Having left desktop computers behind for laptops, I found myself in need of a permanently-connected computer to act as my local media server. One that looks nice and is not too expensive. The answer I found was a refurbished mini PC, with lots of trial and error along the way.

A modest hardware purchase

Old hardware is better than I remember

I have never really bought a computer that was meant to do only one job. So the big challenge here was spending as little money as possible, while still having enough processing power to handle Plex properly. It soon became clear that buying a new computer just wasn't sensible for me when it comes to budget, and almost any modern computer would be overkill.

In the end, after lots of browsing and hand-wringing, I settled on buying a refurbished mini-PC. There are so many mini PC options these days, and more than a few of these machines have passed through XDA's office.

For my use case, I chose the Lenovo ThinkCentre M73. This is a mini PC from over a decade ago, using Intel Haswell hardware. The model I bought has a dual-core, quad-thread CPU, 8GBs of RAM, and a 240GB SSD. Whichever one you can find, these systems go for around $100, which is a number I was comfortable with. The only additional cost (apart from the hard drives, of course) was a $3 Bluetooth adapter.

Since I have always used external USB drives to host my media, it's also neat that this particular computer has two USB 3.0 ports on the front, which make it easy to connect a powered hub.

Now, I was still seriously worried that an old dual-core CPU used in point of sale systems or computers in government offices would be up to the job. But I think we sometimes forget that we passed the "good enough" point with CPUs long ago. Since all of my client devices, such as my iPad or my Apple TV are more than powerful enough to decode anything you throw at them, I won't have any need to transcode my files. Even running two side-by-side 1080p streams barely cracks 20% of CPU usage. However, just to see what would happen, I forced Plex to transcode something to 20Mbps 1080p, which did spike CPU usage to the high 90s, but had no effect on playback. As you can see here, once I turned off transcoding, CPU usage dropped off a cliff.

The iGPU in this system does have built-in hardware acceleration for video, but hardware acceleration on Plex is locked behind the Plex Pass paywall, and since I don't actually need it, I decided to skip a paid subscription.

I've also given my server 100Mbps of bandwidth on my mesh network via Ethernet, which is far more than I need even for multiple simultaneous streams.

I tried Linux first

I'm not much of a Linux guy these days - the last time I used it on my daily driver was at university, which, confirmed by how sore my back is in the morning, was a long time ago. Still, since this little computer doesn't comply with the minimum requirements for Windows 11, my plan from the outset was to use Ubuntu.

Installing Ubuntu was a painless breeze, but where I hit a snag was trying to get Plex to see the contents of my USB drives. Plex installs its own "plex" user, and this user needs to own the mounted folder where the media files reside. I spent way too much time trying to figure out how to mount the external drives so that Plex could see them, but eventually I gave up. I just couldn't find any good guides or straightforward advice on how this is supposed to work. My colleague and Linux guru Dave McKay was so amused by my story that he ended up writing the Plex Linux external drive guide I needed in the first place.

However, I decided that it would be much less hassle to use Windows, but how?

The Windows conundrum

Which classic Windows will work?👁 Wallpaper images from Windows XP, 11, and 10 shown side by side

Deciding to head back to Windows with my tail between my legs meant that I had to make a choice. If I put Windows 10 back on the system, everything would be fine—for a year. Then Windows 10 would end its servicable life, and my Plex server would become a juicy target for all sorts of malware, assuming it made it past my hardware firewall. Once I hit that point, I could just YOLO it, but I decided to attempt getting Windows 11 on the little guy first.

In order to do this, I used Rufus, which can make a bootable USB drive using a Windows 11 ISO file, but with the option for a few tasty mods. With just a few check boxes, you can remove the Windows 11 compatibility check, force a local account, and more.

With my USB prepared, I was able to install Windows 11 without issue. It even activated, which I have to assume is thanks to an eligible Windows OEM license that came with the computer.

So far it just seems like a normal Windows 11 installation. Everything has updated, everything works. The only snag is that there's now Windows 11 iGPU driver for this CPU model, and why would there be? I took a chance and installed the Windows 10 driver for the iGPU—and it just worked. Imagine that.

The final touches

The only thing left to do was install Plex and add my library files. However, in addition to Plex I also installed TeamViewer so that I can manage file transfers and everything else on the server without having to physically walk over to it.

Now this little computer has been happily streaming my digitized collection of media all over the house, and I can't think of a better solution for the price I paid.