Your Movie Storage

[madtoady]

At the moment I use an external 2TB WD MyPassport external HDD plugged via USB3 into my PC which doubles as my Plex Media Server. I'm new to Plex and I absolutely love it. I use the Samsung SmartHub Plex App to watch the movies from my server.

My HDD however is now filling up fast and I'm running out of space with my new hunger for HD DTS movies! I was wondering how much and what storage systems you fellow home cinema guys use and what you'd recommend.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Clearly I wouldn't do such a thing, as copying of movies is considered a crime.
However, if I were to do it, I'd probably add an additional 3TB hard drive into my PC, which has plenty of space free.

 

[Grimley]

/\/\/\/\/\ This. I'm sure there are others that on here that will say get a NAS. I'm not keen on getting one, as I'm of the school that thinks I'm the only one that needs access to my files so why do I need a 24/7 NAS?

24/7 HDD's to me means more wear & tear on the HDD's & MTBF is a factor, but I'm certain that others will say the power on times are a factor on MTBF as well.

As for ripped films, OK It's illegal but its a question of enforcing that law. I can't see the Federation of Copyright theft banging on my door or anyones for that matter due to ripped films on my storage. They would have to prove it (As in search warrant and PC seizure) One DBAN run would sort that out if there was even a hint of them doing so as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Domi]

lol how much do you want to spend.

I use a microserver , many people use a NAS or just an old PC works fine.

Even at 100GB for a 4k movie with full audio etc you could get 45 Movies on £100 external Hard drive.

The price of hard drives these days and a small server with 20TB of disc space is not much more than £500 and still massively expandable.

Just as an example I could easily sit 5x8 TB drives in my microserver and in 5 years time it might be 5 x 20TB drives

 

[Domi]

Ripping films to disc for your own use may indeed be a legal issue but it is in the same realm as recording TV or transferring a music CD to MP3 to play on your phone.

Wanting to play your media from a central source is NOT the same as downloading pirate movies , these are 2 separate issues.

 

[Domi]

24/7 HDD's to me means more wear & tear on the HDD's & MTBF is a factor, but I'm certain that others will say the power on times are a factor on MTBF as well.
.

When a disc is not in use it will be asleep in a NAS , A Server or even an external case via USB.

I would have to argue it is no more likely to fail than a drive that is not switched on.

What we are talking about here is exactly the sort of thing those 8tb "storage" drives are good for.

 

[Avalon]

/\/\/\/\/\ This. I'm sure there are others that on here that will say get a NAS. I'm not keen on getting one, as I'm of the school that thinks I'm the only one that needs access to my files so why do I need a 24/7 NAS?

24/7 HDD's to me means more wear & tear on the HDD's & MTBF is a factor, but I'm certain that others will say the power on times are a factor on MTBF as well.

You seriously think that a NAS or server has drives spun up to 24/7? They're spun down till needed. Also running 24/7 is often less wearing that spinning up/down, though obviously uses more power.

 

[Dougiebabe2003]

I use a HP NL54 for all my storage needs. I love it. It does handles all my storage along with giving me 24/7 access to the storage should I ever need it, which I do, often.

If someone gives me a TV Episode/Movie/Game/Photo at work I can FTP on and put it where it needs to go. CouchPotato/Sickbeard take care of getting all the Films/TV shows (for the most part) and it will transcode the film if required (but it can struggle with 1080p film and unzipping anything at the same time) but for the most part it is just a file storage server.

Not only this but I can setup game servers on it and friends use it as a VPN to play games so we don't have to use Hamachi.

Not for everyone I can imagine, it took a long while to get it setup as I wanted it and CP/SB aren't as good now I've moved over to P2P but on the whole I think I would struggle to be with out it now, more for the other features I can do with it along with storage for everything.

Edit: Not sure if you have MM access but there is actually one being sold at the moment with 2x 1.5tb for cheap.

 

[Avalon]

Cheap is a relative term, you can get the Dell TS10 with 500GB for under a ton new. I'd suggest it's better value than a used MicroServer and I have two of them.

 

[.:SAmSuNG:.]

Really need to upgrade both NAS and drives inside but currently synology DS411j with 4x samsung F3 2TB drives.

NAS is really showing its age though and I'm running out of space. Plan to get a new 4 bay synology and fill with 5 or 6TB drives when money permits but I always have something else on my wish list which takes priority.

 

[Grimley]

You seriously think that a NAS or server has drives spun up to 24/7? They're spun down till needed. Also running 24/7 is often less wearing that spinning up/down, though obviously uses more power.

I didn't know that. That's how much I know about them.

 

[Dougiebabe2003]

Cheap is a relative term, you can get the Dell TS10 with 500GB for under a ton new. I'd suggest it's better value than a used MicroServer and I have two of them.

I'd agree that just for storage a microserver is not really 'best' value but if anything else it offers is wanted then I feel the value is much higher.

The 2nd hand one with 2x 1.5tb drives is £130 which I do feel is cheap but yes, if all you need is storage then a NAS makes the most sense while also being the easiest to integrate.

 

[MatsyLR]

I just have two 3TB external hard drives. One for movies, one for tv shows. Plug into kodi machine when required. I can't justify buying a NAS or similar that will do nothing different for me from what I am currently doing. Have no need for online stuff or networks. I just need raw storage.

 

[HungryHippos]

Synology DS1815+ with 8 x 3TB Red Drives. Overkill? maybe. Awesome? definitely.

I figure it's cheaper to add more disks at the moment then bump up the sizes, 6TB is more than twice the cost of 3TB, and they don't seem to be getting cheaper quickly.

 

[.:SAmSuNG:.]

I just have two 3TB external hard drives. One for movies, one for tv shows. Plug into kodi machine when required. I can't justify buying a NAS or similar that will do nothing different for me from what I am currently doing. Have no need for online stuff or networks. I just need raw storage.

Are you not worried about one of the drives dieing and losing all your data? What they do different is offer a level of protection if a drive were to die.

 

[Freefaller]

For a quick and easy set up I use an HP Microserver with 4x3Tb discs. Plus an SSD for the OS (Windows Home Server).

I have a separate PC for my HTPC - again with an SSD - it runs plex and plex server. IT's all WOL so I can boot it up to watch Plex movies remotely without having to leave it on 24/7. The HP does stay on as the power consumption is so low it doesn't really make a huge difference - plus I also use it as a server!

 

[Prophet]

I have a Dell T20 server with a bunch of large disks installed and an SSD for the OS. I run Plex server on that and play the media via a NowTV box with Plex installed. Love this setup as I can watch my media anywhere, as long as I have an internet connection.

The T20 is quite powerful so allows multiple 1080p streams at the same time and throttles back to use very little electricity when idle.

 

[skaif]

Just on the subject of plex, is anyone having any issues streaming in 1080? I feel that I need to downgrade quality or I get choppiness.

I am using my main pc as my PMS and specs are more than enough (4790k, 16gb ram, 6tb WD Green etc)

My wifi set up is also above average with an AC68u streaming to chromecasts...

 

[Domi]

Just on the subject of plex, is anyone having any issues streaming in 1080? I feel that I need to downgrade quality or I get choppiness.

I am using my main pc as my PMS and specs are more than enough (4790k, 16gb ram, 6tb WD Green etc)

My wifi set up is also above average with an AC68u streaming to chromecasts...

First and most likely will be your wifi.

Easy test does your media play 100% locally if yes then its the chromecast/wifi.

Can you try the chromecast right beside your router , if it works fine it is your wifi, if not tehn likely the chromecast setup.

you say 1080 content but that is almost a meaningless term a 1080 2 hour movie can be less than a gigabyte in size or more than 50 it is the quality and corresponding bit rate that makes the difference.

 

[MatsyLR]

Are you not worried about one of the drives dieing and losing all your data? What they do different is offer a level of protection if a drive were to die.

They offer a level of protection depending on which raid you do.
I'm already almost out of space on both drives.
The only raid I'd have a use for would be Raid 10, which would require me to have 4 drives + a 4 bay NAS. While only having the capacity of 2 drives...
I dont have the money for that.
I can easily replace whats on the drives (slowly) but if either of them dies, its not a big deal.