Debating Jellyfin on NAS

[CRS10114]

Hi there,

I am building a NAS, and wanted to use Jellyfin for local media streaming. Here's the parts list:


CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard: ASRock B550M-ITX
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2 x 8GB) @ 3600MHz
Storage: 4x Toshiba N300 Pro 4TB 3.5" 7200 RPM + a leftover 128GB NVMe SSD to use as the boot drive
Case: Jonsbo N2 NAS Case
OS: TrueNAS

The Ryzen 5 3600 is a leftover from my partner's build. I am new to this side of personal computers, so I have a couple questions:

1. If I am only going to be streaming locally (max 3 streams, but most likely just 1 at a time), would the CPU I have be sufficient? I have read that AMD in particular sucks at transcoding. The devices should all support the formats I would be streaming (MP4 and MKV), so perhaps this isn't even an issue.
2. Should I install TrueNAS SCALE and have Jellyfin running on the NAS, or should I just point Jellyfin to the NAS from whichever device I am trying to stream to?

Any help is appreciated. Please let me know if I need to provide any other information.

[34626]

If you dont need transcoding, you could go way smaller on the CPU, i dont know how bad AMDs CPUs are compared to Intel CPUs, but i have read that Intel should be best some time ago.. But if transcoding is not needed, you could simply use a Raspberry pi 4/5 - If direct playback is used, it wont use much CPU..

[tmsrxzar]

you could simply use a Raspberry pi 4/5

note: the use of a pi is this user's opinion only, the official stance from jellyfin is to NOT use a pi https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/admini...-selection

[CRS10114]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like I'm good to go in terms of hardware for streaming. I assume then I should be able to run Jellyfin server on the NAS?

[TheDreadPirate]

I just wanted to back track a bit. The bit about "AMD is bad for transcoding" applies to AMD GPUs and iGPUs only. The reason Intel CPUs are suggested so highly is because of their iGPUs and their built in encoder, Quick Sync. Quick Sync is both fast and produces high quality transcodes.

But that is besides the point since you are using leftover hardware.

You don't mention a GPU. Do you plan on putting in a dedicated GPU? A lot of consumer motherboards won't boot without a GPU and the 3600 doesn't have an iGPU.

[CRS10114]

Yeah, this build has been a bit of a pain. I initially wanted to use an i3-8100 that was leftover from a Dell prebuilt I acquired from work. I ordered a B360 mATX motherboard and a Fractal Design Node 804 before I moved into a house, thinking I would have enough space there, only to realize I did not in fact have enough space. That's when I ordered a B360 mITX board, which was dead on arrival.

That's when I decided we should just upgrade my partner's computer, use the 3600 for the NAS, and buy a new motherboard from Micro Center. Whenever I upgrade the NAS hardware, I'll be going with Intel for sure.

As for the GPU, I should have mentioned I will be using a leftover GTX 1060 3GB for initial setup. Unfortunately, the Jonsbo N2 only allows for a low-profile single slot PCIe card. Once I have TrueNAS installed, I should be able to access it through a browser.

Good catch, and thank you for checking!

[CRS10114]

Update to finish this post:

I got everything installed and it is running wondefully. I obviously had to use the GTX 1060 for initial setup, but the system runs without a dedicated GPU. Now that TrueNAS is installed, I can manage everything from my browser on my computer.

Thanks for the help y'all

[tmsrxzar]

excellent, glad you didn't choose a pi