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+--- Thread: Jellyfin PC Location (/t-jellyfin-pc-location)
Jellyfin PC Location - Batsy - 2024-01-21
Okay so this may sound dumb but I'm very new to this. Currently I have have jellyfin setup on a mini pc. This pc I have placed in the living room which is central to my house. It is running on wifi and I don't really have any issues but I was thinking about it and I wanted some clarification.
Does it matter if the actual pc running the server is in the middle of the house or will any device on my LAN just be using whatever connection they are getting to the router.
My thinking was any device say the Chromecast with googletv that is connecting to jellyfin is connecting to the pc to access jellyfin and not just the network so having the pc be central to the house would make sense, or should I just direct plug it in to the router even though its in a far corner of the house.
Again this might sound dumb but I'm unsure if it matters where the actual physical device is or if it just depends on whatever signal the device watching the content is getting from my router. We really don't have any issues with it running on wifi but if this could make it more stable for the future I would gladly move it but if the location of the device itself does matter I would rather leave it on wifi so everyone has the best connection to it.
Thank you for any responses and sorry if this hard to understand, I will try to respond to any additional info request if needed.
RE: Jellyfin PC Location - tmsrxzar - 2024-01-21
unless you are serving wifi from the jellyfin server then the location won't matter, the wifi devices will still connect to the router first
with that if you move your server to the center of the house on ethernet then the signal has to travel further
and i do not recommend wifi on a server, ever
RE: Jellyfin PC Location - Efficient_Good_5784 - 2024-01-21
Your mini PC uses wifi to connect to the router. The rest of the clients that'll connect to your mini PC will also need to connect to the router. The clients will not be connecting directly to the mini PC.
As tmsrxzar states, it's not a great idea to connect a server through wifi. You introduce a lot of latency to something that's supposed to respond decently fast. It's usable, but not recommended.
It would be best to hook up the mini PC with an ethernet cable straight to the router.
RE: Jellyfin PC Location - Marcelo Linhares - 2024-01-22
In general words a correct network cable is more stable and has more bandwidth than wifi connection.
But I do not necessarily see a problem when you have your server running over wifi.
If your router is powerfull enough to network the needed data, you are good to go.
Just test and see if it fits your needs. Now the test is important to measure all the aspects you want to achieve.
A good test in this type of connection should be related to the content and the amount of people consuming it.
RE: Jellyfin PC Location - Efficient_Good_5784 - 2024-01-22
(2024-01-22, 03:12 PM)Marcelo Linhares Wrote: If your router is powerfull enough to network the needed data, you are good to go.If wifi works, it works. It clearly is enough for OP's use case.
Just test and see if it fits your needs. Now the test is important to measure all the aspects you want to achieve.
One of the biggest issues with wifi is interference with other signals.
As an example, I've noticed that my laptop's wifi connection will sometimes drop in speed or get increased latency when someone uses the microwave depending on how far away I'm from it.
Just wanted to point out that another good test to do is to see if the airspace where you'll use wifi for a server is not relatively crowded with other types of signals that'll interfere with the wifi signal.