this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
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Thanks for the great info. It helped correct a lot of things I had wrong in my head. One odd thing occurred to me. Should I be using a NAS? If the NAS is for storing media, and all the clients will be going through jellyfin on the server, shouldn't I just put the storage in the server? Seems like everything I read talks about having a NAS for a media server though, so I assume I am missing something.
My plan was to run linux and use docker to run the actual software. I have a decades of experience "using" linux, but while I technically administer linux boxes for work, I've never had to really dig deep. They are all in the cloud, so if things go wonky, you just setup a new instance. We use kubernetes and docker also. So linux and docker seem like they should be very doable for me, and even a great learning opportunity. I really should understand docker better in my line of work. :) So no need for a fancy UI on the box. Other than initial setup, I will probably just be SSH'ing into it.
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.
There is a chart on the jellyfin page about when transcoding happens. The server will video ranscode when you are attempting to play content the the client does not support or you are hitting the bandwidth cap or you enable subtitles for a client that doesn't support the subtitle's format. It will audio transcode when the audio format of the content is not supported by the client.
There are a few days to see if it's transcoding. You can check the logs or you can disable transcoding for the user account. When you attempt to play something the client will grow an error.
I have mine setup to only do audio transcoding. This is easy for any vou to do. For all my content I do my best to ensure morning requires video transcode.
With two bay NAS, I believe it depends on how you configure the file system. You should be able to upgrade to larger storage taking one drive out at a time.
I setup my NAS this year and just went with 4 bays and 18tb drives. I didn't want to think about my storage and I was committed to having a hands off solution that I should have to touch except to upgrade packages on.