Media Server + HTPC

B

Bar

n00b
Joined
Apr 7, 2007
Messages
27
Hi guys, I have a HTPC but because its small there isnt much room for hard drives. What better excuse to build a media Server? :)

Couple of questions:

1. What needs more grunt Server or htpc? htpc is currently x2 4200+,1gb ram, 500gb HDD
2. I am thinking of buying another 3x500gb drives and running software RAID on the server with 4x500gb in RAID 5. I have a copy of 2k3 server so will be using that. Is software RAID ok? I dont want to buy an expensive controller.

Notes:
I will be running HD-DVD and Bluray directly at the htpc with a combodrive. The rest of my dvd collection will stream from the server. Also a good idea to be running two smaller drives in RAID 1 for the OS and proggies?

Suggestions please!
 
1. HTPC will need more power since it's doing all the decoding..etc.

2. Software RAID is a no-no unless you don't care about your data. Why not try Windows Home Server. That's what i use and I love it. Then again..if you want cheap Network Storage..you really can't beat FreeNAS with a low end pc if that's all you have. Best practices for server environments are RAID 1 OS/APP and RAID 5 data..but that's in a data center environment. Really..look into Windows Home Server...it's one of the best investments I made all year and i'm quite happy with it.
 
Hi Vader,

Why would Windows Home Server be any better than Windows Server 2003? also wouldnt that have the same problem of not being any good at RAID?
 
The server can actually be pretty wimpy on the CPU side. All it needs is enough horsepower to serve the media fast enough for playback, which any PC has been able to do for about the last...oh, say 10 years.
 
Mohonri - I more saying the server needed some cpu grunt if I did software RAID as the controller would not be doing it.
 
take a look into unRAID which is my current OS for my server...it's a linux based OS which offers a 1 disk failure tolerance (a raid 4 w/o striping). It needs 1 parity disk and all the rest of the disks are data disk which are individually formatted and are their own file system. There is NO striping across the disks, so even if you lose 2 disks, unlike raid5, you'll still have the data on the other drives available.

Also, take a look at the link in my sig.
 
Vader said:
1. HTPC will need more power since it's doing all the decoding..etc.

2. Software RAID is a no-no unless you don't care about your data. Why not try Windows Home Server. That's what i use and I love it. Then again..if you want cheap Network Storage..you really can't beat FreeNAS with a low end pc if that's all you have. Best practices for server environments are RAID 1 OS/APP and RAID 5 data..but that's in a data center environment. Really..look into Windows Home Server...it's one of the best investments I made all year and i'm quite happy with it.
Click to expand...

um what is wrong with software raid?

I have a 2TB (formatted) home server running software raid 5 mdadm under Ubuntu. It's very stable and way better than anything you can dream of doing with whs. I tried windows home server first by the way. you can't delete the pre shares and the only redudancy it offers is 1:1 copies on a separate disk. (bootleg raid 1).

I am amazed how fast people are to bash software raid not knowing a thing about it :rolleyes:
 
I am amazed how fast people are to bash software raid not knowing a thing about it
Click to expand...

He is going windows 2k3, not Linux or FreeNAS unix..etc. Know what you're talking about before you spout off at the mouth. Software RAID in a Windows environment is shit when the OS drive goes. It's not like FreeNAS you can boot it from a USB key or CD. Read the WHOLE POST! :rolleyes:
 
w1retap said:
lol, you guys are so critical and up tight. Sit.
Click to expand...
lol I love how he blasts softRAID and then recommends using WHS which is completely softRAID and actually has issues if you try to use hardware RAID with it. :rolleyes:

SoftRAID is fine and WHS is fine; I've played around with it and I actually kind of prefer using WHS with an HTPC (although I don't run WHS now nor do I plan on too; the beta was great but I would rather go with a linux server OS mostly because I feel that the price of WHS is too high for what it is).
 
lol I love how he blasts softRAID and then recommends using WHS which is completely softRAID and actually has issues if you try to use hardware RAID with it
Click to expand...

I see you have fallin into the trap of not reading my whole post as well.

The end-user is going to use Windows 2003 Server. I recommended WHS with it's advanced folder duplication abilities as opposed to Windows 2003 Server which doesn't have that feature or many of WHS features for that matter.

Bottom line, Software RAID is horrendus on any Windows Platform, however if he/she must have a Windows Environment, then why not get the Features of WHS instead?

I also recommended FreeNAS..etc..which, IMHO..is much better, however, again WHS offers more features and is much easier to configure for a Windows user.

I also agree that WHS is overpriced but it's much cheaper than Windows Server 2003 standard which I believe is around $500.
 
Thanks for your suggestions.

I am just going to put the drives into the machine for now running xp and just sharing the drives until i figure out what to do!
 
thats how my media server is... however i have a x2 3800 in mine bc I have my server running the server side of Beyondtv and it does all my mpeg to divx encoding...

i ran software raid5 the XP Pro hack, but I had some problems with it and found it difficult to replace drive and rebuild the array...


imo go w/ hardware raid.
 
Linux with mdadm has been suggested to me so I may look at that option. As I dont want to buy expensive controller cards.

Also whats the best and quickest way to reduce the size of my ripped dvd? currently all my dvds are just ripped to my Hard drive via DVD Shrink @ 4.35gb. They also need to be read by VMC
 
4GB per movie isn't bad at all. Unless you want to re-encode all of them which would take a lot of time, I'd just leave them. Hard drive space is cheap now. Just throw those DVD movies on an external or something if you don't have enough room for hard drives inside the case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top