Thanks for the tips guys! I appreciate it. I wasn't aware of those specifics about the audio tracks! Can you give me an idea of how much of a reduction in file size I can expect to see if I use HandBrake with the settings you specified as opposed to a straight across transfer using MakeMKV? Trying to get an idea of whether or not it is worth further fiddling with an issue I have run into with HB...
I was using HandBrake to do my encoding until I discovered MakeMKV. I recently discovered Plex and started using that instead of VLC to play my media files. Problem is... Anything I had previously encoded and continue to encode with HandBrake crashes Plex the minute I click play on the file. VLC plays these just fine, so it is obviously a bug in Plex, but Plex, with its wonderful media server, menus and overall organizational capabilities is hands down what I prefer to use as my player now. The same video transferred using MakeMKV plays fine in Plex. Have still not been able to determine why this is happening, and so far the devs over on the Plex site have not been able to help resolve the issue. For now, the solution is to avoid using HandBrake and stick with MakeMKV exclusively as my encoder for files intended to be played using Plex's media player.
Currently file storage is not really a problem since I have over 6 TB of free space out of a total of 9TB reserved for my media collection on our network. About 70% of that storage is connected via FW800 directly to the Mac Mini that runs Plex and our media server. The reason I was asking about compression options is that I can see my 6TB of free space quickly disappearing if I start adding a lot of 1:1 Blu-ray movie and TV shows to my computer archives. I burned through nearly 2TB over the last two days as I started adding some of my Blu-ray collection to the system. Prior to that, I had been focusing on only adding standard DVDs, which of course take up far less space and 9TB seemed like all the storage I would ever need. With Blu-ray added to that mix, I can see running out of space rather quickly if I attempt to put everything we have on disc onto our network.
If HandBrake is my only option, then I guess I will just keep using MakeMKV for now and perhaps look into buying more HDDs when I run out of space.
Thanks again guys!