So I am finally going to get around to setting up a dedicated media server with network storage and all that. I have previously read up and decided on this Beelink Mini S12 PC. But I have heard about lots of problems with some of the latest intel chips and such. Does that affect this mini pc?

And since it has been nearly a year, is that still the best idea for a media server? I mostly want it to be quite since it is always on, and I don't want to hear it down the hall in my bedroom at night like my current windows pc. But outside of that, whatever works best. It seems pretty inexpensive compared to what I was expecting.

top 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-cpu-instability-crashing-bug-includes-65w-and-higher-skus-intel-says-damage-is-irreversible-no-planned-recall

It only affects Intel 13 and 14th gen. That one linked is a gen 12.

[–] emerica 5 points 2 months ago

Shouldn’t have troubles since it’s 12th gen.

I have a Beelink with an 8th gen i5 that I bought a year or two ago and I love it. Runs Plex 24/7 right next to one of my tvs and the only time I hear it is if I’m in the same room when someone wakes it up to start a stream. The fan kicks in for 2-3 seconds then goes quiet.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I have one of these that I use as a Jellyfin server. It's not affected by those problems and has been performing more than adequately for my purposes, after setting up hardware transcoding

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

If you have an old desktop to repurpose, jellyfin is best ran on one of those with an Intel a380 gpu as long as the motherboard supports resizable bar. Cpu-wise jellyfin doesn't really do anything intensive, and intel's gpus all come with the same 2x video pipelines so upgrading to a 770 wouldn't add any performance. If you're buying new, my recommendation would be to get one of those intel white label laptops xpg made for a while. They can be had around $300-500 and come with a intel arc gpu you can use for encoding, resizable bar, decent ram, and a decent cpu. Great little jellyfin boxes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are you talking about general issues, or specific to encoding/decoding with Intel? And are you installing on bare metal?

Because I've had issues encoding/decoding after upgrading my docker host from Ubuntu 23.04 or thereabouts, but I've always blamed it on having a server motherboard that doesn't provide ReBAR.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

There are a lot of things there I don't know much about... yet. People have said that the issues in the news don't apply to the linked mini pc because it is a 12 gen. I haven't even picked a distro to install on it yet, so I don't know much about the versions. And I don't have any idea what ReBAR is in this context..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

You can get a used M1 Mac mini for not much more

[–] Bronzie 1 points 1 month ago

Sounds like you are setting up exactly what I have running!

GMKtec G3 (N100 Intel CPU) running in Proxmox with NFS access to my NAS.
It works like a dream, transcoding everything I throw at it with ease.

Just a quick piece of advice: Repaste that sucker the moment you get it. I threw some Noctua paste I had laying around and it worked wonders. The only time the fan kicked on was when I added the libraries and Jellyfin had to sort out 6 TB of media from the NAS. Took maybe 10 minutes before it was done and ready to go.

Let me know if you need some help setting it up. Proxmox and Tailscale (if you want that) had me stuck for a few hours trying to understand TUN.