Anyone use this successfully as a Plex media server?

To clarify, this can absolutely be used as storage for the media you host on a plex server but you will need to run the plex server on another device. Kind of Similar to DC Mike's setup; I have a an old AMD PC that hosts my plex server (Athlon x2 4400+, 8gb DDR2, and Radeon HD 6870 *can't remember if video card helps with plex decoding at all, but it's there anyway and has no other use to me) I do have a couple TB worth of media on HDDs in that box but the majority of my data is on similar NAS devices like this buffalo Linkstation. Literally any USB external or NAS drive can host media for a Plex server with extremely little chance of limited performance. The limiting factor in Plex performance comes with the capability of the computer hosting the server to decode and encode media to play on the device you're trying to stream to (for instance, accessing your plex server from another pc takes much fewer resources than on your ipad would require because the server pc has to reencode the media to a format that iOS can utilize) and, in the case of remote streaming, your internet connection. The 10+ year old pc I described can stream multiple 1080p video remotely with no visible lag and I've tried as much as 7 local network 1080p streams and had not issue there.tl;dr - This can host all of your music, video, pictures for a plex server to access but not run the plex server itself.

3 questions: does it by default appear in windows 10 pro file manager? can the contents be encrypted? can i directly copy to the drive via usb?

1 does it by default appear in windows 10 pro file manager? Not always. I have one that does and one that doesn't. You can set it up as a network drive. 2 The contents are not encrypted. This has to be done before storing them to the drive. # No, the drive can't be accessed by USB. The USB port is to add an additional drive to it.

does this support time machine?

I'm having MAJOR problems with it. It's unreliable. It shows it's backup one day. I check a week later only to find it hasn't done a single back up since. Time Machine progress bar shows it being stuck.

Brand	Buffalo
Product Dimensions	12.8 x 25.4 x 22.4 cm; 454 g
Item model number	LS220D0402
Manufacturer	BUFFALO
Series	LinkStation LS220
Colour	Black
Standing screen display size	8.1 Inches
Hard Drive Size	4 TB
Hard Disk Description	2x2TB, Desktop
Hard Drive Interface	Raid
Hard Disk Rotational Speed	5400 RPM
Number of USB 2.0 Ports	1
Wattage	48
Power Source	AC
Hardware Platform	PC;Mac;Android;Apple iOS
Operating System	Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Windows Server 2003, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, Mac OS 10.6 to 10.13, Linux 3.5.x to 4.11.x
Are Batteries Included	No
Item Weight	454 g
Guaranteed software updates until	unknown

BuffaloLinkStation 220 4TB 2-Bay NAS Network Attached Storage with HDD Hard Drives Included NAS Storage That Works as Home Cloud or Network Storage Device for Home

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