Upgrading 10-year-old hardware

[Mr_Generic]

Greetings,
 
Sorry, I have a lot of questions here on upgrading my hardware and what software to put on it.
 
I built my own Jellyfin server about 10 years ago.  I think it's time for an upgrade. 
 
My current Jellyfin server is:

• ASRock H87M LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI motherboard
  
• Intel i5-4670K @ 3.40GHz Quad-Core Processor 1150; with 64-bit, Intel HD Graphics 4600, Quick Sync
  
• Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit  (yes, I know.  LOL)
  
• 8.00 GB RAM
  
• OS drive:  Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB 2.5" Internal SSD
  
• Silverstone mATX HTPC Case
  
• Jellyfin 10.8.13 (can't upgrade to a later version until I'm off of Windows 7)
  
• Sonarr with Jackett
  

 
I'm in the process of looking at building a new machine and updating all the software including Windows.  I've read some of the Jellyfin documentation regarding memory, GPUs, etc.
Some of the things I'm considering in the new machine include:

• a newer case, motherboard and a quad-core CPU (are four cores enough?  Should I be using an i7 at 2.8 GHz or faster?)
  
• running Windows 11 (I use Windows because I'm not very knowledgeable in administering a Linux machine.)
  
• using a new NVMe SSD (Is 2 TB a reasonable size for this build?)
  
• a graphics card with Intel GPU
  • I read in the documentation that Intel was highly recommended.  I saw this article in the forum about the Intel Arc A380.
    
  • One of the reasons I want to add a GPU is because some of my DVDs that I've ripped only have VOBSUB subtitles, and in my current setup, the CPU is working hard to transcode it when I want subtitles.  I know I can download subtitles, but it doesn't always match my video.
    
• 16 GB RAM  - should I consider 32 GB if I want to run the following processes in Docker?  (see below)
  
• run Docker/Podman (I'm familiar with VMs, but not containers ... yet!)
  ... I was thinking of running the following in containers to keep the processes separate/segregated.
  • Jellyfin
    
  • {app we don't talk about - TDP} with a VPN client
    
  • Handbrake (when I need to compress files or convert DVDs/Blu-rays)
    
  • {app we don't talk about - TDP}
    

Is it worthwhile to put these processes in separate containers?
 
Once the new machine is up and running, and I have Jellyfin installed, how do I migrate my current Jellyfin configuration to the new machine?
Is it as simple as doing the following?

• copying the contents of:  "C:\Users\htpc\AppData\Local\Jellyfin\cache"  to the new machine
  
• copying the contents of:  "C:\Users\htpc\AppData\Local\Jellyfin\metadata"  to the new machine
  
• I see in the Jellyfin configuration that I can modify the path to these directories.  Is it okay to move these directories to a directory on my media drives instead of my C: drive so they're not on the SSD?
  

Again, sorry for the long post.  I look forward to reading responses!  Thanks!
- Bob

[TheDreadPirate]

TLDR; 4 cores is fine for what you're trying to run, since you would have a dedicated GPU. Definitely get 32GB of RAM. If you do use Docker/Podman/Portainer, only do that for your other apps. I wouldn't recommend running Jellyfin in a container on Windows due to limitations in supported GPUs for passthrough to the container (Nvidia only is my understanding).

Check the Jellyfin dashboard to help locate where your files are. It looks like your Jellyfin app data is in your user folder instead of C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin. When Jellyfin is run as admin it will be in ProgramData, if run as an unprivileged user it will be stored in their home directory. The two folders you mentioned have SOME of your data, but there should also be a "Server" folder somewhere. If restarted Jellyfin and then looked in your Jellyfin log, it will print ALL of the directories that have your Jellyfin data.

When migrating to a new host, your Jellyfin app data MUST be located in EXACTLY the same paths as on the original host. A lot of files are referenced by their absolute path.