Media streaming tools like Plex and Jellyfin are quite useful when you want a neat interface to manage and play the movies and TV shows you’ve collected over the years. With containers being universally compatible with all permutations and combinations of hardware, you can turn any ol’ system into a solid media-serving hub. That said, you wouldn’t want to go for certain devices if you’ve got a massive army of archived media.

Take the Raspberry Pi family, for instance. While you could deploy Plex or Jellyfin on most Single-Board Computers in the RPi lineup, they’re far from ideal for streaming content to your local devices – and I say that as someone who configured Jellyfin on a Raspberry Pi 5 when the SBC first hit the shelves. Instead, I recommend picking old office laptops and x86 thin clients, as they’re not only powerful enough to transcode videos, but also ship with better storage options, all while costing roughly the same as a high-end Raspberry Pi board.

Transcoding performance isn’t ideal on Raspberry Pi boards

Heck, the RPi 5 doesn’t even have a hardware encoder

Hardware transcoding is quite important for media servers, which is why I prefer going with Jellyfin instead of purchasing a license to use this facility on Plex. But that’s a discussion for another time. For folks unfamiliar with transcoding, it’s a process that modifies the encoding format of a video file in real time, allowing you to stream media in the optimal format for the client machine. Hardware-based transcoding is a variant of this feature that relies on the integrated GPU (or a discrete graphics card) to speed up the video conversion process.

If you’ve been ripping CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays for years, you’re bound to end up with files bearing different video formats and codecs. Unfortunately, there are plenty of media formats that aren’t supported by TVs, smartphones, and other clients. Plus, if you’re streaming your movie and TV show collection over the Internet, the limited bandwidth might cause buffering. Transcoding fixes these problems, with dedicated hardware taking the load off your CPU’s shoulders to ensure your streams don’t stutter.

The problem? Raspberry Pi SBCs aren’t powerful enough to transcode complex codecs, like the ones used by H.265 (HEVC), especially if you’ve got high-bitrate media. For some inexplicable reason, the RPi Foundation decided to ship the SBC without a dedicated hardware encoder, even though its predecessor included one (but it wasn’t anything special, either). As such, you could use the built-in GPU to decode HEVC streams, but its encoding provisions leave a lot to be desired.

Quick Sync-compatible processors are significantly better for hardware transcoding tasks

Although the x86 processors on office systems, mini PCs, and thin clients are significantly faster than the Arm chips on Raspberry Pi boards, the Quick Sync facility on modern Intel processors is the real star of the show for media servers. Even on something as low-power as an Intel N100 system, Quick Sync lets your budget-friendly media-streaming hub transcode multiple 1080p (and even 4K) streams without a lot of CPU overhead.

Now, the Raspberry Pi 5’s software-based transcoding is decent, but only if you’ve got low-bitrate 1080p videos. However, throw in more than two streams or 4K files, and your Raspberry Pi server is bound to become a stuttering mess.

Raspberry Pi SBCs have limited storage provisions

And I can't recommend relying on USB HDDs to store archived media

Another pet peeve of mine for Raspberry Pi boards (and most credit card-sized SBCs in general) is that their storage options are extremely limited. Due to their terrible endurance, microSD cards aren’t ideal for storing media files you’ve painstakingly collected over the years. You could go with USB-powered hard drives, but the Raspberry Pi can’t supply enough juice to power more than two HDDs. And well, USB drives aren’t ideal for 24/7 media server tasks, anyway. The only valid option is a SATA HAT for your Raspberry Pi, but you’ll still have to deal with the power issue on top of spending extra money for the add-on SATA board.

Old office PCs, on the other hand, can accommodate a hard drive or two, and depending on the size of the chassis and mobo ports, you can even toss bulky 3.5-inch HDDs into your setup. Plus, many mid-tower all-in-one rigs have spare PCIe slots, where you can accommodate SATA adapters for more drives, NICs for better local speeds, and dedicated GPUs for better transcoding capabilities.

Modern Raspberry Pis also lose on the pricing-per-dollar front

Now, I love Raspberry Pi boards as much as any tinkerer. Their tiny form-factor and low power consumption, together with GPIO pins, make them pretty handy for everything from automation projects to lightweight container-hosting servers. That said, I’m not a big fan of the exorbitant prices of the RPi family, especially since the newer boards ship with outdated CPUs. As such, a Raspberry Pi is far from ideal for media servers, and you’re better off using it for other DIY projects that can benefit from its perks.

Meanwhile, office PCs may not be as efficient in the energy-consumption department, but their superior processing capabilities make up for this drawback. Old office rigs – especially those on the budget-friendly side – sell for $100–250 on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and other retailers. Heck, you can even grab them for under a hundred bucks if you know where to look. Add an extra HDD for $25–50, and you’ve got a rock-solid Jellyfin server that can not only transcode multiple streams, but also run a couple of other containerized services without breaking a sweat.