Need recomendation/build for a dedicated Jellyfin server for a complete beginner!

Hostile_18

Hostile_18

Hostile_18

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Hi all.

I recently got into using Jellyfin, rather than play files directly off my PC and cast them to different TV's around the house. After a steep learning curve I have it setup great, but the idea of having my main PC on 24/7 isnt a great idea (with RGB fans, Power use etc), so was looking at all the different options. Honestly I'm over whelmed from Pre built NAS, to Intel Nucs, to just building a second PC just for this purpose. I've got two 4tb Sata SSD's + 2tb Sata SSD used for media that can be moved over to this new build, but if I went to one that only had room for one Sata SSD I could buy another 4Tb Nvme and have the similar storage. I generally prefer SSD storage as I'd like a very quiet/silent machine if its on 24/7.

Can someone help me in very basic terms what I'd need. Flexible budget upto around £500? Exlusively for a Jellyfin media server, primarily in my house but a nice extra would be outside the house. All my files are x265 including 4k Encodes (No Remuxs) going primarilty to new LG Oled TV's. Most streams at once will likely be two. Something sleek/adult that would fit in a home theater room, but if everything pointed going to traditional hard drives (even though I have the SSD's I could put it in the back room). Something really easy to use above all else, as you can probably tell I'm a complete beginner (can build PCs etc though).

Thanks for your help. There was just too much to research from compatability, form factors and what would be suitable for my needs etc. I know I'd of been researching days!
 
Could get a mini PC, basically a nuc type thing, with an Intel i5 1340p in it, for a couple hundred quid (then add ram and storage). Generally the little PCs will take 2x nvme or maybe one 2.5" drive too. Often they have dual 2.5g Lan. Simple enough to stick your 2.5"s in usb enclosures though, or 3d print a case if you just buy an internal board/soc.

That should make a quiet/low power tiny solution that has enough grunt to do anything you want.

Unless you have an old PC lying around :)
 
£500 is a good budget, as it sounds like you just need CPU/RAM/Mobo/Case etc....

I've just upgraded my unraid server to a 5600X, B550M, 32gb ram at about £250. Throw in a case of your choice (matx probably), PSU, and maybe a cheap GPU (maybe, as you can run an operating system headless and remote in), and your budget could have another £150 in it spare....

Operating system will be your main issue, i'd suggest doing some research on "best jellyfin O/S" and see if freenas will do the job.
 
Thank you both, I'll look into all the suggestions now!

Seems like an Intel CPU is recommended of some kind. The N100 processor is meant to be good at this task and super low power. Only one motherboard in the UK though (Asrock) and it only has two Sata ports, one NVMe. So would perhaps have to add an Sata adaparer on thr Nvme slot. Perhaps a step up would give me more motherboard options and not too much of a higher power draw.
 
Yep Intel is recommended due to the igp encoding support and performance, for plex at least, so I assume the same in jellyfin. For your case, direct play and no transcoding, I imagine literally anything would be fine, but price wise, there isn't much in it between a an n100 and a low-mid range u or p cpu, which is a million times better at everything else, or if it does need to encode anything in the future.
 
Ch3m1c4L said:
Yep Intel is recommended due to the igp encoding support and performance, for plex at least, so I assume the same in jellyfin. For your case, direct play and no transcoding, I imagine literally anything would be fine, but price wise, there isn't much in it between a an n100 and a low-mid range u or p cpu, which is a million times better at everything else, or if it does need to encode anything in the future.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

So Intel narrows it down. The N100 is like 6w so that's appealing, but I suppose when it's such low numbers it doesn't really matter too much.

So my three options (as I understand it are)

1: New PC build focusing on low power and storage.

2: Mini PC with a SSD/HHD Multi Tray Enclosure.

3: A dedicated NAS.

I've researched then all. What puts me off the NAS's is the cpu/Ram that comes with it seems super weak? But then I though it must be fit for purpose if the NAS has one job etc.

Kind of leaving towards option 2. As I'm worried if I go option 1 I might end up with a system that draws power similar to my main rig minus the 4090, which wouldn't be ideal if its on 24/7. The NAS looks a bit more complicated... people throw in a lot of words I dont understand when I've looked at it lol, think id be googling every step of the way lol.
 
Armageus said:
4. Cheap Mini PC + Very Cheap NAS (don't worry about CPU/RAM as the Mini PC can pick up the processing slack)
Click to expand...

Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but isn't that the worst of both worlds? Wouldn't it be better to get a Micro PC and a storage enclosure? Like this;



OR a NAS that can do both in one? If I did option 4 would i just be paying for something I wouldn't be using? (The NAS CPU, RAM etc). Also would a very cheap NAS not be very good at doing what I need it to do? If corners cut etc.

Sorry I'm out of my depth lol.
 
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Hostile_18 said:
Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but isn't that the worst of both worlds? Wouldn't it be better to get a Micro PC and a storage enclosure? Like this;

Click to expand...
But those type of things cost almost as much as a "proper" NAS, and are connected by USB which isn't necessarily reliable (especially if you throw in options such as wanting RAID5/Unraid to maximise reliablity/space)



Hostile_18 said:
OR a NAS that can do both in one?
Click to expand...
But then you unfortunately get sucked into the trap of either having to move further up the NAS vendors' product line to get an appropriate CPU/RAM/Features as they always segment them in annoying ways. (Or the other option of having to build something that meets your requirements, but is compromised in other ways e.g. aesthetics, noise, power consumption, cost)


Hostile_18 said:
If I did option 4 would i just be paying for something I wouldn't be using? (The NAS CPU, RAM etc).
Click to expand...
But if it's a basic underpowered NAS that only has to do one thing well (i.e. serve files), it could be anything (whether that's a cheaper, lower spec Synology/QNAP/Asustor, or even an old 2nd hand HP Microserver).
You can then upgrade the two parts separately e.g. need more processing power, just chuck another micro PC into your docker cluster or whatever (without affecting your storage at all).
 
Armageus said:
But those type of things cost almost as much as a "proper" NAS, and are connected by USB which isn't necessarily reliable (especially if you throw in options such as wanting RAID5/Unraid to maximise reliablity/space)




But then you unfortunately get sucked into the trap of either having to move further up the NAS vendors' product line to get an appropriate CPU/RAM/Features as they always segment them in annoying ways. (Or the other option of having to build something that meets your requirements, but is compromised in other ways e.g. aesthetics, noise, power consumption, cost)



But if it's a basic underpowered NAS that only has to do one thing well (i.e. serve files), it could be anything (whether that's a cheaper, lower spec Synology/QNAP/Asustor, or even an old 2nd hand HP Microserver).
You can then upgrade the two parts separately e.g. need more processing power, just chuck another micro PC into your docker cluster or whatever (without affecting your storage at all).
Click to expand...

Makes sense thank you. And I take it this option is probably better than just building a DIY computer from scratch? Where I probably wouldn't get good enough low levels power use for 24/7 use.

I think it may balloon the budget. With a decent microcomputer been £200 and a entry level NAS been about £500? (Not sure I want to spend hundreds on a one or two drive unit).

The other solution I've seen is get a Microcomputer with 3 storage bays (be that a mixture of NVME or 2.5 Sata SSD). That will take me to a decent 12tb that would suffice for my needs. Hmm I've got some googling to do lol.
 
Hostile_18 said:
I think it may balloon the budget. With a decent microcomputer been £200 and a entry level NAS been about £500? (Not sure I want to spend hundreds on a one or two drive unit).
Click to expand...

Decent Micro PC - Dell Optiplex 3060 Micro (i5-8500T/8GB RAM/256GB SSD) - used ~£125
Decent Entry Level NAS - Asustor DriveStor 4 AS1104T - 4 Bay - 2.5GB ~ new £255
 
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Armageus said:
Decent Micro PC - Dell Optiplex 3060 Micro (i5-8500T/8GB RAM/256GB SSD) - used ~£125
Decent Entry Level NAS - Asustor DriveStor 4 AS1104T - 4 Bay - 2.5GB ~ new £255
Click to expand...
Micro PC wise there's a lot of good new options from Beelink et al. So not too worried there. I Googled the NAS and the tech power up review opened quite harshly lol

"To lower the price, Asustor installed half the RAM, 1 GB of DDR4, and there are no drive caddies, so you cannot remove or install any drives on the fly without the top and side cover removed. Like the Pro model, the plain Drivestor 4 supports PLEX, but it will have a tough time transcoding high bit-rate or high-resolution media. With only 1 GB of RAM and without an iGPU, this makes total sense"

Seems strange to me why these really expensive NASs have so weak CPUs and like 1gb ram in 2023. Unless its a different costs in this market.

Edit: Oh wait this wouldn't matter if the Mini PC does the work?
 
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Hostile_18 said:
Edit: Oh wait this wouldn't matter if the Mini PC does the work?
Click to expand...
Exactly - leave the NAS to do the one thing it's good at - File Sharing. The lower powered CPU and less RAM help keep power consumption down.

Not being able to install/remove drives on the fly isn't the end of the world - even with things like the original HP Microservers, whilst the drives were in caddies, the BIOS/SATA controller wasn't actually set up for them to be hot-swapped. And in a home enviroment hot-swap is a niceity rather than a necessity.
 
Thank you for all that information! Last question I'd you don't mind haha. Considering all the NAS parts I'll be bypassing using a mini PC when looking at other NAS models what should I be looking for/focusing on performance or spec wise that will affect me? :)
 
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It is perfectly reasonable to build your own low power box. But you're not looking for normal desktop cpus.
Either server boards from the like of asrock for some niece stuff, often with soldered cpus. Often referred to/googled for by searching "SoC" rather than cpu itself.

I run/ran an itx board with pcie16x slot for a raid card, 12 sata ports and a soldered on 15w(iirc) 8 core Intel avoton(atom) as my nas/download box. Have a 4790k system i used for heavier tasks and plex.

Although I am right this moment replacing all the hosting stuff with an Intel i5 1340p mini PC i just bought from China, hence my recommendation as its what I decided to get after finding it for cheap enough. NAS wise I'm migrating all my storage to much bigger drives in a server cluster dining table thing in building so it'll be on, I think, my threadripper based host system.

I used to run one "mega PC", I'm much happier having everything separated, nas, servers, gaming PC. Higher initial outlay cost, but then every upgrade is cheaper as you don't need to overspec cpu/ram on one machine etc. Obvs power saving too.

I wouldn't get too hung up on 6w vs 10w vs 75w on cpus too. Remember at idle most cpus will clock down, this is where going newer helps a lot, and efficiency cores etc (the 1340p has 8,each about the same as a 6700k in performance but way higher performance per watt).
A n100 or n105 are often recommended for plex if light loads as igpu covers most/all. The cpus themselves are rubbish.
So if you are not going to need the extra perf for some random game hosting, downloading, home assistant, private cloud stuff, learning server stuff in VMs. Then it makes sense to go with a cheap box with only like 8gb ram. Although, you could always get that, then get more/better mini PCs if you want to host other things at a later date too.

None of the options are really wrong either, it's just about your budget, your space, and how much you want to mess around with things.
 
Thank you for everyones information, very informative!

I have finally ordered one. I've got a "LincStation: World's 1st Unraid 6-bay All SSD NAS" coming. Thry just started shipping last week. Suits my needs perfectly and a great price for being an early backer £240. I can fit my 2x 4tb Crucial MX's in straight away and add 4x 4tb Nvmes as and when I need them. Completely silent in the living room and super low power to be on 24/7.

If for what ever reason I need to add a mini PC on top, thats not a problem either! :D
 
That looks like a perfect solution for your needs and the fact you already have ssd's.
Had I known it existed, I'd have recommended it lol.
May well be in the future once ssd pricing is reasonable for 10's of TBs I move over to similar and then use a network file system to cluster several together. God I love how small compute can be now compared to ten, let alone 20, years ago.
 
Ch3m1c4L said:
That looks like a perfect solution for your needs and the fact you already have ssd's.
Had I known it existed, I'd have recommended it lol.
May well be in the future once ssd pricing is reasonable for 10's of TBs I move over to similar and then use a network file system to cluster several together. God I love how small compute can be now compared to ten, let alone 20, years ago.
Click to expand...

100%. I just love the complete silence and low footprint... I think my 4090 Evo XL Gaming PC idles at about 180w, so this at 10w or what ever is so much better. Quite excited what the future revisions will look like of this as well, with the price point being so accessible. It will be a learning curve now with Unraid and how I organise the SSDs. That said tempted to just have them all as I would in a PC and use Backblaze as a fail safe.
 
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