Configuration of server for 100 Users

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Idk about 100 that's a lot, but in addition to starting with reducing/eliminating transcoding
My hacky solution to this would be to first see what kills me first- be it CPU limitation or storage, etc.
Then I'd run multiple instances. 2 Computers if it's CPU, or just 2 storage devices if it's storage. Have a master instance and mirror it with like idk syncthing maybe?
Some users get a login to server 1, some get to server 2. It falls apart if more people than you need to edit metadata and stuff. 
I mean that's a dumb suggestion I just gave but it feels like one of those questions that's fishing for dumb answers to get you by cause hey whatever works.
I don't know how big your library is, but if it's small get a stack of old laptops you can scrounge up or ebay some cheap micro pcs on ebay just the keep the power draw low.
Replicating a terabyte or two several times on SSDs isn't that bad cost wise. Of course if you have a very large library this idea is just dumb.
Heck if you want to spread it out to other peoples dorms to make traffic less suspicious just ask some of the power users to take an optiplex micro/other minipc from you. You have have them for 50-60 bucks on ebay with no drive.  
Obviously if budget is not a constraint like you say there are much better solutions, but this is the dumb/cheap one maybe?

Let's ignore hacky solutions for a second, and say you just chose an average beefy computer. The problem with a setup like this is that it will work fine for a while- 100 people aren't gonna be on at the same time 99% of the time. Then one rainy sunday night at 9pm everyone's gonna be bored and decide to watch TV. Suddenly you have 50 people steaming videos about linux isos from you at the same time! So I get your request for 60% plus simultaneous
BUUUT
Here's the easy solution-
Find a way to limit how many users can connect at once. Limit it to like 15-20. If they complain, we'll it's free get over it and wait your turn. 

Finally a word of caution- I wouldn't want 100 people to have access to my collection of linux iso videos. That's a scale that raises eyebrows, wads undergarments, and 100 people are a bit many to know on a person level. I know it's tempting to be the most popular person in the dorm, to be known as the cool person who gives everyone free TuxFlix but....just be careful. You don't want your university's secret IT police dragging you away in a black bag. I know this isn't the same thing but back in my day we forwarded all hatemail from rightholders right to the student responsible. When they would get media from boat harbors on the internet with no VPN the rights holders would see that a university was the source, and they'd be much much more likely to try to send legal threats because they thought there was money to squeeze (hence our yeeting policy). Plus I think they got in trouble academically for causing us a fuss.  I know this isn't that, but it's the attitude here you need to be aware of if the wrong person gets wind of your penguin videos.

edit
I necroed this thread oops

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Didn't somebody get rffmpeg working with Jellyfin at some point? That's kind of an interesting proposition for this kind of setup. Farm out any transcoding that needs to take place. That makes the networking all the more complex, though.

In theory this is a cool idea. In practice, any network admin worth their salt would catch this suspicious traffic immediately. Particularly because it would probably be run over HTTP with little regard for authentication or other security. As somebody who works in HE and is friends with network admins: some wouldn't care but they'd probably be forced to shut you down and report you if a) they could identify any illegal activity or b) your server caused any disruption to other network traffic. That's not a blanket statement, legal advice, or a green light. Experimenting with a media server is better than the alternative but it could get you in deep shit with the scale you're talking about.

[skribe]

rffmpeg is written by Jellyfin's project lead. So I would imagine that it works well with JF. I have not used it, though.

https://github.com/joshuaboniface/rffmpeg

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I would start a new topic with your use case request @SneakyMndl. It's not great practice to necro-bump a topic with a similar question and add new parameters of your own when the original question has been asked and answered.

If you want an in-depth answer, you'll need your own topic. Short answer? You can disable transcoding, bandwidth will limit you, OpenSubtitles will not suffice for more than a few titles a day, and any configuration questions will require a deeper discussion and more specificity.

[AnonymousWebHacker]

The conversation thread is a little old but hey, here is my point of view.
I currently have a server that receives more than 230 simultaneous reproductions without problems. It's the maximum I've ever counted, but it's really like 500 users.

Server:
Board H410M
CPU: Intel Celeron (yes a fucked celeron)
16 Gb Ram
Disk: 11 Disks , 1 SSD (for OS) and 10 HDD (Raid0)
3 Network Interfaces gifabite

The magic is that I simply don't transcode, only direct play
First of all, all my content is HEVC 720 bit, average 800 Kb/s 1000 Kb/s (it has good visual quality because it is compressed videos in H265).

I hope that it would be useful to someone