Have a hard drive, how do I stream films cheaply?

ppshay

I have a 1TB sata hard drive (no caddy) and want to use this to stream films to a DNLA home cinema amp.

What would be the cheapest way? A lot of the NAS enclosures are out of my price range. Some media players seem cheap but I wonder if they are too cheap and I would need to buy a caddy on top of this.

I went looking for a simple hdd caddy with a LAN port rather than a fully-fledged NAS storage if there is such a thing out there.

Something like this: http://english.hamletcom.com/products/hexd3utx.aspx

Would something like this do, or does that need a computer OS to work (with a caddy): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plugable-Ethernet-Network-Chromebook-Specific/dp/B00484IEJS

whizbang

I wonder why that LAN caddy was discontinued. maybe it will reappear next week at twice the price.

Anyway, cheapest way is pickup a secondhand media player and swap hdd. check compatibility first. -or NAS; but can be difficult to change drives on these.

what about an old pc - run a free lightweight OS - linux etc

hearny

Whats your budget?

http://www.dabs.ie/products/netgear-readynas-duo-v2--2-bay----no-drives-included-7SJZ.html?q=readynas&src=16

I really like this NAS

If that's too much maybe this if you can find it in stock:

http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=MME5843591

ppshay

Cheers. Think the best way to go is an old PC, for cost reasons. I'll power it on/off as needs be.