I am looking to self host my own media server (Jellyfin), a personal page and something more in the future and I need to choose my server hardware. I have decided on buying a single board computer to save on energy, space and, perhaps, cost.
Jellyfin docs recommend a computer with a Rockchip RK3588 / RK3588S processor. I would also need ethernet, USB for external storage, at least 4GB of RAM and maybe a M.2 slot for the OS and more space.
I know about Armsom and OrangePi, are they any good?
My budget would be up to 150 euros and I live in the Netherlands. Any suggestions?
I’ve been hosting Jellyfin on my Radxa Rock-5C for a year or so, and it’s done a very good job at it.
The only difficulties that I’ve faced (mostly in the beginning) were:
It was a pain to install the drivers for hardware transcoding on armbian. I solved it by switching to some other distribution that’s maintained by a single guy. Ubuntu-Rockchip or something. That might have changed since then, but if it didn’t you’ll probably face it with any RK3588-based SBC.
It’s a bit temperamental in terms of power delivery. Make sure to use a charger with the right USB PD spec to power it, and use a USB hub with its own charger to plug your storage. That’s probably specific to the Radxa boards though.
So it takes a bit of work to make it work properly. If you don’t want to deal with that, I second some other comment that I saw: get an Intel NUC, the setup should be much simpler. If you don’t mind using AliExpress, you can find a brand new one for less than 100€.