Need Help With Media Server Build Spec

RadiumLavans

RadiumLavans

RadiumLavans

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Joined
6 May 2010
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30
Hi,
Im new to networking so if my questions seem a little stupid then i apologize in advance. Im looking to build a media server to share all my files with the other systems in my house (3 pc's, 2 laptops). Im hoping to set this system up in the loft and simply leave it on all the time so it doesnt want to be to power hungry but it does need to be able to stream 1080p mkv's as i have quite afew. I currently have around 2TB's of data so will need to allow room for adding extra drives. Im planning on using windows home server as i want to set permissions to the users accessing the data. Im a little concerned about what spec to go for, the biggest concern is streaming the 1080p video's, i have a duo core sony laptop with 4gb of ram and its very jerky when trying to play one. I was very interested in the 'HP Proliant Microserver' with the £100 cashback but im not sure the processor could handle it. So if anyone has any advice on what spec's i should go for that would be great. thanks
 
Only pointing you in the right direction :) you will more likely get more suited replies with it in the correct forum :)
 
If the server itself will not be playing the videos, simply offering them over the network to other devices then it doesn't need much of a CPU. A simple atom based machine will happily serve up 1080p videos ( I use a acer H340 to do this ).
 
yeah serving media is a lot less taxing that playing it

i assume ur server wont be doign anything else like transcoding?

an atom based system would be your best bet, enough power to stream your media, and very low power usage to save on your electricity bill.

only problem with atoms is that they generally have very few sata ports, so if u want a lot of drives, u'll need to get a SATA controller to go with it as well.

any old case would do, just make sure it has enough space for the amount of drives your thinking of having
 
thanks for the replies, i didnt realize that serving the media is less taxing than the system playing it, i will look into atom based systems as well as checking the HP Proliant Microserver, since serving media files requires less power its 1.3ghz dual core might be sufficient.
 
As said streaming HD content doe'snt take much power at all it takes the same amount of processing power as any other data transfer it's the decoding it that takes the juice and thats done on the PC you're watching the film on. To serve a 1080p film the server only needs to be able to serve data at about 17 Mega Bytes a second the microserver can serve about 75-110 Megabyte a second depending on drive config, so the Proliant Microserver would be able to handle it fine.
 
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Thanks all for your time and help, the advise you've given me has been fantastic and ive decided to go with the HP Proliant, with the £100 cashback i doubt i could match the price if i bought an atom based machine and from what your saying the HP can easily handle the tasks i need, thanks once again
 
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