I recently got a crazy deal on an 832 ZimaBoard and I’m hoping to use it to replace my beefy old gaming pc as my media server setup. I aim to achieve 7 concurrent 1080p streams and at least 4 1080p transcodes on either Plex or Jellyfin.
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If you have a MiniPC or a Zimaboard, what’s your maximum number of concurrent streams and transcodes you’ve achieved on Plex or Jellyfin?
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How did the performance fare, especially at peak usage?
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Any special configurations or hardware tweaks you’d recommend for optimal performance?
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Do you recommend any low power, small form factor alternatives?
Thanks for reading!
The best way to improve plex/jellyfin performance is to make sure your players support what you are trying to watch and transcoding should only be needed if you are sharing remotely to someone with either slow internet or a crappy old player.
Of course, with hardware encoding the chip in that little computer can do what you are asking, including doing it at 4K if needed.
Go for the second hand 1l pcs. They are better and cheaper (but less sexy) than the zimaboard. The ones with a i3-7100T should handle like 10 transcode, if 1080p. Chrapes I’ve seen on ebay was a prodesk 50bucks. But it’s a rare deal
If you look on this plex support page, they say you need around 8000 passmark points, if I were you, I will look a cpu which a bare minimum of 10000 passmark points to be fine.
Thats a pretty old calculation that doesn’t take into account hardware acceleration, which modern chips can do very, very well.
So you can get away with a celeron class intel chip (or whatever they are calling them these days) and mange multiple 4k to 1080 transcode streams without issue.
I have a mini PC with an Intel n95, which is around 5500 on the passmark chart, but can easily churn out 10+ 1080p to 1080p transcodes if needed, of course the ideal setup is to avoid transcoding wherever possible. that’s not my main server, but it’s nice to know that if I wanted to I could move my plex server onto it and it would be fine.
This says the CPU it comes with has quick sync so you should be good to go with hardware transcoding. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/95596/intel-celeron-processor-n3450-2m-cache-up-to-2-20-ghz/specifications.html
Plex quick sync: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/hrpuhf/wow_quicksync_on_newer_gen_intels_are_transcode by/
