Hello there, I would like to upgrade my setup from a Raspberry PI 5 to something more capable of running Jellyfin properly. I also plan to host stuff like Nextcloud and some other small services.
The problem is I don’t know anything about choosing hardware. I’ve tried reading online about this stuff and come across many recommendations to buy an NUC, not knowing I would have to purchase every component individually.
I would like your comments on the setup I currently have:
- NUC Type: ASUS NUC 14 Pro Kit (RNUC14RVKI300000I)
- Operating System - Still haven’t decided yet, probably something easy like Ubuntu server
- CPU - Intel® Core™ 3 100U Processor
- Chipset - Integrated
- Graphics - Integrated - Intel® Graphics (C3)
- Memory - Adata 8GB DDR5 4800MHz CL40 SO-DIMM
- Storage - Western Digital Green SN350 1TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe WDS100T3G0C
- LAN - Intel®, 2.5G LAN
Edit 1
Some clarifications: I still haven’t bought anything, this is just what I am currently planning to buy.
I don’t live in the US, and none of my local shops have a pre-built NUC available to purchase.
I will probably upgrade the RAM to a “Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR5 5200MHz CL44” after reading some comments.
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My setup was about 500 USD if I had to guess:
Used i5 9500 (mainly for QSV but you can use any modern CPU as long as the iGPU is relatively recent)
32GB RAM (more RAM = more cache for file IO)
4TB HDD
256GB NVME boot drive (recycled from my steamdeck)
Node 804 case.
TrueNAS SCALE for the OS.
I’d recommend to get double or even triple the drives I did, maybe 3x 2TB or 3x 1TB depending on your budget. Only because that unlocks RaidZ1/RaidZ2 which can give you better RW speed and redundancy should anything go splat, and you can’t retroactively convert your drive into a Z1/Z2 pool without manually transferring the data later which might take a looooong time for you.
I dont think my route was the cheapest: IMO youd do better going AMD even despite the poorer support for HW transcode only because the motherboards are insanely expensive and hard to find, whereas that money couldve given me a better CPU and later you can add an intel iGPU if you’re really struggling.
Currently have a setup similar to yours, except the chip is N100 (12th gen Intel, 4 e-cores) and 16 gigs of ram. Running Jellyfin with hardware accelerated transcoding into VP9 and HEVC just fine. Nextcloud is ok too, kinda slow but I think that’s because of my networking.
It’s one of the cheapest pre made n100 mini PCs I could find on Amazon.
Just make sure that you have enough IO for your needs. Mine has only three usb ports, I plugged in two usb hard drives and a Zigbee dongle and now I’m out of ports. Gonna have to get a hub now.
If you have the money I’d recommend getting a mini pc with an amd ryzen apu.
I have an i5 9500 and for what its worth Nextcloud always seems to be the least responsive web app I’ve used. I think it’s just the nature of Nextcloud.
I’d up the RAM to whatever your budget allows. 8GB are on the low side for several heavy services at the same time.
Another thing to note is that extra RAM is super useful with ZFS since it will use extra RAM as a cache to speed up IO. 16-32GB will let ZFS keep significant amounts of data instantly accessible to services like Jellyfin - Eg. a new movie or tv show that multiple users will watch simultaneously.
Can you be more specific about your performance objectives? The Pi5 can handle jellyfin and nextcloud relatively well, so if you’re having issues with them, identifying the bottlenecks can help narrow down the hardware recommendations.
I’m specifically looking into this at the moment as I have been gifted a pi 5.
Most websites say avoid trying to host jellyfin on a pi 5 (codec and hardware issues are frequently noted). Do you have experience that shows these are non-issues?
Any low power device is going to struggle with video playback unless you’re doing direct streaming. The exception being the new Intel N line of processors that have capable enough GPUs to do the transcoding. If all you’re after is decent transcoding performance for H264/H265 video, anything newer than Intel’s 7-8th gen CPUs will do the job. $100-$200 used optiplexes and thinkcentres can easily handle this type of workload.
For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding
Jellyfin supports HW transcoding on Rockchip too, but the issue with the Pi5 specifically is that it doesn’t have a hardware media decoder so it’s actually worse than the Pi4 if you can get HW transcoding running on it.