Media/File Server from old PC

matt.hibb · 14 Feb 2012 at 16:07

Hi All,

I have an old box that I am thinking of turning into a media/file server. There are quite a few people in the house, so there might be more than 1 person streaming a movie/music/photos at any given time.

The old system comprises of E8400 CPU, 4GB RAM on an Asus P5K Pro mobo.

I would like roughly 1TB (or more) of space available and will be buying new drives.

I notice the mobo has a RAID controller, but the SATA ports are only 3Gb/s.

Questions I need help with are:
- Which drives?
- RAID: Hardware or software? I'd prefer hardware, seems like a "cleaner" solution to me, but I've no real experience doing it.
- Which RAID config? I'd like redundancy for protected the important stuff like photos. But also reasonable speed for streaming.
- Are the CPU, mobo (SATA ports in particular) and 4GB RAM up to the job?

Thanks!

shadow_boxer · 14 Feb 2012 at 16:17

Spec of your system is fine. If it will be hard wired to your network it won't have any trouble streaming 1080p video for example. I've got a low power AMD Zacate E350 with 4GB RAM and it works perfectly fine for playing HD movies and streaming to a couple of other systems on our home network.

SATA II (3Gb/s) is fine for mechanical HDD and SATA 6Gb/s makes no difference. I'd go for a green low RPM drive to save power and it'll also be quiter. I've got a WD Caviar Green in my HTPC and it's never missed a beat. Also consider the Samsung F4, very good drive.

Re. backup of important docuements and photo's, remember that RAID is not a true safe and secure backup. Depending on the amount to data to be backuped up I'd consider a an external HDD stored at second location (or cloud storage) or at the very least stored on another system in the house.

matt.hibb · 14 Feb 2012 at 16:47

Thanks for the comments.

Re. Safe storage - I was looking at maybe RAID10??, to achieve some sort of reliability/safety. Basically what I'm aiming at is to be as reliable as possible in the 1 machine. Whilst, as you say, appreciating the fact that I wil need to do a back up to something external now and then. It's just that I know I'm lazy with that sort of thing

Cat_J · 14 Feb 2012 at 19:14

I run automated offsite backups, use a service like livedrive. Then set it and forget it.

RAID10 is fine, I tend to run RAID1 and have multiple virtual drives at home for simplicity's sake if there is a failure. Your SATA interface speed is not so important for a file server like that really as your bottle neck will be network speed if you're running though a normal home router. Best thing you can do is get a good gigabit switch and wire it all up with the switch at the center of your network. I have found that 1080p media can suffer on a 10/100 network once other people get on it and start running all sorts of other file operations.