Hey everyone, I’m pretty new to this, I’ve only been running Jellyfin on my laptop for media but nothing 24/7. Honestly, it’s not bad and I like it better than paying a thousand different streaming services. I also have some experience with Linux so this seems like a pretty fun hobby I’d say :)
I want to get more into self hosting some other stuff, but I don’t have a very big budget, I want the bare minimum to get things working without too much trouble. Also I’d rather not have a big setup since space is pretty limited where I am. This is what I’d like to host:
- Jellyfin (with *Arr optional)
- PiHole or some other ad blocker/privacy
- Magic Mirror or other way to display weather, public transit schedules etc… (I actually just found out about this on another thread so I’d say its optional too. I’m planning on connecting it to a small display rather than a mirror)
- And whatever else you might recommend :)
As far as data storage goes, I’m not a very “materialistic” person, so I’m sorted out with my backup hard drives and devices that go everywhere with me. This wouldn’t be necessary, but if I have the capacity I’d say why not. I don’t necessarily want to have my network exposed to the public Internet, I don’t want to do networking and having everything run on a local network is more than enough for me.
I know about RaspberryPis but the shortage and inflated prices are not ideal, so I’ve been looking into Libre Computer’s lineup (LE Potato specifically). Mini PCs and old laptops seem like a viable option but is there anything in particular spec-wise I should look for?
Thanks in advance :)
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If you are doing Jellyfin, see if you can score an old graphics card to help with transcoding. I use old 1050ti cards.
I am running my home server on a Dell 3050 from shopgoodwill.com and it was ~$40 without hard drives. It has room for an m2 drive and SSD so I have Ubuntu/Docker on the m2 and all my data on an SSD.
That looks interesting, I’ve got one question though, how noisy would you say that machine is? Is it louder than a small box fan on a hot summer day, or more like a blender in the next room?
It has a laptop style fan for the cpu. I’ve never noticed any noise but I have it off in a corner and near some noisy af parakeets so it’s silent to me.
I mean, you’ve got the answers I normally give in your last paragraph. I personally like mini PCs, I usually look for something refub’d, as new a processor generation I can find, and that I can upgrade the RAM to 16 or 32 gigs. M2 is nice but not necessary, I broke my M2 slot out to a PCI-E riser to add a 10g card in the jankiest way possible. Also, if you’re doing transcoding with Jellyfin you’re probably not going to have too great a time with mini PCs if you want more that like 2 or 3 streams at a time unless you make sure to get a higher-end processor.
Le Potato is pretty great, I have a few. Make sure to get a case if you go with it. Maybe do it for DNS and display and later a cheapo used computer for jellyfin if your appetite is whetted
Have you ever tried running Jellyfin on an LE Potato? Also how’s the community and overall documentation on them? I’ve heard it’s lacking in the community aspect, but if there’s enough documentation I think I could pull it off.
Haven’t run jellyfin on it. It probably can run it but not well.
It’s a pi-like so you inherit a lot from pi. I install raspbian on it (raspberry pi OS) and documentation for that is good. Be mindful of different pin config and other physical differences and then you can use most of all the documentation and ‘community’ from pi because you’re running the same software.
SBC’s like Raspberry Pi’s are ok, but tend to suck for fileserving tasks like Jellyfin. Their CPU’s are poor IPC and will choke on transcoding video, and they’re pretty I/O limited too. They’ll work but they’re not scalable if you’re expecting more than one or two users. And straight up forget using the onboard SD cards for storage, they’re slow and will commit suicide as fast as you can replace them.
Some SBC’s with better I/O and CPU’s exist, such as the Orange Pi 5 I just bought which supports a NVME M.2 2242 drive and has a CPU roughly 4x the overall performance of a RPI. However, they’re also not cheap- a decent specced OPI5 with 8gb of memory will still run you $100. And they require the addition of aftermarket cooling to not thermal throttle constantly, which will take some tinkering. Given how bloody cheap flash memory has gotten though- you can get lower end 1TB M.2 drives for like $60- they’re a half decent option for a very power efficient and compact little set-and-forget self host board that can hold a respectable amount of media.
Next best thing would be to shop around Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist and find a SFF office PC like an Optiplex 9020. Try to get a i5 CPU for 4 cores, and a minimum of 4gb of RAM although 8 would be ideal. They’re small enough, although they will use significantly more power than a SBC (typical low-load idle for my 9020 is around 30W from the wall- under load it’s 110-120)
Laptops are more power efficient than SFF’s but you have to be careful that they have removable batteries. Li-ion cells can and will start to puff up when run fully charged at high temperatures, such in a closed laptop doing server duty.
I didn’t know SD cards would be so bad, I’ll definitely get an external drive then.
The orange seems like a good option too, sure it’s a bit pricier, but I could make it work if its worth it. And also, I’m not planning on having more than one concurrent user (just me on one device at a time) I don’t need to scale it, so I guess I’ll be fine with an orange or even a bit less?
Now that you mention it, I’d rather not start an impromptu BBQ so maybe laptops are not my first option, unless I can somehow limit the battery charge or completely bypass the battery. I’ll do some more research on that. As far as electricity goes, its very cheap where I am so I don’t think the less efficient mini PCs would hurt.
Thanks for the advice :)
yeah consumer SD cards cannot handle sustained writes like most OS’es generate. Even endurance cards can have issues past a few months in an always-on Pi depending on what it’s hosting.
also worth nothing ARM support for many apps can be missing, which is another mark against SBC’s. They have their place if you’re willing to fuck with them though.
Laptops are OK if you can disable charging or ideally have a removable battery. However SFF office PC’s are typically the cheapest to buy unless you find laptops with already dead batteries that nobody else wants. If power is not of a concern, the SFF pc is probably your best bet.
Get an laptop made in the last 5 years or so and put in a 2 tb ssd and you’re off to the races. Install pop os or Ubuntu Linux on it and use a low memory windows ux like LXQt or run it headless
If you go old PC and use it for Jellyfin, you probably want hardware that can do accelerated video transcoding so you probably want to aim for 8th gen or newer Intel CPUs (with integrated graphics), because that gets you 10bit h265 transcoding, which I’d say is probably the bare minimum you should aim for these days.
Granted that’s 5 or 6-year-old hardware, so it’s hardly new, but it took me a bit to figure out why in the world the transcoding performance and quality sucked and what’s supported where and at what gen of hardware is… hilariously unclear.
Oh nice for the heads up, I’ll definitely keep an eye out for transcoding capabilities. I don’t understand transcoding that well yet, so I know what I’ll be reading up on next.
