navigate through the menu system. Navigate to Movies and press Return. STEP 3 Select All Movies to display a list of all video content indexed from the Drobo.
- Page 13 Drobo How-To Guide Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage STEP 4 Select a movie and press Return to begin playing the movie. NOTE – When new content is added to a source folder on the Drobo, Plex will automatically add it to the media management system.