Will upgrade from a Synology DS124 to a DS224+ be worthy?

[andres87]

Hello, I'm running Jellyfin on a Synology DS124 I inherited and it works great except when it needs to transcode, it can't. It's only used for Jellyfin with a single client, an LG 4K tv.

Unfortunately I can't afford a mini pc right now but I've been given the opportunity of getting a second-hand Synology DS224+ with upgraded RAM to 6GB for a reasonable price.

Apart from being a hardware improvement it also has 2 bays so I could install the software including Jellyfin in a cheap low capacity SSD and leave my current NAS HDD as storage.

Would this be a worthy investment? Could I now transcode? (Mostly 4K files with image based subtitles)

If anyone owns this NAS I would appreciate your input. Thanks.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

If you have any HDR videos you want to tone map, no Synology model is recommended since their OS ships with a linux kernel that's too old for what Jellyfin needs to tone map.

That aside, the DS224+ has the same CPU as my DS920+ and if you use the iGPU to transcode, your performance should be fine for a single user or two (maybe more depending on the content).

What exactly are you trying to improve with the upgrade?

[andres87]

If you have any HDR videos you want to tone map, no Synology model is recommended since their OS ships with a linux kernel that's too old for what Jellyfin needs to tone map.

That aside, the DS224+ has the same CPU as my DS920+ and if you use the iGPU to transcode, your performance should be fine for a single user or two (maybe more depending on the content).

What exactly are you trying to improve with the upgrade?

Thanks for your answer. 

I don't really understand much about this and I'm very new to Jellyfin and self-hosting video streaming (and video, in general). 

When I first set up Jellyfin and started using it I noticed some videos with big size, 4K HDR and so on would play perfectly while some crappy quality ones would stop every 10 seconds until the NAS finally crashed and I had to unplug it. 

With the help of this forum I understood that happens when a video has to transcode for whatever reason. So now I make sure I add external srt subtitles for files with embedded image subtitles and that I don't use any 10-bit H264 files as my TV doesn't seem to support them. However some files still give me issues and I don't really know why, maybe the audio codec or something.

I'm just hoping I can transcode with a better NAS, even if it's just the 600MB 1080p SDR files and not the 30GB 4K HDR ones so I stop having to stress about identifying the cause of the transcode and looking for a suitable replacement.

I don't really know what's tone mapping, I just googled and it seems it's converting from HRD to SRD? If that's the case I don't think I need that as my TV has HDR.

So I think it would be worth buying it then? Thanks.

[Host-in-the-Shell]

I'll cut to the chase with you. Upgrading to a better NAS is most of the time, somewhat of a sidestep. NAS machines are built usually for a single purpose and often feature under-powered hardware (for a media server at least). Provided you avoid transcoding as much as possible, a NAS would be "okay" much like another ill advised hardware such as SBCs would also be "okay" but this is probably going to require that you convert over your media to the most compatible format for most client, which I believe is H.264 under a .mp4 container.

Ultimately, if you can't avoid transcoding, then you will have to contend with getting a better machine to act as your media server. Right now something that features an N100 CPU such as a Mini PC is recommended due to its great codec support and relatively low power consumption.

[andres87]

I'll cut to the chase with you. Upgrading to a better NAS is most of the time, somewhat of a sidestep. NAS machines are built usually for a single purpose and often feature under-powered hardware (for a media server at least). Provided you avoid transcoding as much as possible, a NAS would be "okay" much like another ill advised hardware such as SBCs would also be "okay" but this is probably going to require that you convert over your media to the most compatible format for most client, which I believe is H.264 under a .mp4 container.

Ultimately, if you can't avoid transcoding, then you will have to contend with getting a better machine to act as your media server. Right now something that features an N100 CPU such as a Mini PC is recommended due to its great codec support and relatively low power consumption.

Thank you for your answer.

I've been looking through this forum and reading discussions about cores, containers, linux and so on and I can't understand most of it, but it seems that I only need a cheap Mini PC (<$200) as long as it has the N100 processor and 16GB ram if it runs Windows. I was under the impression I needed an expensive Mini PC ($500).

I'll keep trying to learn how this work so I can maybe sell my NAS and buy a Mini PC with an external HDD case.

Thanks.

[TheDreadPirate]

You can keep your NAS, no problem. If you get a mini PC it would be beneficial to keep the NAS since the mini PC has limited connectivity for storage.

[andres87]

You can keep your NAS, no problem.  If you get a mini PC it would be beneficial to keep the NAS since the mini PC has limited connectivity for storage.

Thanks as always for your answer.

I'll keep researching mini PCs and see how it all works.