2024-03-10, 10:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 2024-03-10, 10:06 AM by Efficient_Good_5784. Edited 1 time in total.)
Have you added a 2nd piece of ram to your Synology NAS? By default, these come with a single stick of ram which causes the CPU to run with a single channel of ram. I added a 2nd stick of ram to my Synology NAS (which means the CPU now runs with dual channel ram) and the transcoding fps improved a bit (like 15fps more on average on 1080p to 1080p transcodes).
If it helps to bring context the the power of the CPUs in Synology units, I have a DS920+. The DS920+ has an Intel Celeron J4125 which is 4 years old at this point. You can see Intel's spec for it here.
When Jellyfin HWA transcodes a 1080p stream (with around ~3Mbps bitrate) to 1080p on the DS920+, the J4125 CPU utilization jumps to around 25%-40%.
I built a new server for Jellyfin that uses the AMD 5600G CPU, and it uses twice as much watts than my DS920+. But when the 5600G HWA transcodes the same videos as on the DS920+, the CPU utilization is only around ~5%-10%.
Your Synology unit (DS1019+) has an older CPU with lower specs than the one in the DS920+. See here for the Intel Celeron J3455 specs.
This CPU is 7 years old now. Intel even lists a recommended selling price of $31USD (~$47AUD) on their spec listings for it.
The point here is that Synology (and most other pre-made NAS brands) focus on keeping the NAS boxes to a minimum with power usage. People buying these things generally want it to use as little power as possible. So these "underpowered" CPUs are used.
These CPUs do fine with basic NAS file storage usage, but not so much with transcoding video (especially with high-bitrate video).
I would check if you have any background tasks running on your Synology unit at the same time that you're transcoding. Like if you have any scrubbing going on or another application doing something else that might slow down the system.
Otherwise, having a high CPU utilization % with the J3455 while HWA transcoding seems normal (maybe not 95% usage as with your case however).
If it helps to bring context the the power of the CPUs in Synology units, I have a DS920+. The DS920+ has an Intel Celeron J4125 which is 4 years old at this point. You can see Intel's spec for it here.
When Jellyfin HWA transcodes a 1080p stream (with around ~3Mbps bitrate) to 1080p on the DS920+, the J4125 CPU utilization jumps to around 25%-40%.
I built a new server for Jellyfin that uses the AMD 5600G CPU, and it uses twice as much watts than my DS920+. But when the 5600G HWA transcodes the same videos as on the DS920+, the CPU utilization is only around ~5%-10%.
Your Synology unit (DS1019+) has an older CPU with lower specs than the one in the DS920+. See here for the Intel Celeron J3455 specs.
This CPU is 7 years old now. Intel even lists a recommended selling price of $31USD (~$47AUD) on their spec listings for it.
The point here is that Synology (and most other pre-made NAS brands) focus on keeping the NAS boxes to a minimum with power usage. People buying these things generally want it to use as little power as possible. So these "underpowered" CPUs are used.
These CPUs do fine with basic NAS file storage usage, but not so much with transcoding video (especially with high-bitrate video).
I would check if you have any background tasks running on your Synology unit at the same time that you're transcoding. Like if you have any scrubbing going on or another application doing something else that might slow down the system.
Otherwise, having a high CPU utilization % with the J3455 while HWA transcoding seems normal (maybe not 95% usage as with your case however).