Synology NAS vs mini PC for occasional transcoding? What do I need to look for?

[red-broccoli]

Hi all

I literally just learned about this forum via the subreddit. Let me know if this is not the right place to post.

My current setup is a Synology DS214play as a PLEX server and an Nvidioa Shield TV Pro as my client.
However, this setup is both somewhat slow, and incoming Plex changes (coupled with the Pass for transcoding) make me want to switch to Jellyfin.

My future setup and requirements:

• Shield TV Pro as client
  
• new server to host jellyfin
  
• potential NAS to hold files
  
• Mostly 1x stream up to 4k in home network
  
• For streaming from away, I would tunnel in via a VPN on my Pi, rather than opening up the server to the www. I will try to keep multiple versions for movies, but tv shows may need to be transcoded to watch on the go
  
  

The general question is what specs do I need to focus on to meet the above requirements? I have read that intel CPUs need to be 8th gen or above for QuickSync. Newer Synology NAS seem to not ahve intel CPUs anymore. The DS224+ has one, but per this forum, the latest jellyfish version does not support the transcoding on that CPU/NAS.
The more specific question comes down to the setup. Given the limitations and requirements above, I guess the Synology DS224+ would not be a good fit?
Given my limited streams and transcoding requirements, what specs would a mini PC need to fulfill? Would a Beelink with an Intel i5 10th gen or above be suitable? Would the N95 be? Would a used HP Elitedesk G3 mini desktop with an i5 9th gen be good enough?
Additionally, if I go the mini PC route, should I expect any latency issues if I keep my DS214play as a NAS to store the media files, with the sole purpose of the mini being to run Jellyfin? Or should I attach the storage directly to the server?

Thank you for your help! I am going on vacation in a few weeks, and I am hoping to be ready by then to test it all and hopefully cancel netflix for good thereafter.

[elephantLYFE]

I have a synology setup.
I am the only user at home.
Never tested 4K.
Mine seems to handle lite transcoding ok I think.

[TheDreadPirate]

Any of the PCs you listed would need your needs in terms of transcoding/tone mapping needs. Price, form factor, and power usage are probably the main factors to choose between those options.

[red-broccoli]

I have a synology setup.
I am the only user at home.
Never tested 4K.
Mine seems to handle lite transcoding ok I think.

In your signature it lists an i3 - how is this for transcoding?
And is your storage directly hooked up to your server or also via a NAS?

[TheDreadPirate]

In your signature it lists an i3 - how is this for transcoding?
And is your storage directly hooked up to your server or also via a NAS?

I'm assuming this was directed at me and not elephant.

I used to use my i3-12100 for transcoding.  Added an Arc A380 so I could encode my library going forward with AV1.  And when 10.9 is released I can transcode to AV1.

When I was using the 12100 for transcoding it would handle like twelve 1080P SDR streams.  I was very impressed.  It could barely handle 2 HDR to SDR tone mapped streams, which is part of the reason why I added the A380.

My storage is directly attached to this server.  It's a custom built mATX PC.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I have read that intel CPUs need to be 8th gen or above for QuickSync. Newer Synology NAS seem to not ahve intel CPUs anymore. The DS224+ has one, but per this forum, the latest jellyfish version does not support the transcoding on that CPU/NAS.

1. It's not a hard requirement that you need 8th gen or above. The reason this is recommended is that starting with 8th gen Intel CPUs, HWA support for more of the popular codecs have been implemented into the CPU for Intel's Quick Sync. Take a look at this table to see which codec each generation of Intel CPUs support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quic...d_encoding
   
2. The DS224+ has the Intel Celeron J4125 CPU which contains the iGPU from the "Gemini Lake" generation. The name of the iGPU is the "UHD Graphics 600". If you look on the table from the wikipedia link, you can see that this generation of the iGPU supports decoding most of the current popular codecs except for AV1.
   
3. You're a bit mistaken with seeing this forum say the CPU on the DS224+ can't HWA transcode with Jellyfin. What you're misreading is that Synology's current OS doesn't contain the necessary files to properly tone map HDR content. From my experience, HDR is much more prevalent with 4K content. So if most of your 4K content is HDR, most of the colors will looked washed out due to this. Transcoding will still work fine. Also keep in mind, as long as you have a CPU, you can transcode. Most of the people asking for help with transcoding is in regards with getting any type of GPU to do the transcoding. GPU transcoding (HWA) is faster than CPU transcoding which is why most people want to use it. Just configure Jellyfin to only HWA codecs that your system supports, then Jellyfin will only use the CPU to transcode the rest of the unsupported codecs.
   

It shouldn't matter where the media is located on your network as long as Jellyfin has proper access to it. As long as your NAS is in the same local network as the server, the speed at which an external server can access your NAS for media should be fast. Just make sure both the NAS and the server are connected using wires instead of relying on something like wifi to connect your devices to a router.

[red-broccoli]

@Efficient_Good_5784

Thanks for the detailed answer. You are correct, and now that you mention it, it is indeed Synology's DSM that was blamed for the lack of compatibility with Jellyfin. But since most of my content is in 4K (even though I do not know how many of them would be affected by the lack of tone mapping), I have opted to go with the mini PC instead. The Beelink S12 Pro was on sale, n100 CPU and 16 GB Ram (which I understand is not really that relevant for media hosting). So I am pursuing the setup of my nvidia shield as client, the beelink to host the jellyfin server, and my DS214p will remain my NAS.

Let me know if you have any advice or anything that I should look out for when setting up the server.
I was thinking of rolling with OMV and docker for jellyfin, seems rather straight forward. But I still have plenty of reading to do.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I would recommend you do stick with Docker for Jellyfin. Just make sure to make external folders to hold your config folder.

With the config folder being external to the Docker container, you can just link it to new Jellyfin Docker containers, and all of your data gets transferred along. It's useful when updating Jellyfin to a new version. You can even make copies of your config folder as a backup just in case.

Likewise, making an external folder for the cache means you can mount the cache folder on an SSD while the rest of your media remains on slower HDDs.