last week I found something out, which may be interesting for other Plex users too: a way to force Plex to store the "temp transcoding files" in the memory and not physically on the discs. Btw: I'm not often checking this forum and maybe this is written already somewhere else ... I don't know ... anyway, here are my explanations:
First of all, I have a TS-251+ with 8GB RAM, which is OK for transcoding up to 720p. I have less Apps installed, the two relevants are:
- CodexPack
- Plex
[~] # df
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
none 200.0M 175.3M 24.7M 88% /
devtmpfs 3.8G 8.0k 3.8G 0% /dev
...
tmpfs 3.8G 0 3.8G 0% /share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run
...
WOW, it looks like that there are 3.8G available on tmpfs (=RAMdisk). So I configured the "Transcoder temporary directory" in the settings of my Plex server to the folder "/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run". Then I tested it with "an old 3.2 GB DVD MPEG-2 movie". So, after starting watching the movie on my Apple-TV 4, I was continuously checking the file creation and RAM usage on my NAS with my PC and SSH:
- Plex generated a subfolder "plex-transcode-7874D2BE-E4D2-431C-B115-181BDB6A1CEF-79634c99-442d-445d-b474-fe6c6cd8fab7/" in the configured folder "/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run"
- a lot of "temp transcoding files" are generated in this folder ... at the end there were 986 files: media-00000.ts - media-00985.ts (size up to 4 MB)
- this temp files were generated "during watching the movie", and the RAM usage increased parallel to the size of these temp files
- at the end: tmpfs 3.8G 2.2G 1.6G 58% /share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/CodexPack/run
- -> 986 temp files with 2.2 GB !
- after stopping the movie and jumping back to the "overview page of my movies", the Plex transconding temp folder "plex-transcode-787..." was deleted and the RAMdisk was cleaned up
I just want o share this finding with all of you ... maybe you like it !