Playing media from USB-drive, how best?

I’m curious to learn, how to better access my movie library on my external USB-drive.

My current setup is as follows:

  • Samsung Smart TV from 2018 with the PLEX-app installed.
  • iPhone 8
  • iPad Pro with Plex installed
  • Apple TV 3rd Gen
  • USB-drive with all my movies and tv-shows ripped from DVDs some years ago, when I had a Mac.

As it is now, I can access all those ripped movies and TV shows by plugging in that USB-drive to my iPad Pro.

Then I can use my AppleTV 3rd gen. to play that movie or tv show on my Samsung TV.

But what I want to learn is, if there is a better, faster and easier way to access my the media library on that USB-drive, perhaps using PLEX, or some other way?

Thanks