Plex on Ugreen NAS

🔍 Key Features

• Cross‑platform: Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, NAS devices, and Docker. Clients exist for Android, iOS, smart TVs, and game consoles.
• Metadata & Discovery: Automatically fetches posters, descriptions, cast info, and organizes your library into a polished interface.
• Sharing: You can share your library with friends and family, giving them access to your content.
• Live TV & DVR: Supports TV tuners for live broadcasts and recording.
• Flexibility: Works on modest hardware or can scale up to powerful servers

NOTE: Unlike Jellyfin, Plex is only free if streaming on your local network. There is a cost if you want to stream remotely.

Plex vs Jellyfin

Plex is wonderful. You can have one media directory and dump all your content there (e.x. Movies, TV Shows) and Plex will scan that directory and sort out of it's a Movie or TV Show. Jellyfin, on the otherhand, requires that you have a seperate directory for movies and one for TV shows. Each TV show has to have subdirectories, one per season. It's not nearly as slick as Plex. Since I run Plex (for inside my network use) and Jellyfin (for remote use) and I use the same media directories for both, I had to redo my Plex config to use a Movies directory and a TV Shows directory. That setup is in this guide. Could I use Plex for local and remote viewing? Sure. I'm working on it. I've got tailscale setup on my mac, iPhone, and Pi. I can connect to Plex on my laptop using Tailscale and my iPhone as a hotspot and everything works great but when I try to use the Plex app in my iPhone (with WiFi off), I hit the paywall. I'm not sure why yet. Jellyfin has no paywall which is why I added that to my enviroment.

🚀 Docker Installation Steps

I have two NVME SSDs installed in my DXP2800, mirrored, that I use to hold apps and docker containers. It's configured as /volume2. All of my docker containers are run from /volume2/docker. I have a pair of mirrored HHDs configured as /volume1 that I use to hold all my data.

1. In the Ugreen NAS app, open the App Center
2. Search for "Docker"
3. Install Docker

📁 Setup Plex

mkdir /volume2/docker
mkdir /volume2/docker/plex
mkdir /volume2/docker/plex/config

🧾 Docker Compose File

In /volume2/docker/plex create docker-compose.yml

services:
  plex:
    image: linuxserver/plex:latest
    container_name: plex
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - PUID=1000         # Replace with your actual user ID
      - PGID=1000         # Replace with your actual group ID
      - VERSION=docker
    volumes:
      - /volume2/docker/plex/config:/config
      - /volume1/Movies:/Movies
      - /volume1/TV Shows:/TV Shows
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri  # Enables Intel Quick Sync hardware transcoding
    restart: unless-stopped

NOTE: Follow this guide to setup your media folder: Plex Media Structure

Like I mentioned before, you could have just one Media directory and dump everything there and let Plex sort it out. It's about 99% accurate. If it gets something wrong, it's a pretty easy fix.

▶️ Start Plex

From within /volume2/docker/plex run:

📜 View Logs

🌐 Access Web Interface

Open your browser and go to http://<your-Ugreen-NAS>:32400