I am pretty new at all this. But I got jellyfin and such setup on my window box. I have a roku client and all that working. So now it is time to look into a standalone box to run 24/7. But I don’t know what specs matter.
I have read that I need at least a 6th gen intel i7 or i5 to take advantage of a feature that helps with this sort of thing.
But outside of that. Does ram matter? How much of a drive do I need on the box? (Going to get a NAS for real storage). Any other specs that matter? I am hoping to go fanless (not because I know anything, but cause I want it to be silent), is that ok? And which flavor of linux is the most popular?
Thanks. I don’t have anything leftover lieing around. I have two kids and used up all my old stuff to make computers for them during the pandemic. So right now I am seeing things on the internet saying to buy a NUC as the server. At least that should be pretty quite. And then add on a NAS. I will have to consider just building a PC and giving it a ton of storage though. Might not be much cheaper though, and certainly would be more work.
You can, but you’ll be limited to USB drives for expansion after the internal drive is full.
Do you know if your current media requires transcoding?
I’m running my server off the Synology NAS, but this is really the most expensive way to run JUST jellyfin.
I would recommend picking up from Dell outlet or similar a desktop that has spacw for additional drives so you can put some larger drives for all your media needs.
For external access, I use tailscale.
I don’t really understand the transcoding thing 100%. Like I get that something has to convert it from what is on disk to what you can see. But it isn’t clear to me if things like my roku streaming stick or tivo streaming stick are doing the transcoding or if my current server is. And I am not really sure which I would want either.
On the running out of storage situation… if I get like a 2 bay NAS. And I run out of storage, what are my expansion options there? I assume I would have to get a bigger NAS. And would I just be able to transfer the hard drives? Couldn’t I do the same with the PC, as long as I have a separate boot drive. (Just move the storage drives to a NAS?)
And overall, I guess I probably want the easiest way. Seems like a NUC and a NAS isn’t too expensive, and I am assuming it is easiest.
