Plex, the creators of the famous home media server and array of players has announced an all new initiative called Plex Cloud. With it, users will be able to run an instance of a Plex Media Server on the Amazon cloud and stream movies from it directly. Think of it as a personal Netflix.
The first question that comes up is that of storage, how much would it cost? It appears that users can connect their Amazon Drive account, which is unlimited for some locations and user that as the repository for all media.
Here are some of the advantages of this approach, provided that you have large data caps:
Quick deployment – Since this eliminates the need to run your own server, one can be setup on the cloud in minutes.
Always-on – The server will always be on and tasks like updates and patches will be handled by Amazon directly and will not require any action on the users’ part.
Unlimited storage – While this is only available for Amazon Drive users in some territories, for most the storage will be unlimited and free.
Maintenance – No need to maintain the media server, network and storage. All of these can be costly and although they appear to be long-term one-off costs, it can still add up. Now all that is required is a device that supports the Plex player and you have access.
Plex Cloud is currently in beta and can be requested by Plex Pass subscribers. The public is not expected in the near future.