Good CPU for Jellyfin and ZFS

[FunctionDJ]

Hi, i want to build a new home server for use with Jellyfin and i store my media using OpenZFS.

For Jellyfin i'd ideally like to use an 11th Gen Intel CPU because according to the Jellyfin docs it has good transcoding power and i don't have to think about Linux kernel support like with the newer generations.

For ZFS i'd like to use ECC memory which is either available more widely on AMD CPUs and also Intel server CPUs without an iGPU.

I've considered an Intel ARC dedicated GPU but found reports of incomplete kernel support.

What CPU or CPU/GPU should i go with?

[TheDreadPirate]

Version 6.2+ of the Linux kernel fully supports Arc. There are also issues with 11th gen+ iGPUs that also require new kernels. You can manually update the kernel to a new version if your distro of choice doesn't give you an option during installation. I know Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server asks whether you want to use 5.15 and 6.2 (they call it HWE) during install.

My question to answer your question is how many users you want to support simultaneously and whether you require AV1 support.

[FunctionDJ]

Version 6.2+ of the Linux kernel fully supports Arc.  There are also issues with llth gen+ iGPUs that also require new kernels.  You can manually update the kernel to a new version if your distro of choice doesn't give you an option during installation.  I know Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server asks whether you want to use 5.15 and 6.2 (they call it HWE) during install.

My question to answer your question is how many users you want to support simultaneously and whether you require AV1 support.

Thank you for your reply. At maximum i expect 2 local network users and 2 remote users which need to share my 50mbit/s uplink, so 4 users at most and most of the time 1.

Regarding AV1 support i'm not sure. Having the option for high quality on low bandwidth (mobile) is cool but probably not worth it for me right now. Maybe in a few years.

[TheDreadPirate]

For the record the current version of Jellyfin, 10.8.11, does not yet support transcoding TO AV1. But definitely great if your devices support AV1 for high quality, lower bit rate, direct play.

1) If you are not married to the requirement to use ECC memory and
2) Don't have much or any 4K HDR content

An 11th gen+ Intel desktop CPU would serve your needs. I recommend 12th gen+ because they finally got off of the 14nm process. The iGPUs in 11th gen+ are very capable for non-HDR transcoding. You only have AV1 DECODE support, though. If you have a lot of HDR content you should probably get an Intel Arc GPU since HDR tone mapping to SDR requires a lot of compute that iGPUs just don't have for more than 1 or two streams.

If you do require ECC, make sure the MOTHERBOARD supports ECC. All Ryzen CPUs support ECC, but the board maker has to allow that to be turned on in the BIOS. And you definitely need a dedicated GPU (again, recommending Intel Arc) because none of the AMD iGPUs perform well with transcoding.

Regardless, max out the supported memory. ZFS will make use of every byte you have.

[FunctionDJ]

For the record the current version of Jellyfin, 10.8.11, does not yet support transcoding TO AV1.  But definitely great if your devices support AV1 for high quality, lower bit rate, direct play.

1)  If you are not married to the requirement to use ECC memory and
2)  Don't have much or any 4K HDR content

An 11th gen+ Intel desktop CPU would serve your needs.  I recommend 12th gen+ because they finally got off of the 14nm process.  The iGPUs in 11th gen+ are very capable for non-HDR transcoding.  You only have AV1 DECODE support, though.  If you have a lot of HDR content you should probably get an Intel Arc GPU since HDR tone mapping to SDR requires a lot of compute that iGPUs just don't have for more than 1 or two streams.

If you do require ECC, make sure the MOTHERBOARD supports ECC.  All Ryzen CPUs support ECC, but the board maker has to allow that to be turned on in the BIOS.  And you definitely need a dedicated GPU (again, recommending Intel Arc) because none of the AMD iGPUs perform well with transcoding.

Regardless, max out the supported memory.  ZFS will make use of every byte you have.

I'd really like to use ECC memory to have a little less risk of writing bad data to disk, and i do have a lot of 4K HDR content. And while i'm going to consume it through HDR capable devices like my TV and phone, the other users might not, so good tonemapping support would be great.
I know that the motherboard needs to support ECC too but i wanted to start with a CPU and go from there, but still thanks for letting me know

So it seems like the "ultimate solution" would be a Ryzen CPU that only needs to be as fast as i need all my other compute to be (i'm probably gonna go second-hand 5600 or similar) paired with the Intel ARC 310, right?

Finally, regarding memory with ZFS, it's true that ZFS can take advantage of more RAM but it can also run fine with just a few GB. I'll most likely spec the server with 2 x 16GB sticks with good clock rates to allow me to add 2x16 later on if i need to.

[TheDreadPirate]

AFAIK, the A310 is OEM only. So the A350 would the cheapest model you can get.

[FunctionDJ]

AFAIK, the A310 is OEM only.  So the A350 would the cheapest model you can get.

Alright, thanks a lot for your help! Hope it goes well