Selecting Appropriate Hardware
This page covers what you need to know in order to select appropriate hardware for a Jellyfin server and take full advantage of its features (e. g. hardware acceleration).
TL;DR
For a Jellyfin server, the following is recommended:
Normal Server
- CPU (With dGPU): Intel Core i5-2300, AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or better. (Geekbench 6 Multicore 1500 or better). CPU vendor will not have a meaningful impact on quality and/or speed of transcoding.
- CPU (Without dGPU): Intel Pentium G4560, Intel Core i3-7100 or better. (Intel 7th gen or newer Pentium or better, excluding J and N series)
- RAM: 8GB or more
- Storage: 60GB SSD storage for Jellyfin files and transcoding cache.
- Graphics: Intel HD 6xx (7th gen integrated graphics) or newer, Nvidia GTX 16 / RTX 20 series or newer (excluding GTX 1650). Intel is recommended over Nvidia. AMD and Apple Silicon are not recommended.
Atom CPUs in this guide refer to any Intel Atom CPUs, as well as other low powered Intel CPUs such as J/M/N/Y series from other product lines. (eg. Pentium N5105, Pentium N6000, Core i3 N305). While these CPUs are branded as products from other product lines, they use the same microarchitecture as Intel's low powered chipsets and may be significantly less powerful and have less features than their names might otherwise suggest.
These specs are the recommended specs to run Jellyfin. They are not minimum requirements, and it is certainly possible to run Jellyfin on lower end hardware.
Many pre-built NAS devices are underpowered. Please check your specs against the above recommendations for a good experience.
Intel ARC GPUs are recommended when upgrading an existing system to be used as a Jellyfin server. In cases where Intel ARC is not feasible, Nvidia graphics is recommended. Please select an appropriate GPU according to the recommended specs above.
It is recommended that Intel-based macs be used with Windows or Linux installed to host Jellyfin. Many hardware acceleration features aren't available on MacOS due to the custom jellyfin-ffmpeg fork not being available.
Low Power Applications
For low power applications, Intel 12th gen or newer Atom CPUs with integrated graphics are recommended. It is also recommended that Low Power Encoding be setup.
Most SBCs use low powered chipsets, often with less than ideal driver support from the chipset vendors. They are generally too slow for a good experience and/or have broken hardware acceleration support. Please avoid using SBCs such as Raspberry Pis (Including newer Raspberry Pi 5 Models) to run Jellyfin. One exception is that the Rockchip RK3588/3588S SoC based SBCs provide excellent transcoding speed and power efficiency - H.264/HEVC up to 1080p@480fps or 4k@120fps transcoding with single-digit power consumption in watts. Another bonus is that it has 10-bit H.264 (High10) and AV1 decoding support. Note that Rockchip hardware transcoding is only supported in Jellyfin 10.9 or above. Since these Arm based SBCs do not use an unified installation ISO image like x86-64 based PCs do. Please check with the SBC manufacturer or community maintainer for support and documentation before purchasing.
Detailed Guide
CPU
The CPU will be responsible for many tasks, notably:
- Transcoding Audio
- Decoding video in unsupported codecs
Audio codecs are very lightweight and most CPUs should be able to handle them without issues. Video in unsupported codecs are usually older formats that are easier to decode. Assuming hardware acceleration is properly configured, any modern CPU with 4 threads should be able to handle the workload.
Newer codecs can also require software decoding if there are no available hardware decoders. High bitrate HEVC content such as commonly found in 4k HDR can be very demanding even on modern CPUs. Please considering adding a modern GPU with 10bit HEVC decoding support. HDR to SDR tone-mapping is also currently not available without hardware acceleration.
Integrated Graphics
Integrated graphics can be useful for transcoding video. Please refer to the GPU section for a guide.
Resizable BAR
Resizable Bar (ReBAR) is a PCI Express feature that optimizes access to PCIe devices. This feature requires support from both the platform and the device. Intel 10th gen or above and AMD Ryzen 3000 Series or above have support for this feature.
When using Intel ARC Graphics, Resizable BAR is recommended. Disabling it will result in a 10% reduction in transcoding performance. However, given how fast the media engine on Intel ARC is, this will not be a problem for the vast majority of users.
System Memory (RAM)
As a general rule of thumb, at least 8GB is recommended, though significantly smaller amounts may work.
When using Integrated graphics, the integrated graphics processer usually uses a part of system memory as video memory. It is recommended that a dual channel configuration be used and additional capacity be installed.
Graphics Cards (GPUs)
With modern systems, the media engines are usually located on the GPUs. Therefore, the available hardware acceleration options are determined by the choice of GPU.
Encoder Quality: Intel > Nvidia > AMD > Apple
Intel graphics is recommended over Nvidia graphics because of the quality. AMD or Apple Silicon are not recommended since they produce poor quality H.264 and H.265(HEVC) output.
With AV1, AMD has significantly improved the quality of their encoders. However, Jellyfin currently (as of 10.8.10) does NOT support transcoding to AV1. Even after Jellyfin adds support for transcoding to AV1, transcoding to H.264 or H.265(HEVC) is still more likely due to AV1 being in the early stages of adoption.
A list of common codecs can be found here
The following is a list of codecs Jellyfin supports transocding to:
- H.264 (Most common transcode target)
- H.265 (Limited supported by clients)
Jellyfin currently (as of 10.8.10) does NOT support transcoding to AV1 as a target. However, this might change in the future. Source content in AV1 will transcode to other codecs normally if needed.
For decoding support, the more codecs the better. However, there are only a few codecs that media is commonly available in, as listed above.
Intel Graphics
Please refer to this table for supported codecs.
Intel CPUs with a model description that ends with F don't have integrated graphics. These are intended to be used with a dedicated graphics card.
If you are planning to use Linux with Intel 12/13th Gen integrated graphics or ARC, these GPUs only work on Linux Kernel 6.2 or newer. Please check your distribution to make sure it has a supported Linux Kernel version. It is also recommended that jellyfin-ffmpeg6 be installed instead of the default jellyfin-ffmpeg5 on these hardware platforms.
Nvidia Graphics
Please refer to this table for supported codecs.
Certain low end cards (e.g. GT 1030) don't have encoding hardware. Please be careful when choosing a GPU.
AMD Graphics
Please refer to this article for supported codecs.
Certain low end cards (e.g. RX 6400, RX 6500) don't have encoding hardware. Please be careful when choosing a GPU.
Many AMD CPUs don't have integrated graphics. These are intended to be used with a dedicated graphics card.
For Ryzen 1000 ~ 5000 Series, desktop CPUs with a model description that ends with G have integrated graphics while other desktop CPUs do NOT. For Ryzen 7000 Series, desktop CPUs with a model description that ends with F do NOT have integrated graphics while others do.
Please check the product page of your CPU for more info.
Apple Silicon
Supported codecs are listed below:
| Codec | M1, M2 Family | M3 Family |
|---|---|---|
| H.264 8bit | ✅ | ✅ |
| H.264 10bit | 🔶 | 🔶 |
| H.265 8bit | ✅ | ✅ |
| H.265 10bit | ✅ | ✅ |
| VP9 8bit | 🔶 | 🔶 |
| VP9 10bit | 🔶 | 🔶 |
| AV1 | ❌ | 🔶 |
✅ = Encode + Decode, 🔶 = Decode Only, ❌ = Not Supported.
Many hardware acceleration features are not available on macOS for Jellyfin, as the custom jellyfin-ffmpeg fork isn't available for macOS. No Apple Silicon media engine drivers exist for other operating systems currently. You will NOT be able to use hardware acceleration if you are running Asahi Linux.
Rockchip VPU
Currently only the VPU on RK3588/3588S SoC is recommended. It can handle most common video codecs, including AV1 decode.
Supported codecs are listed below:
| Codec | RK3588/3588S |
|---|---|
| MPEG1/2/4 8bit | 🔶 |
| VC1 8bit | ❌ |
| H.264 8bit | ✅ |
| H.264 10bit | 🔶 |
| H.265 8bit | ✅ |
| H.265 10bit | 🔶 |
| VP8 8bit | 🔶 |
| VP9 8bit | 🔶 |
| VP9 10bit | 🔶 |
| AV1 | 🔶 |
✅ = Encode + Decode, 🔶 = Decode Only, ❌ = Not Supported.
Storage
There are two general types of storage that can be used on a Jellyfin server. Media libraries and Jellyfin files require different performance characteristics.
Media Storage
Anything with higher sequential access speed than bitrate of media will work. This storage can be a network share or a cloud storage service mounted on the Jellyfin host if desired.
Jellyfin Files
Jellyfin files will see lots of random access, therefore SSDs are recommended for Jellyfin files. AVOID mechanical drives that use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) as they will result in a VERY poor experience.
Networking
Networking is for connecting your Jellyfin server to other devices. It is recommended that the server be connected to the internet via Ethernet cables. Wi-Fi or Powerline solutions are NOT recommended.