Which OS should my Jellyfin NAS run?

[GavGaddis]

Hello, all!

To try and keep this brief: in the Spring I dipped my toes into media server fun by buying a little Synology 2-bay box with 6tb of space. I've now since tasted the sweet, sweet smoothness of what Jellyfin is like running on someone's seedbox, where it doesn't care if you're on a crappy smart TV and something needs transcoding.

There is quite a lot of fun to be had in making sure everything is properly filed away and sorted, but a big problem is the fact that the server has to work for browser viewing, a crappy old $20 Roku stick plugged into an antique smart TV, and a 4K Roku TV with finnicky preferences. As much file converting as I do, there's occasionally going to be times I forget and something will end up transcoding. And if two devices transcode at the same time, my current NAS throws its hands up in the air, fails both streams, and sulks in the corner.

So my three options right now as my DS220+ reaches 86% capacity are: 

1. Suffer the fact I can't directly play most common file types, continue manually Handbrake-ing everything before putting it on the server, and upgrade my two 6tb drives into larger drives, re-building the RAID data once for each drive replacement.
   
2. Suffer the fact I can't direct play most common file types, continue manually Handbrake-ing everything, drop $800-ish on a four-bay QNAP.
   
3. Build something similar to the NAS-killer 6.0 for around the same price as a store-bought 4-bay, never worry about raw computing power ever again. 
   

As you might expect, option 3 is super attractive. There's one stipulation: I do not know Linux, and have used command line like ten times. Any time I've used SSH for something like setting up Bazarr on a seedbox it was following a tutorial. I can see how fun and useful it would be to actually use SSH/command line level computing knowledge, but I'm not above admitting I'm just knowledgeable enough to know I could severely screw something up.

For someone in my position, who will basically just use a NAS for Jellyfin (with a side of Audiobookshelf and perhaps PC backup if I ever get froggy enough to buy enough drives), what NAS-centered operating system should I be leaning towards? If you peruse Reddit it's basically a cartoon bar fight between TrueNAS believers and Unraid believers proudly declaring their thing is perfect for media servers.

• Final couple notes:
  
• I am willing to go through a few hours of learning/watching tutorials if there is a substantial knowledge base for them. My main issue with looking up my options is all of the tutorial-focused tech YouTubers tend to stop at "so here we've plugged a new drive into my Unraid server" or "and that's how you install Jellyfin from the Unraid app store" so I don't get to see the actual process of file management in a multiple-terabyte media server. 
  
• My upper ceiling is $800 total for the hypothetical home NAS build, which I've earmarked as about $400-ish for hardware and the rest consisting of "as many drives as I can afford" so any paid OS would have to be at or around $100 to keep this in "less expensive than just buying a box and take the easy way out" territory.
  

Thanks for reading!

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: I went with unRAID and after a handful of hours of using it, I'm off like a shot. Heartily recommend it. The user base is friendly, helpful, and there's a content creator who churns out helpful tutorials that are both informative and engaging.

[Deleted User]

i think you will find that it will actually be better using a MiniPC or MicroPC AIO with a decent GPU will blow the socks off a NAS

for a 1-3 user environment, mostly direct play without transcoding something like a newer HP ProDesk Elite Micro will do a good job because it has an intel UHD GPU which transcoding works very well with

of course, leaving the NAS in the mix to do it's job of serving files

the S in NAS is for Storage, not Server for good reason - they do 1 thing well which is serve files

i expect the coming responses will support my belief on the subject

[TheDreadPirate]

+1 to what @000 said.

Another option is to get a used office PC with an 8th gen+ Intel CPU may suit your needs. Those can be had for super cheap.

If you have parts lying around, you could build a new-ish spec PC and save a buck with parts you have. Get a case with a bunch of drive bays and DIY a NAS. That way you aren't anchored to the NAS company hoping they grace you with software updates for however long you keep the NAS.

[GavGaddis]

i think you will find that it will actually be better using a MiniPC or MicroPC AIO with a decent GPU will blow the socks off a NAS

for a 1-3 user environment, mostly direct play without transcoding something like a newer HP ProDesk Elite Micro will do a good job because it has an intel UHD GPU which transcoding works very well with

of course, leaving the NAS in the mix to do it's job of serving files

the S in NAS is for Storage, not Server for good reason - they do 1 thing well which is serve files

i expect the coming responses will support my belief on the subject

While I get your and TheDreadPirate's sentiment re: boxed NAS vs. using a 'real' built PC, that's effectively what I'm doing already. The core question of my post is meant to poll the mid-to-higher tier storage capacity Jellyfin users what OS they recommend for their Jellyfin rig. The semantics of whether a NAS-killer PC is technically a NAS or not are up for debate, sure, but from researching Jellyfin servers over the past few months it seems like the wider community who are starting to take media servers seriously are building hybrids. NAS second computers that sit on a shelf somewhere to largely act as storage, but with the computing power to handle transcoding on their own without an intermediary 

Sure, the S is storage, but in researching the hardware of a build over the past few months it seems like the vast majority of people are building a NAS that happens to have the guts of a 'real' PC, call it a NAS, but it  also does the grunt work of transcoding on top of also being storage. A hybrid of the two methodologies.

And to that point: I have the hardware side of things figured out, as that's relatively easy to source. The main question remains what OS people tend to use for their home labs/servers/NAS/second PC they built that isn't a Synology/QNAP/insert company pre-built box.

[Deleted User]

i avoided the topic of OS on purpose because of how you stated you're not a linux person and that would be my goto

if you want to experiment, try open media vault with the community addons - https://wiki.omv-extras.org

it does run on debian so satisfies what i would recommend but has enough web gui to satisfy non-linux people as well
- can have portainer and jellyfin up and running from the web interface without any command line (not to say command line will never be used)

if i leave my personal opinions at the door, windows can do the job just not recommended

[TheDreadPirate]

Really, anything Debian based. Either Debian itself, or Ubuntu which tends to be a bit more aggressive with updates than Debian. A lot of NAS OS'es are built on Debian. Like TrueNAS Scale and Open Media Vault. TrueNAS Scale and OMV don't do anything that Debian and Ubuntu can't also do with additional packages. They just pre-bundle a bunch of other packages.

Of the bunch, if you aren't comfortable with the command line I would choose TrueNAS Scale.

If Jellyfin will be the only thing this box runs, and you are willing to learn a bit, I would install Ubuntu. Ubuntu is popular and because of that there are a lot of users to ask for help. There's a lot of documentation for setting up Jellyfin in Ubuntu. There is an official script to install Jellyfin with a single command for Debian/Ubuntu (bare metal, no virtualization). You need to add your NAS network shares to Ubuntu. After you get everything running, you would only need to use the command line for the occasional Jellyfin update?