Media Server

[Dark_Stranger]

Hi everyone

I have been searching alot in here about a media server.

But hardware changes all the time, and it's various answers people get.

So I hope you can help me with som info on which hardware will be good for my first server build.

My Plans are as this:

Media server

Primary use - Stream music and HD movies

Secondary use - Small backup plans (will not be very much)

I'm not planning on having any raid

My homenetwork is Gigabit Lan

Planning on using WHS2011 (but not sure yet)

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Hardware I have until now

Discs - Until now i have 4 x 2tb discs, it's fine for now. but planning to have 8-10 discs

Case - NZXT Whisper

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Which hardware will you recomend for the rest?

There will max be 2 maybe 3 pc's watching movies from it.

That will be the max load and it will be verry rare.

Thanks in Advance for your help.

 

[af22]

As a single use in my house, i built a box off the AMD Zacate E-350. This is AMD's 18W atom competitor with 6 onboard sata ports. I use Server 08R2 with 4x 2TB drives, and 2x 1TB drives in Raid 5 and Raid 1 respectively.

It draws 65 watts at full power with all 6 drives spinning, and I can transfer over the network at 60-80 meg/second constant in real world tests.

If you do not need a lot of cpu power, and plan only to stream and do basic things, the E-350 would be an excellent low power choice. If you plan to do more things, then people would recommend the i3 to i5 depending on how much cpu power you need.

 

[davros123]

Agree with af22.

Two other comments...
I note you say no raid and 8-10 2TB drives...this sounds very dangerous...I would seriously rethink this and (as one alternative) get a perc 6i and go a single raid6 array.

Also, if you can use another case. I have one of these and it's a really poor case....esp. from a ventilation viewpoint...very very restrictive and not quiet at all. I hacked the hell out of it and replaced all the fans and it's build quality is really bad too...

 

[austinwachukwu]

Just another note.....if you wanna stream music to android devices like you're phone....you can get A Good Music account that has no size limit.

 

[af22]

Agree with af22.

Two other comments...
I note you say no raid and 8-10 2TB drives...this sounds very dangerous...I would seriously rethink this and (as one alternative) get a perc 6i and go a single raid6 array.

Also, if you can use another case. I have one of these and it's a really poor case....esp. from a ventilation viewpoint...very very restrictive and not quiet at all. I hacked the hell out of it and replaced all the fans and it's build quality is really bad too...

I agree with davros123, i use windows raid 5 on my 4x2TB and believe it or not, it works great. I get slightly slower write (~60 meg/sec instead of 80 meg/sec with a single drive), but i get triple the read and some form of redundancy.

 

[Dark_Stranger]

Thanks for your answers until now.

af22: I can't get that board in Denmark. I'm looking for a low power system but I would like to have the possibility to have more Sata ports than 6

I have been looking at a board like this one?!?! http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3440#sp

Davros123: I'm very sad to hear about the Case. It's already bought Maybe I should look around after a new one.

Maybe I will rethink Raid


I will use it primarily to stream HD movies

 

[ripken204]

Just another note.....if you wanna stream music to android devices like you're phone....you can get A Good Music account that has no size limit.

im assuming you meant to say Google Music? if so, it's an ok option right now, but it will cost in the future. plus you never know how safe you are depending on where your music came from

http://www.subsonic.org
is a great choice, there is a mobile app for iphone, droid, wp7, and a web interface
stream the music from your server. can be installed on a variety of OSes

 

[pookguy88]

how much CPU power would you guys recommend for a file server box that streams and does torrents in the background?

 

[af22]

My Zacate E350 box does:

uTorrent
Sabnzbd
SickBeard
IRC Bouncer
YAMMM (media meta adder)
FTP Server

and it has a windows raid5 4x2TB array, windows raid1 2x1TB array.

Now, when i'm doing file transfers from the network, it does push the cpu well over 50% writing to my raid5 array. But, it is enough to be just enough to support all my apps.