GURU3D members HD Movie Collections

[John]

It's just a box running 24/7 in my storage/messy room. No monitor or anything, I do everything over remote desktop (Radmin). Connected to my router via gigabit LAN. Nothing special.

I'll be adding 3TB drives. Using a huge case with room for roughly 20 HDD's with some small mods, so no need for any external enclosures. Just need another controller.

In my opinion it's much smarter, and indeed cheaper to build your own server than getting a NAS. Most computer people have spare parts lying around. You don't need a top specced computer for these tasks.. and if you use something like unRaid you can even get away with something like an Atom powered box. You have much more flexibility with your own build than you do with a NAS in terms of how many drives you can add, software, future upgrades etc.

[N0sferatU]

I agree on the lack of needing a NAS. My friend has one and I feel the interface is clunky. My HTPC in my living room has joint duty as the "server" and the media player for the living room. It's a two year old machine (specs in my sig on left but no longer overclocked).

It'll stream all my content to the HTPC in my bedroom or to any of my mobile phones both over the mobile network or my local wifi. It can do it all simultaneously without a problem while playing either bluray or 1080p mkv's in the living room.

I call it my personal "cloud"

For Android Qloud or Plex (I prefer Qloud) will stream your stuff out of the network and for iPhone use Air Video Server. It's great having all the multimedia on the go. Of course, top it off with a Slingbox for my TV services and I have everything I need anywhere I go (signal permitting on AT&T's part lol).

[dcx_badass]

Originally Posted by TirolokoRD

This might be a dumb question, but how you huck the server to your PC?

Trough the network?, eSata?, or USB?

I don't know what huck means, but it's a server, so obviously ethernet.

This is my server (well I have two and am getting another). It's about a foot cubed, can take 6 drives. Cost £130 ($200)

[sdamaged99]

The microserver is fine for a small home server, but despite having four drive bays only supports RAID1 and 0. No RAID5, which would be the logical choice with four disks.

Nice little piece of kit though.

The biggest advantage of a server which has the disks in drive bays / enclosure is you can tell when a disk has failed. if you just have a normal case stacked full of hard drives, its not always easy to see which has failed as it might just say "disk 6" (especially if they are all the same model!)

of course, you can write down which disk is which and note serial numbers etc, just a bit more of a pain.

This is the reason i went with these :-

[dcx_badass]

Originally Posted by sdamaged99

The microserver is fine for a small home server, but despite having four drive bays only supports RAID1 and 0. No RAID5, which would be the logical choice with four disks.

Can easily take 6 drives though, I have mine set up for 5. I only use Raid1 but you can use software Raid 5 or similar (such as flexraid, unraid etc).

I've got a the last 3 digits of the serial numbers stuck on the end of each drive so I can tell in that situation.
It's dirt cheap for what it is though, great bargain.

[sdamaged99]

Ah great idea mate, i didn't know it could take 6 drives. Good idea regarding the serial numbers too...

[TirolokoRD]

But in the HP page says it only has 4 bays (Confused!)...

Any way, I sorted my collection out. Problem was the naming as I previously told.

Renamed all, and make the app download and create metadata files for XBMC and then added them to the player.

Great organization there, was watching movies for hours (replaying them).

Now, need a way to stream them to the living room.

Will be checking about the servers or the home made one, will be very smart to move my files over there, especially for the reliability issue, as data grows, thats very important.

It seems we are the only one with such big movies collection :-P

[dcx_badass]

Originally Posted by TirolokoRD

But in the HP page says it only has 4 bays (Confused!)...

It has 4 hard drive bays and an optical disk bay, you can fit two hard drives there