Recommendations - Networked Server/Hard Drive Build

StaticNoise · 30-12-2015 2:04pm #1

1. What is your budget?
Up to €500-600 (depending on what I get for money)

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Purely networked storage - for accessing TV and movies. Content will be played on VU+ Satellite Boxes and to store some backup data (~200GB)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?
Not necessarily. This can be obtained. Other OS are welcome.

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?
I have a Seagate Barracuda XT 3000GB drive from an external hard drive I pulled open as the drive is clicking and I am blaming the power source from the Raptor 3.5 board which powers it.

5. Do you need a monitor?
Remote access via a web interface is enough for me.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals?
Remote access is sufficient.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
I would prefer reliability over speed, however I would be open to some level of overclocking, should reliability be retained.

8. How can you pay?
Credit Card/Debit Card/Paypal

9. When are you purchasing?
Now.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
Happy to build it on my own (as should be relatively straightforward), but I am based in South/West Dublin.

slegs · 30-12-2015 2:43pm

I would recommend this. Its purpose built for the job. I have the older version for over 6 years and it has never let me down.

Setup in your preferred Raid configuration to protect against data loss due to drive failure. I had one drive failure and swapped the drive without having to power down.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS415Play-Desktop-Network-Attached/dp/B00LHW5M6W

Drives will be extra...

StaticNoise · 30-12-2015 4:16pm

Thanks for your reply, slegs.

That's a nice piece of kit, but it could work out quite expensive. I assume that my Barracuda XT 3000GB Drive would work with it, and I could probably pay the extra hundred Euro and get another drive to go with it?

My drive: http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201201/seagate3TBxt_pspc.jpg

What OS is this running, or do I manage via a Web Interface?

It is a pricey job, but I hope that this would work well.

slegs · 30-12-2015 6:51pm

StaticNoise wrote: »

Thanks for your reply, slegs.

That's a nice piece of kit, but it could work out quite expensive. I assume that my Barracuda XT 3000GB Drive would work with it, and I could probably pay the extra hundred Euro and get another drive to go with it?

My drive: http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201201/seagate3TBxt_pspc.jpg

What OS is this running, or do I manage via a Web Interface?

It is a pricey job, but I hope that this would work well.

You can use any drive in it. What most people do is start with 1 or 2 drives and the other 2 over time. It has its own Os that you manage via a web interface. Synology are at this for years and have lots of apps that you can add like torrent downloaders, mail server, media transcoding etc. It has built in ftp, dlna and nfs so it's trivial to pick up on your network as a file server or media server. I also have enigma boxes and share to them from the nas. It's pretty easy to setup to access from outside your home network so works as a kind of home cloud service. There are even Android and IOS apps for streaming music and video etc when inside and outside the house.

You could build your own unit using software like freenas but I think the Synology is just so robust and the inbuilt raid isn't cheap to do yourself.

I highly recommend it

Johnboy1951 · 30-12-2015 10:33pm

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Purely networked storage - for accessing TV and movies. Content will be played on VU+ Satellite Boxes and to store some backup data (~200GB)

"TV and movies" ..... are these stored files or LiveTV or streaming content from the internet?

Will you need media files to be transcoded on this device or not?

If it is for stored files then an old PC with a Linux OS on it would easily do as you require.

StaticNoise · 31-12-2015 2:42pm

slegs wrote: »

You can use any drive in it. What most people do is start with 1 or 2 drives and the other 2 over time. It has its own Os that you manage via a web interface. Synology are at this for years and have lots of apps that you can add like torrent downloaders, mail server, media transcoding etc. It has built in ftp, dlna and nfs so it's trivial to pick up on your network as a file server or media server. I also have enigma boxes and share to them from the nas. It's pretty easy to setup to access from outside your home network so works as a kind of home cloud service. There are even Android and IOS apps for streaming music and video etc when inside and outside the house.

You could build your own unit using software like freenas but I think the Synology is just so robust and the inbuilt raid isn't cheap to do yourself.

I highly recommend it

Thanks for that. It does seem like the business.
Especially since I'll be sticking some downloading software onto one partition and my Time Machine on another.

Thanks for all your help.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

"TV and movies" ..... are these stored files or LiveTV or streaming content from the internet?

Will you need media files to be transcoded on this device or not?

If it is for stored files then an old PC with a Linux OS on it would easily do as you require.

These files are all storage (i.e., downloaded/ripped and saved). I have XBMC/Kodi on my Engima2 satellite boxes and I would point the directory for the media to the HDD and play them. They would be on-site, as such, but not directly connected.

Johnboy1951 · 01-01-2016 12:14am

StaticNoise wrote: »

Thanks for that. It does seem like the business.
Especially since I'll be sticking some downloading software onto one partition and my Time Machine on another.

Thanks for all your help.

These files are all storage (i.e., downloaded/ripped and saved). I have XBMC/Kodi on my Engima2 satellite boxes and I would point the directory for the media to the HDD and play them. They would be on-site, as such, but not directly connected.

Seems you need very little in the way of power so.
In your situation I would be inclined to save myself €500 and use an old PC or such

shanec1928 · 01-01-2016 3:38pm

In case you ever upgrade media player to plex. Nearly all nas boxs can't transcode or else transcode to low rates. There's a google doc listing compatibility.

StaticNoise · 02-01-2016 12:36pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Seems you need very little in the way of power so.
In your situation I would be inclined to save myself €500 and use an old PC or such

That would be a way, alright, but I don't have any available as the old one (Running Windows Vista) was thrown out years back. I think it has a grand total of 1GB RAM.

I did consider getting a Raspberry Pi and hooking up hard drives, but for the price of all the components, you wouldn't be getting much bang for your buck.

shanec1928 wrote: »

In case you ever upgrade media player to plex. Nearly all nas boxs can't transcode or else transcode to low rates. There's a google doc listing compatibility.

Thanks for that. I have used Plex before as I hooked the External Hard Drive to the Mac and streamed to the Now TV box which I picked up from a Bargain Alerts thread.

I'm really considering a proper external server, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Surely with the sort-of OS on the system, it would suit Kodi/XBMC or Plex down the line? If it can rock Transmission, SabNZBd, and the like, I'd assume that I should be alright?

Johnboy1951 · 02-01-2016 1:28pm

StaticNoise wrote: »

That would be a way, alright, but I don't have any available as the old one (Running Windows Vista) was thrown out years back. I think it has a grand total of 1GB RAM.

1GB would be good enough for a lightweight OS to serve the media files

A neighbour dumped two dual core P4 machines 12 months ago and one of those is now acting as my backend device for LiveTV (tuners, recording, epg etc) and storage and serving media files to all devices on the LAN.
(the PSU runs a bit warm and a couple of chips on the m/board are a bit hotter than I would like, but I don't care, as it cost nothing and it still works

)

I did consider getting a Raspberry Pi and hooking up hard drives, but for the price of all the components, you wouldn't be getting much bang for your buck.

Agree .... they are great devices for specific purposes, but for the facility to change use etc a more general PC-type device would be preferable, IMO.
NUC or Gigabyte Brix come to mind but they are costly.

Thanks for that. I have used Plex before as I hooked the External Hard Drive to the Mac and streamed to the Now TV box which I picked up from a Bargain Alerts thread.

I'm really considering a proper external server, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Surely with the sort-of OS on the system, it would suit Kodi/XBMC or Plex down the line? If it can rock Transmission, SabNZBd, and the like, I'd assume that I should be alright?

Openelec is a great lightweight media-centric OS with lots of plugins available.

It is equally comfortable serving files as it is working as a client machine to display the files.
About the only thing I miss is an NFS server (it can connect as client to a NFS server) but it has a SMB server which is quite good.

Out of laziness I use Openelec as both server and client OS .... I only need to be familiar with one OS for all uses

It was surprising to me how little 'power' was needed for a server machine when I first went down this road.

You might find very capable machines being dumped around this time of year as people upgrade their hardware.
Being tight-fisted I see no reason to buy new when perfectly serviceable older PCs will do the server job.

Other things might impact on that decision ... for instance the location might determine that the server has to be completely silent, so an older PC might not suit ...... or size could be a determining factor.

It also helps if you are interested in messing about with hardware

Barack Obama · 02-01-2016 3:21pm

This is what I got a year or so ago and have it fitted with 3x 4TB drives. There is room for a 4th then the 3rd is full.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RN10400-100EUS-ReadyNAS-Personal-Attached-Streaming/dp/B00BJ1BGB6

Similar setup to what you are looking for - mine is full of 1080p content which I watch through my Popcorn Hour. It has been faultless and very easy to use.

StaticNoise · 02-01-2016 5:42pm

Thanks everyone, once again, for your replies and assistance. You're being a great help, and it is much appreciated.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Openelec is a great lightweight media-centric OS with lots of plugins available.

It is equally comfortable serving files as it is working as a client machine to display the files.
About the only thing I miss is an NFS server (it can connect as client to a NFS server) but it has a SMB server which is quite good.

OpenElec, FreeNAS, and maybe Amahi are looking like great options. I am also considering sticking a very lightweight distro on and going from there to my needs. The ability of a 'one click install' for many of the apps seems great: that's why I like the idea of FreeNAS and the 'jails'. No need to be rebooting and chopping stuff around- just a one click upgrade. Also, the security is well covered in this regard.

Barack Obama wrote: »

This is what I got a year or so ago and have it fitted with 3x 4TB drives. There is room for a 4th then the 3rd is full.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RN10400-100EUS-ReadyNAS-Personal-Attached-Streaming/dp/B00BJ1BGB6

Similar setup to what you are looking for - mine is full of 1080p content which I watch through my Popcorn Hour. It has been faultless and very easy to use.

That's a nice piece of kit, and appears to be working out much cheaper versus the other options suggested on the thread. Also, the fact that it comes with the hard drives already installed is a bonus.

However, whilst doing some more research, I came across an article on a HTPC website of their budget (yet powerful build) for 2016:

AMD 5350 2.05Ghz Quad-Core Processor – €45.76
ASRock AM1H-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard – €45.76
Samsung EVO 850 250 GB SSD – €68.64
Mushkin Enhanced Stealth 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) – €27.46
Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ HDD – €91.52
SilverStone Sugo Series SG05BB-LITE Black Mini-ITX Case – €41.19
65W AC 19V 3.42A 5.5 x2.5mm Power Adapter - ~€10

What does this look like? Any reason why this would be better than buying a configured server like above?

Recommendations - Networked Server/Hard Drive Build

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