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Silent Spring

Silent Spring

Silent Spring

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Joined
2 Nov 2009
Posts
105
Location
London
hi all,

im looking to set up a home network/server

i will want it as a central point to share music photos etc ( all pcs will be sharing the same libray on the network through itunes)

backup all files from each pc

and i would like to setup some sorta shared calander!

now im not sure whether to purchase a external hardrive with everything pre installed such as the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-011-IO

or to purchase windows home server and install it on an old pc i have at home?

and suggestions welcome!
 
A NAS such as the one you linked will provide you with the shared storage, but that's about all. If you want something more, such as your shared calendar idea, then you probably need a NAS with a bit more functionality such as a QNAP. These provide a full web server implementation with PHP and MySQL which means you can install just about any web application you like. However, as you can see the price of that is somewhat higher, so if you already have a working old PC then you could do it yourself a lot more cheaply. You don't even need Windows; the QNAP boxes run on a flavour of Linux and you could do the same on your home-made solution. The downside to this, of course, is that you have to build and set up the system yourself, whereas the QNAP or similar comes with everything set up for you. If you have plenty of time then doing it yourself would be a lot cheaper; if time is at a premium and you don't mind the cash outlay then buying one in is an easy and relatively stress-free way of doing it.
 
Windows Home Server is what you want.
WHS will do all your backups, meda sharing and act as an Itunes server.
There are litteraly tons of plug-in apps too that do everything from torrenting to transcoding/streaming on the fly.
And best of all its windows at the end of the day, so you can run pretty much anything on it.

If you looking for a small compact low power box with grunt the HP Medasmarts are fantastic.
Theres a link over at We Got Served to a special offer HP are running atm which is honestly insanely good.
Works out at about 130 quid off :eek:
 
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Ordered one of those HP things for myself just now, cracking deal for a very well reviewed bit of kit (though you may need to remove the links as it could be classed as a competitor as OcUK do sell NAS boxes).

Any idea what the drives are that HP use in these, want to buy 3 more 1Tb drives for mine and would probably be best if i get the same make/model.
 
WHS Licence is around £80.

1Tb drives are around £65 a pop.

So if you've got an old PC laying around with a reasonable CPU and a couple of gigs of RAM inside and enough sata ports (could always get another controller) you're pretty much all set.

IMO £300 for a 4 bay small, quiet and power efficient NAS style box running WHS and with a free 1TB drive thrown in is pretty good going if you look at the cost of the offerings from QNap and Synology.
 
Try out Windows Home server - look out on MS site - you can download a 120 day trial - if you like you can then install the OEM version "over the top" of the trial.

WHS needs very basic stuff - ran mine for ages on a PIII / 512Mb memory - 75GB + HDD
 
wij said:
Ordered one of those HP things for myself just now, cracking deal for a very well reviewed bit of kit (though you may need to remove the links as it could be classed as a competitor as OcUK do sell NAS boxes).

Any idea what the drives are that HP use in these, want to buy 3 more 1Tb drives for mine and would probably be best if i get the same make/model.
Click to expand...

Mine came with a Seagate mate, although I have heard on the vine so to speak that the newer ones are shipping with Samsungs.
If any mod has any objection to the above link I entirly understand if it gets nuked and I get a swift kick in the rear.
The only reason I even bothered to link it directly is that the darn thing is burried deeper than a dead person on the HP site.
Its almost like they dont want people to know about it ;)

Silent Spring said:
ok well i wouldnt ahve that muh money to spend!

so if i installed windows server and add some hard drives?
is it that simple?
Click to expand...

It realy is THAT simple, just grab some old hardware and throw WHS on there.
Id recommend ATLEAST 2GB of ram in there you want to do anything meaningfull like transcoding on there though.
Mine quite happily transcodes 1080p to my PS3 downstairs over Wi-Fi with a 2Ghz Celeron.
 
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