Separate HTPC and NAS/Server or one machine?

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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386
Hi there,

I am currently running a single PC that has got three Hard Drives in it (500GB, 1.5TB and 2TB).

Said PC acts as my HTPC for watching TV in my living room (Stand alone Mediaportal setup) but also serves all the other PCs in the house with files and I save all my files to this PC as well.

I have got a NSK2480 case (which can't take anymore 3.5" hard drives) and I am running out of space.

As far as I can see, I have two options as to how to go from here.

1. Add a NAS to my network - probably a home built one, using an old PC and FreeNas.

2. Put my PC in a bigger case and keep adding Hard Drives to the one machine.

I cannot decide on what the best approach is as there are pros and cons of each.

What have you guys got as your setup and why?

One other idea might be to perhaps attach a DAS to the PC instead?

Thanks
 
Tough call. Had a similar dilemma myself. My current HTPC only holds a single 3.5" internal HDD (2TB at the minute) but is rapidly filling up. Have thought about getting one of the larger style HTPC cases from Silverstone but as one of the above posters has eluded to I don't fancy having too many HDD's and the associated noise while watching movies or listening to music, particluarly as my motherboard's CPU cooler is fanless. I recently changed the setup which was originally an Athlon II X2 and Radeon HD5450 to a Asus E350M1-I Deluxe all in one, runs much cooler, consumes less power, quieter and plays 1080p video perfectly fine.

My plan is to grab a cheap microserver such as one of the HP ones, see this thread and install all my storage drives there. The cashback offer IIRC has now finished though but will probably be back at somepoint. Have a read of that thread, lots of useful information there. :)

I stand corrected.

The_Baron said:
Looks like the cashback deal is extended till at least The end of February 2012
Click to expand...

Link
 
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Easy. Build a NAS.

jrwagh333 said:
Which has to be the powerful PC to decode 1080p? The NAS or the HTPC?
Click to expand...

Err.. the thing doing the decoding. The HTPC, but it doesn't need to be that powerful if you can get the graphics card doing everything. I have 3 HTPCs here - the latest purchase being a Shuttle XS35GT running xbmc. Completely silent and very small... Not very overclockable though.. ;)
 
Thanks for all your input.

I did think that a single PC acting as a server/NAS/HTPC might be the way to go. Luckily noise won't be too much of an issue as I have the PC in another room behind my living room (I run the HTPC cable etc.) through a hole in the wall to my TV.

My options therefore are to

1. Buy a bigger case, as has been suggested, and wack lots of hard drives in it, or
2. Buy an external multi-bay enclosure and connect this to the PC.

The advantage of the second choice is that I can turn it off when not in use and this will save some power.

Is anyone aware of any external DAS enclosures where you can turn off individual hard drives? I am sure that I saw this somewhere years ago and cannot remember where now.
 
Buy a netgear stora MS2000 - £50 and put 2 disks in it

this will give you windows shares, nfs shares, access from the web, runs silently with low power consumption and will send you an email when a disk fails. Has throughput of 100MB too, I can stream HD 1080 from this thing perfectly over a homeplug/ethernet over power
 
That is a great little find stueng, but I think that I might (at least for the time being) try putting the hard drives directly into my server and consider a NAS at a later date.

Is there going to be a problem with using this hard drive switch? I think that I shall have to reinstall Windows whilst the computer is in AHCI mode, so I can then eject hard drives that I don't want and then switch them off with the power switch - is this correct, as I am not totally sure?

The only other thing I can do is buy a sata to usb 3.0 connector for each hard drive and run the leads out through the backplates. I can then eject and disconnect any hard drive that I don't need at that time.

What do you think?
 
switching HDDs on and off seems a little dodgy but windows 7/2008 in my experience handles it well, at least in vmware

I would ensure that your sata controller supports hot plug though, I have no idea how your BIOS is going to cope with a disk coming on which wasnt present when you booted up.. unless you boot up with all disks on and then turn them off after you have loaded windows
 
Not sure if you have 100% decided yet but i went for a silverstone case

I have space for 3 or 4 full size hdds, one ssd and optical.

I figured only one hdd will be working at any one time so why not fill it?

Its also identical in size to my av receiver
 
Hi al4x,

What actual model of case have you got and how quiet is it?

I currently have an antec NSK-2480, which is very quiet but just not enough room.

I take it that you are using your set-up as an HTPC and/or Server?

I note that you refer to only one of your hard drives working at any one time - how do you have yours set up? Do you have power management in Windows control them?
 
I tried having an old PC setup as a NAS using Freenas, I got so narked off with it I just put the hard disks back in my main pc and chucked the freenas box in the bin

could you not just sell your 500gb drive and install another 2TB drive?
 
If you don't have any issues with HTPC case size or HDD noise then upgrading the HTPC to a larger case sounds like a good plan - as it won't need a whole new core system to run the NAS.

However, may I ask what the specs of your core system are? If doesn't offer much scope for adding extra drives (lack of SATA or PCI/PCIE ports) then it may be better to go for a new system specifically designed to be a NAS. Also, if the system uses a lot of power at idle then it may be better to go for separate lower power system as the NAS which will be on 24/7.
 
I currently have a Athlon II x2 240e in an Asus M4A785TD-M Evo motherboard.

I also have 12GB or RAM - 4GB for the system and 8GB for timeshifting.

This set up has been very good to me, but I was planning on replacing it with a new intel motherboard and a low spec Ivy Bridge CPU when they eventually come out.

In particular, I would like a mobo with some USB3.0 ports for backup purposes and Ivy Bridge might also save me some power.

The other problem I also occassionally have is when I am viewing TV from the server (I use Mediaportal), it does occassionally freeze. I am not completely sure where the bottleneck is but I suspect that it might be the CPU - the hard drive isn't being taxed by too many recordings and the onboard HD4200 graphics should be fine.

If this is the case, the Ivy Bridge could also help smooth things along in terms of processing power.

I did think about dropping in a Sandy Bridge motherboard and chip now but do not want the irritating skipped frame due to their not being able to handle slightly less than 24fps whilst watching blu-ray movies.

Sorry for the long response - what do you think?
 
I quite like having a separate NAS. If all the disks are in one box, and the power supply goes bang, there's a risk of losing everything. Distributing the data improves the resilience of backups. It's not unusual to have the NAS and TV as the only "computers" switched on at a point in time, that's rather more electrically efficient than a desktop and TV.

The microserver above is the obvious choice for a multiple disk NAS, though I'm using a single disk western digital NAS myself.
 
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