You mention using a Mac, so how about Photos? I store +300,000 photos/videos ~3TB in photos on a dedicated Mac mini (not using iCloud) with attached SSD and an external drive for backup. Works super fast, searches, filters, identifying faces, locations. Gave up the concept of folders once I was all in and its all by albums and search.

Did you have Sleep focus on? I’ve suspected it uses that.

Been using Plex for years. Works great for me. Easy to setup. lots of clients.