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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. This not
only provides significantly increased throughput supporting multiple simulta
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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. The download links to both applications can be found i
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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 • For DAS (5D/Mini) Follow the directions in step #2 • For NAS (5N/FS) Follow the directions in step #3 STEP 2A – DAS (5D/Mini) The Drobo Dashboard will automatically select a Format Type recommended for the host operatin
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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 created on the Drobo and click Next to continue. drobo.com | Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage 4
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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 was specified during initialization, the Dashboard will prompt to create one. Click OK to create an administrative account. drobo.com | Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage 5
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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. NOTE – Make a note of the account credentials. This will be required before any changes to the shares or configuration can be made. STEP 3D Click Add to create a new share on the 5N. In this example the newly created share is nam
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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. Configuring Plex Media Manager Although media can be added to the Plex directory at any time, it is recommended that some content be copied to the Drobo, as it will be used during the initial configuration steps.
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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 8
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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. Click the Add a Folder button to specify the location of the content that was copied to the Drobo. STEP 6 Click Browse Folders to navigate to the folder on the Drobo. STEP 7 Click on the Drobo drive or shar
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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. STEP 9 Verify that the common name and folder location are correct. Click Add Section to add the content to Plex. NOTE - Plex will now scan the entire media library inside the selected folder.
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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. Plex is now configured and ready for use locally or by other network enabled devices. Accessing Plex Content Locally While content can be access from the Media Manager, for the best experience launch the Plex Media Center a
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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. drobo.com | Creating a Home Media Server with Plex and Drobo Storage 12
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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. Accessing Plex Content from DLNA enabled devices Once the initial configuration of Plex has completed, support for DLNA enabled devices is automatically enabled. Follow the configuration instructions fr
