My New Server

[Adam]

So I've had a ton of DVD's for a while and being I'm moving in a few months, decided it is time to get rid of them. I didn't want to just sell them without making "backups" first, as I've been using Blu-Rays for the last year or two. So the DVD's have gone neglected.

Well my HTPC has 3 HD's in it and they are full. So I decided to build a new server to house all my movies. Heres what I ended up using:

Windows Home Server 2011 (w/MyMovies Plugin)
Fractal Design Define XL Case
Rosewill 650w Power Supply
I'm using my old Gigabyte Board and Q9550 Quad-Core CPU and 8GB RAM for brains
HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL Card (running in RAID 5... yes its not REALLY hardware raid, i know that)
Main OS is a 250GB Blue Drive
Storage is 5 2TB Seagate 5900RPM Eco Drives setup in RAID 5
4 Samsung DVD Burners

Its not the fastest raid, because I don't need fast. Its for storing movies. My home is setup for gigabit so im good there. Im copying files from my HTPC to the server and it says 90.4 MB/s as the speed. So i guess thats okay, its not super fast but im fine with that.

So I can basically insert up to 4 DVD's and it will auto-rip, auto title them and download cover art/etc.. all automatically. I have to copy all my blu-rays and dvds from my HTPC to the server and then import them into mymovies collection.

I can also control/play/lookup all movies from my iPad which is neat. Heres a few photos of the server. Great case:

 

[AQ_OC]

Good job. I have almost the exact same setup (processor, ram, gigabyte mobo). I have 9 3TB HDDs 1 2TB HDDs, and a boot drive and 1 blu-ray. I use MyMovies too. I don't use raid of any sort, though, just sata connections on mobo and PCIe slots, and using just plain Win7 64 home sharing. For extra storage (only 1 drive it it now, but I have two these), I use

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=oh_o05_s00_i00_details

in esata mode (I tried usb3.0 but it seems rather unstable).

I have all of my blu-ray material ripped to ISO and most of my DVD collection ripped to folders. All TV series gets ripped to MKV. MyMovies is the guts behind WMC. I too have the iPad app to control it. I rip while I'm working. I don't find a need for more than one optical drive, though, as for me that would require too much attention and also takes up valuable space for HDDs! I do keep track of what is stored where and in what form (in an Excel spreadsheet), in case a drive crashes and I need to rebuild it.

Since i use mostly WD Green drives, I never hear a peep out of the case, so I didn't bother with anything special (I do have an Antec P182 sitting unused at the moment from an old build). My server sits in a $59 Nzxt cheapie.

Oh, I can easily stream blu-rays to several PCs at once over my gigabit network, so your 90MB/s is plenty good enough.

 

[valve1138]

How is it all automated with MyMovies?

 

[damarious25]

what's the word the kids use these days?! jelly?

very nice. will be doing something similar when I can afford to get a large number of HDDs at once.

 

[AQ_OC]

How is it all automated with MyMovies?

Put a movie in the drive...MM reads it, will rip it to your prefer location (either as folder or ISO, assuming you have AnyDVDHD loaded), and then will get all the info and fanart, then adds all that to your database so when you open Windows Media Center, the info shows up.

 

[Adam]

MY setup is the same. Blu-Rays are ISOs, DVDs are folders and TV shows are mkvs. I started to convert my DVD's to MKV files because it makes it easy to play it back and i can copy it to a laptop and play it much easier then copying the folders. But i only do that for my favorite movies (like war games,hackers, etc..)

TV shows i convert them from DVD to MKV as well, takes time but mymovies reads it easier

 

[Adam]

Put a movie in the drive...MM reads it, will rip it to your prefer location (either as folder or ISO, assuming you have AnyDVDHD loaded), and then will get all the info and fanart, then adds all that to your database so when you open Windows Media Center, the info shows up.

Yup nice and easy. For my existing movies i find i have to fix some of them, as it doesnt know wahts blu-ray and whats dvd, some titles are wrong also, so l'l have to fix those. I wish you could run collection manager on the WHS itself but i have to run that on either my home pc or my htpc... im finding my home pc since thats the station im always on...

 

[AQ_OC]

MY setup is the same. Blu-Rays are ISOs, DVDs are folders and TV shows are mkvs. I started to convert my DVD's to MKV files because it makes it easy to play it back and i can copy it to a laptop and play it much easier then copying the folders. But i only do that for my favorite movies (like war games,hackers, etc..)

TV shows i convert them from DVD to MKV as well, takes time but mymovies reads it easier

Wow....we do almost exactly the same things.....I've been watching the farscape series that I got on blu....never saw the series on tv....converted all of it to mkv....when I travel I just move some of those to the laptop so I can watch using media player classic home cinema. Very convenient. I covert DVD tv series to mkv too.

 

[Adam]

I only had maybe 1 or 2 movies out of about 100 i ripped last night that gave me issues, and that was just anal stuff like the FOLDER name.

Then i moved onto my OTHER movies that i "received", ya know the ones on dvd-rs' well those proved to have issues... not sure WHY really, but some of them woudlnt rip, they would blast through it and pop out a few minutes later, but the movie didnt play, had a few cases like that, i didnt care since i dont watch DVD's anymore this is just for archiving so i can get rid of the old dvds taking up space.

 

[AQ_OC]

I only had maybe 1 or 2 movies out of about 100 i ripped last night that gave me issues, and that was just anal stuff like the FOLDER name.

Then i moved onto my OTHER movies that i "received", ya know the ones on dvd-rs' well those proved to have issues... not sure WHY really, but some of them woudlnt rip, they would blast through it and pop out a few minutes later, but the movie didnt play, had a few cases like that, i didnt care since i dont watch DVD's anymore this is just for archiving so i can get rid of the old dvds taking up space.

Hmm...I actually don't follow you on that....I've had good luck with my stuff...and the stuff it didn't take I ended up filling in the info and contributing to their database.

I have converted a large part of my DVD collection to blu-ray...but since my receiver does a decent job of upscaling, I'm at the point where I'm only going to buy new releases on Blu....