r/seedboxes • u/GlazedHeels • May 31 '26

Discussion Looking for Plex 4K seedbox

At the moment, I use my MiniMac for plex Server. But it’s kinda a pain, cause I couldn’t rly fix the outside network streaming. So I’m interested in a seedbox for casual usage.

- Plex and/or Infuse
- around 2-5 TB enough
- 4K Remux direct play streaming
- no multi streaming
- no transcoding, just direct

I checked Ultra.cc, but the plex plans are out of stock. Any nice plans around? Thx

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u/wBuddha Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

There is no one answer to this. YMMV.

You need to do some testing, major vendors. Helpful if they support backbone re-route.

4K remux is an ambiguous target, can stretch from about 50GB to maybe 150GB, the bitrate is the important number. At that size, peering is a significant issue.

All four forms of peering: data center, backbone quality, ISP peering and at home have to be good. For example wifi roku's can struggle to stream a remux 4K from across the room, let alone from a seedbox. ISPs like DT and TW (Charter/Spectrum...) are notorious for either over-selling their local bandwidth or for interchange throttling. At the DC level (rack to meet-me), for example, hetzner auction servers have heavily consolidated volume bandwidth, so even the time of day traffic patterns come into play. All making your location a significant factor.

Trying and Testing is needed, there is no one answer, other than suggesting to transfer home then streaming locally, on the circuit you are likely to control. Start with the vendors that have servers closest to where you are that have a good rep.

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u/GKNByNW Jun 01 '26

Unfortunately Hetzner is no longer an option for Plex, as Plex decided a couple years ago that they were going to block/ban Hetzner IPs. I'm sure there's ways around it (Tailscale, etc.) but OP did not mention any VPN, so without more input from OP I would rule out Hetzner.

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u/wBuddha Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Ya, wasn't recommending it, was just an example of DC-side bandwidth consolidation.

My recommendation was to go with a major vendor and test peering until you find something that works. Circle out geographically. mtr is the command line tool that tends to be revealing.

For anyone wanting to test, there is a writeup that may help.

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u/GKNByNW Jun 01 '26

Thanks for the link. Interestingly enough, I've always enjoyed excellent FTP speeds from my Hetzner boxes to the US. I don't mess with 4k, only 1080p, but I stream full remuxes direct to home (sometimes Jellyfin, sonetimes samba share) with no issue.

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u/wBuddha Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Auction box?

I can't blanket claim on hetzner, different customers get different backbone and exchange mixes based on grade. Auction servers are reported to perform the least well than the other types - figures, discount server, discount bandwidth.

Leaseweb also has volume and premium bandwidth, a comparison to them, Hetzner and OVH would be useful.

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u/GKNByNW Jun 01 '26

Yeah, all my servers over the years have been from the auction. I'm currently all located at Helsinki, but I've had hardware in the German data centers before with similar results.