HARDWARE PLANNING

What hardware does Jellyfin need?

The answer depends mostly on whether your clients direct-play your media or force the server to transcode it. Storage capacity and video acceleration usually matter more than buying the fastest general-purpose CPU.

RAM

Jellyfin currently recommends at least 8 GB RAM for an average deployment. A Linux server without a desktop environment may be comfortable with around 4 GB. More memory can help if the machine also runs other services.

CPU

With hardware acceleration configured properly, a modern CPU with a few threads is usually enough for the remaining server tasks. Software transcoding of modern codecs can be extremely demanding, especially for 4K HDR material.

Integrated graphics can be ideal

Jellyfin's current hardware guide strongly favours modern Intel graphics for many home-server builds because Quick Sync provides efficient hardware decoding and encoding. That can make a low-power Intel mini PC more useful than a much faster CPU without suitable video hardware.

Dedicated GPUs

NVIDIA, AMD and other supported GPUs can also accelerate transcoding. Check codec support before buying. Low-end cards that lack hardware encoding are poor choices despite technically being GPUs.

Storage

Jellyfin recommends SSD space for the operating system, application data and transcoding cache. It notes that a moderate library database can grow from around 10 to 100 GB. Media files can be kept on larger local or network storage, while the Jellyfin database itself should stay local.

Networking

For the server itself, Jellyfin recommends Gigabit Ethernet or faster rather than Wi-Fi or powerline networking. Remote streaming also depends on your internet upload speed.

Source: Jellyfin hardware selection guide.