I have a QNAP TS-253D (Celeron J4125, 4GB RAM) hosting all my files. I used to have Jellyfin running on it in a Docker container, but it performed really poorly (which is expected ig). It used to take forever to stream a 1080p movie, and seeking back and forth would freeze the whole thing.

Then I moved my Jellyfin setup to my desktop PC (i9-10850k, 16GB RAM, 2080 Super), the files are still on my NAS. It performs much better now, streaming is a breeze and it almost never freezes or anything.

Problem is, it eats up all my RAM. My RAM usage is 99% almost all the time someone uses Jellyfin and it significantly hampers my regular work on my desktop. I can upgrade my RAM to 32 or 64 GB, but would that solve the problem?

If not, what is the cheapest mini PC or home setup that I can do that’d free up my desktop but still give me similar or at least good enough performance?

Thank you for your advice.

  • Krieg@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I run Plex on an N100 MiniPC, including hardware transcoding. I have the media in another system running TrueNAS.

    • machetie@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Make sure you get a box that can be upgraded to at least 32GB, made that mistake got the beelink s12 pro, not enough with 16GB.

      • umataro@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Because of jellyfin? Mine is restricted to 3GB and runs happily on raspberry pi 4. I’ve even had it run on 2GB pi4 and it only struggled occasionally.

      • griphon31@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        16 runs fine for me. I transcode to an SSD and run home assistant and airsonic and emulatorjs and immich and frigate and monitoring software like glances and uptimekuma and and and.

        Ram is at 70%, could use more, 8 isn’t enough but 16 will get you going

        • machetie@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Oh, I don’t want the SSD to die. Transcoding to ram and caching Rclone with buffer to ram also. Have at least 10 users to share with my Plex.

      • discoshanktank@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        if it’s just plex i’ve been running it on an old laptop with 16gb soldered ram and it runs everything without issues

    • Invayder@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      How do you connect the 2 machines together? This is something I’ve been interested in doing so I can technically keep expanding by adding more “carriers”.

    • RoRoo1977@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Transcoding what? UHD? Atmos? Or something else.

      I’m looking for a cheap solution since 1 tv in my household needs those files transcoded and my NAS can’t 😞

      • Krieg@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        4k x265 down to 1080p (x264). Basically any Intel CPU that supports quicksync can do several simultaneous hardware transcodes.