2024-01-27, 01:39 AM
(This post was last modified: 2024-01-27, 01:59 AM by Efficient_Good_5784. Edited 2 times in total.)
I got curious and looked up the official website page for your QNAP model: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/ts-464
I'm finding it funny how QNAP keeps mentioning how the dual 2.5Gbps network ports are just as fast as a single 10Gbps port when both are linked together with what they call "port trunking" (a google search reveals that it's another name for Link Aggregation).
I'm guessing that what QNAP is getting at is that the HDDs you'll fill it up with won't need bandwidth faster than what both ports can provide when linked together. Though they do show a graph lower down the page that shows how their dual 2.5G ports performs better than a single 10G port when it comes to writing to the drives.
Looking at the CPU that it has installed, it's just below the recommended specs that the Jellyfin Docs recommends for a "normal server". You should be fine in this department as the CPU also has the Intel UHD graphics iGPU (Jasper Lake in this case) that can handle HWA for most of the popular video codecs minus AV1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video).
With my experience on running Jellyfin on something similar (a Synology DS920+), one of the reasons these NAS systems run programs slower than a dedicated machine is that they usually rely on the HDDs for everything. I haven't used a QNAP device, but I assume it works the same as Synology systems. On these all-in-one NAS systems, the OS gets installed on the HDDs. All your programs and containers also get installed to the same HDDs. When you're accessing your files, you access the same HDDs. There's only so much I/O that HDDs can provide and letting it do all that will make the whole system appear to be slower than what the specs can actually provide.
I don't understand why Synology and QNAP haven't sold a NAS system that has (by default or by you adding it in) a separate SSD that will host the NAS OS and some of your running programs. This way, you remove HDD bottlenecks. I know that on some Synology models, you can add a couple of NVMe drives to host things, but this requires you to run a script to make work (last time I checked). If you want to add an SSD volume to your NAS, you mostly have to give up a drive bay or two, which could have been used for a big HDD for more space.
Also, people have different needs for their server. Some people already have all of their media files in a format that they can direct play, so a Raspberry Pi will work just fine there. Others might have many users that could require lots of transcoding, so a dedicated GPU might be needed there. The issue here is that guides online don't really have the capacity to make hardware recommendations to everyone to a good enough capacity, so broad generalizations are given out instead. NAS systems from QNAP and Synology are appealing to a lot of people because they're relatively compact, but due to being small, power efficient CPUs are used to avoid the need of better cooling solutions being needed. People also shop around for the quietest and least power hungry NAS systems, so lower-end CPUs work here too.
The more you get into hosting your own things (and the more you learn about hardware in general), the more you get accustomed to figuring out how much computing power you need for certain jobs and tasks.
But yeah, just in case you're worried about not having an enjoyable experience with your QNAP due to it being underpowered, it should still be usable. If you're expecting it to do some serious 4K transcoding, then maybe not, but it should handle direct playing and some light transcoding here and there to a couple of users just fine. I'm not experienced with a QNAP nas though, so I may not be of much help to figure out your issues.
I'm finding it funny how QNAP keeps mentioning how the dual 2.5Gbps network ports are just as fast as a single 10Gbps port when both are linked together with what they call "port trunking" (a google search reveals that it's another name for Link Aggregation).
I'm guessing that what QNAP is getting at is that the HDDs you'll fill it up with won't need bandwidth faster than what both ports can provide when linked together. Though they do show a graph lower down the page that shows how their dual 2.5G ports performs better than a single 10G port when it comes to writing to the drives.
Looking at the CPU that it has installed, it's just below the recommended specs that the Jellyfin Docs recommends for a "normal server". You should be fine in this department as the CPU also has the Intel UHD graphics iGPU (Jasper Lake in this case) that can handle HWA for most of the popular video codecs minus AV1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video).
With my experience on running Jellyfin on something similar (a Synology DS920+), one of the reasons these NAS systems run programs slower than a dedicated machine is that they usually rely on the HDDs for everything. I haven't used a QNAP device, but I assume it works the same as Synology systems. On these all-in-one NAS systems, the OS gets installed on the HDDs. All your programs and containers also get installed to the same HDDs. When you're accessing your files, you access the same HDDs. There's only so much I/O that HDDs can provide and letting it do all that will make the whole system appear to be slower than what the specs can actually provide.
I don't understand why Synology and QNAP haven't sold a NAS system that has (by default or by you adding it in) a separate SSD that will host the NAS OS and some of your running programs. This way, you remove HDD bottlenecks. I know that on some Synology models, you can add a couple of NVMe drives to host things, but this requires you to run a script to make work (last time I checked). If you want to add an SSD volume to your NAS, you mostly have to give up a drive bay or two, which could have been used for a big HDD for more space.
Also, people have different needs for their server. Some people already have all of their media files in a format that they can direct play, so a Raspberry Pi will work just fine there. Others might have many users that could require lots of transcoding, so a dedicated GPU might be needed there. The issue here is that guides online don't really have the capacity to make hardware recommendations to everyone to a good enough capacity, so broad generalizations are given out instead. NAS systems from QNAP and Synology are appealing to a lot of people because they're relatively compact, but due to being small, power efficient CPUs are used to avoid the need of better cooling solutions being needed. People also shop around for the quietest and least power hungry NAS systems, so lower-end CPUs work here too.
The more you get into hosting your own things (and the more you learn about hardware in general), the more you get accustomed to figuring out how much computing power you need for certain jobs and tasks.
But yeah, just in case you're worried about not having an enjoyable experience with your QNAP due to it being underpowered, it should still be usable. If you're expecting it to do some serious 4K transcoding, then maybe not, but it should handle direct playing and some light transcoding here and there to a couple of users just fine. I'm not experienced with a QNAP nas though, so I may not be of much help to figure out your issues.
