Plex just keeps getting better. They have been hard at work this year looking for ways to expand on their services and make their media streaming platform more attractive than the competing options. So far this year they have added DVR functionality, streaming news via their acquisition of Watchup as well as Alexa integration so that you can control Plex with your voice.
Now they have brought your media into the cloud with Plex Cloud. A service that has been in beta for a number of months has now been released to the public for Plex Pass holders, allowing them to upload all of their media to their favorite cloud service and stream it from there.
You can still stream all of your media from your PC (or PCs) if you prefer, however taking advantage of Plex Cloud allows you to relax your dependencies of having to always have a PC running at home (or elsewhere). Their selling point is to let the cloud services deal with hardware and power failures so you don’t have to worry about it.
If you lose access to your media server for whatever reason, you lose access to your media. Now you are faced with having to develop a resolution to the problem. Drive all the way back home and find out why your PC (or house) has lost power, try to see if your PC rebooted for some reason (Windows 10 is notorious for this when it comes to updates) and you just need to remote in and log back into Windows (assuming you know how) or the many other reasons you might have lost access. Also, having a PC running 24/7 consumes energy, raising your bills. It also places additional strain on that PC leading to a shorter life span of your hardware. If your internet provider likes to limit your monthly bandwidth, that also could be a drag (pun alert).
Now, none of that can be your concern. With your data in the cloud, now companies like Google and Microsoft can worry about power failures and hardware troubles. If there is a power failure (which is quite difficult to occur with their advanced backup solutions they employ), you don’t have to bother with troubleshooting anything. That’s all on them. If a stick of memory fails in a server on their end, it costs you nothing to troubleshoot or replace. All you have to do is manage your library and relax.
The only downside to it all is you have to trust your information in the cloud (for those who have troubles with this). You have to question what you upload. For example, you may want to prevent from including any “special” home videos that show too much. I would also hope that you wouldn’t upload anything pirated as I am sure that would become a focus for policing at some point in the future. However, if you have a large collection of paid-for content including music, movies, TV content, and more, then you could have at it. All of the pictures you have taken throughout the years and more. All of this can be sent to the cloud and managed from there. Turn your PC off and give it a rest.
Currently, Plex supports three of the major players in cloud storage. Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s OneDrive. Usually, you get a certain amount of free space with these services and you could choose to pay for additional space if you so choose and need it.
