Media Server spec

Jed Shields

Jed Shields

Jed Shields

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Joined
23 Apr 2007
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1,787
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Cardiff-ish, Wales
Hi guys,

I'm looking at putting together a "media server" that'll be on 24/7 and hold all my movies, tv shows, music, photos etc. It'll serve my PC, my wifes PC and my HTPC downstairs.

I'll be using an old Athlon 2600 CPU and ABIT board that has 4 SATA ports with RAID capability, plus 2 IDE ports and 2Gb RAM. I've kept this for a while as I new it would come in useful sometime :)

I'm looking to buy a new case that can hold a lot of drives, an energy efficient PSU, 4x 1Tb HDDs that I'll probably put into a RAID 5 array. I've also got some old IDE HDDs (ranging from 160 to 250Gb) that I can add for additional backup storage.

So , I'm looking at buying:

Antec 300 Gaming case - £47 - seems to have lots of expansion potential.
Antec Earthwatt 380 PSU - £35 - high efficiency?
4x 1Tb Western Digital Green drives @ £75 each - £300, again, low running costs?
LG BluRay HD-DVD drive - £65. I've already got one in my HTPC, but don't mind getting an additional one as a backup as I want to make sure I can still play my HD-DVDs in the future. It also means I can rip them from up in my computer room.

Does this sound okay?

RAID 5 - I'm still not sure if I should go this route as it means going from 4Tb worth of storage to 3Tb. Or should I just backup the important files to other drives? I still have 1Tb in my HTPC and 1Tb in my PC, plus another 2x 500Gb in my NAS ...

EDIT - software - I'll either be using a free educational version of Server 2003, Vista Home Premium or possibly a free copy of XP ...
 
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How easy is it to expand a RAID system? Is it just a case of adding additional disks, or do you need to reformat the drives and start again with the added ones?
 
What do you mean by high overheads? I'm not sure I want to lose 2Tb's worth of storage ... this will be for media files that I own, rather than files that are irreplaceable, so while re-ripping them will be a major PITA, it won't be the end of the world ...

I can set up a mirrored system in my NAS using 2x 500Gb files for all my irreplaceable data ie photos and home movies ...
 
If I manage to get Server 2008 for free then it's a big additional outlay. However, if I need to buy an OS then it's probably worth considering ...

I assume you can also add raided disks to Home Server, or does it provide it's own redundancy options?
 
Ahh ... so with RAID 5 with 4x 1Tb drives I'd have 3 Tb worth of data with redundancy, but with WHS I'd have 2Tb of data and 2Tb of duplicate files?
 
One more question ... if I set up the system with Server 2008 with the 4x 1Tb drives as individual drives ie not raided, could I convert to WHS in the future and join all the disks together without losing the data, or does it need to be set up from the start?
 
Right, I'm convinced about WHS ...

Next problem, the old mobo I was going to use has no SATA ports, and a 4 port SATA card costs £70. It's probably better to buy a new mobo, CPU and RAM. Any suggestions for low cost, energy efficient kit that's good enough for server duties?
 
I was more interested in this mobo:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...H AMD 740G (AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Basically because it's got 6 SATA ports ... I'll probably be using all 6 for HDDs, then some older HDDs that are IDE together with an old IDE DVD drive. My HD encoding will be done on my Q6600 PC ... I guess the server will mainly be used for storage and streaming of music, dvds and some HD content.

CPU - that was the one I was looking at ...

Case - I was looking at the Antec 300 Gamer as it has 6 internal HDD bays, together with an Antect 380W Earthwatts PSU. This come in at just over the price of the one you mention ... I'll have a think about that one ...
 
decto said:
Get a USB DVDRW, a drive will use power (5-10W idle) when plugged in so you may as well keep the internal connectors for HDD's and just plug in the DVD when you need it.AD
Click to expand...

TBH, I may as well install an old IDE drive and just unplug it after I've installed everything ... I could always loook at a USB drive at some point in the future. I'm trying to minimise costs at the mo.

I hadn't considered using the server as an additional HTPC ... I was considering building one for my bedroom eventually as well. I'd need a really long HDMI cable though ... what are you looking at getting?
 
I think I'm more likely to go the HTPC capable system that Decto mentioned ... probably a Gigabyte 780G and Athlon CPU, same as my wifes PC and my HTPC. I'll use the 5 onboard SATAs and route an internal cable to the external eSATA connector to gain number 6.

Decto - how would you look at controlling the media system from the bedroom if the server is in a different room?
 
Right ... how does this spec look, bearing in mind that the P&P is free:

3121175218_6187d2f048_o.jpg
 
Yeah, I've got two Gigabyte 780G boards already so I might put the exta £20 towards another one and have the option ...

I also use the Keysonic for my HTPC downstairs ... I forgot that it was wireless lol ... definately the best option then.
 
Just had the authorisation from my wife ... I'm ordering now. Merry Xmas me :)

Being delivered Xmas Eve ... I think my Christmas will be spent building my server and ripping the rest of my DVDs :D
 
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