Want to build server for storage and possibly outputting XBMC via HDMI to TV

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colbert

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Aug 21, 2007
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Hi there, looking for help with a small machine that I would like to pop a few of my spare HDs in for storage, and either use only as storage or (more likely) run XBMC on it to output to my TV, preferably via HDMI (would need low-profile HDMI-out video card right?).

Appreciate any help on specific parts, I have only built standard ATX desktop PCs in the past. Budget I don't know, if you guys can give me average estimates for the parts/build I'm fine with what is needed.

ALSO, dumb question: Say I have this little machine, HDMI out to my TV (plain TV on a stand), the TV plays the sound, yes? I mean, the server machine itself isn't outputting the sound/I don't need speakers on the server? Thanks for any help!
 
Well, if you want just basic file storage / XBMC support than a AM1 chip and matching motherboard should work fine for something inexpensive. If you want something with a bit more oomph there's the FM2 or FM2+ chips.

as to #2: yes, the audio will be passed along in whatever format the TV or receiver can support for it to deal with.
 
Do you just want to know what hardware to get or do you also need advice how to set it all up ?

You aren't clear if you want a NAS or just a Media Center PC that can house hard disks (how many ?)

If you want an SFF PC which supports XBMC, anything with some basic performance will do fine, since this even runs on a Rapsberry Pi.

If you want an SFF NAS which supports XBMC, it all depends how many disks will need to be supported and how many simultaneous users will be using it's disks.

I have a friend using an Intel NUC that runs XBMC with ease and will even support 4K UHD when the time comes. It's small, it's quiet and it's very energy-efficient. But it can't house harddisks. For that, he has a NAS somewhere else. It allows him to copy movies on it through his PC and manage the files, without a need to sit in front of the TV to do that.

It all depends what you want and what you need.
 
Thanks, I should have been more clear! Sorry :) I've been thinking a bit more about my situation. I currently have a desktop (Q6600/8GB ram/128GB SSD/various HDs/650TX/750W PSU in Antec 900) and what I'm thinking is one of these options:

a. Keep desktop as is, build new SFF PC just for XBMC viewing on TV, put the various HDs from my desktop into said new build.

b. Build new desktop (current one is from Feb 2007 so it's been time coming anyhow), keeping current desktop as my HTPC/server; I would just put my SSD into new desktop and keep the HDs in this one for the storage.

(Just checking out some NAS on newegg.ca and other reviews, I think I'd prefer having my own SFF PC I build and install Arch linux on, I just love to do it all myself, and I already have the drives.)

I am not sure between A or B above, but to help if anyone could provide some good specific parts for the SFF PC that will accomplish my goal(s) then I can budget and get closer to deciding. Thank you kindly for any help!!

EDIT: Damn, another question: I have a 2TB, 1.5TB, 1TB and 500GB x 3 (2 in bags in drawer, not in PC), so I'm guessing if I go RAID I need to get some new drives (as in 4 of the same, for example), yes? Thanks!

EDIT2: Oops forgot, the entire setup is only for outputting to my TV and sometimes laptop when I'll be in bed, I am moving into small condo, just me.
 
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Well, let's start off with the HDD's:

2TB + 1.5TB + 1TB + 500GB + 500GB + 500GB = 6TB
Basically I you want 6TB of space and you want the minimum of one drive failure not impacting your data, you'd want to have four 2TB drives. You could get 3 more 2TB's and sell the other disks to compensate. If you don't care about any safety, just keep the drives as-is and we just need to figure out a good solution for 6 drives. I personally prefer ZFS-based NAS'es because they are stable, very resilient to corruption issues (built-in bit-level error correction) and the software is entirely free (FreeNAS, NAS4Free, ZFSGuru). It does require some Linux/Unix knowledge to be able to troubleshoot, but considering you mention ArchLinux, that won't be a problem.

If you don't want the hassle, a Synology NAS will get you started easily, but up to 4 disks. Higher is much more costly.

But these solutions depend on splitting off the use of HTPC and NAS. I personally recommend it, since 6 spinning disks (all different noise patterns most likely) won't be quiet for most people. But this you'll have to determine yourself.

Now if you don't care about size (but still "SFF") and ease-of-use, because you'd like a challenge and want to do it yourself, and you want a HTPC + NAS in one system, I recommend the following:

  • GIGABYTE GA-H97N-WIFI (link)
  • Intel Pentium G3240 (link)
  • ADATA XPG (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 RAM (link)
  • Fractal Design Node 304 (link)
  • SeaSonic S12II 430B 430W PSU (link)

This totals to about $450 for a basic but decent system with HDMI that can support XBMC and 6 disks, even with ZFS NAS software. The 8GB RAM is not needed for XBMC but ZFS NAS really likes 4GB RAM at the minimum for itself. You could go with 4GB but I recommend more if you are going with ZFS (.

Considerations:
Motherboard: mITX 6-port SATA boards aren't that plentiful, one of the less expensive options, which also has an Intel NIC + Atheros NIC, WiFi+BT, HDMI and quality components.
CPU: more than enough for Linux + XBMC and possibly ZFS-on-Linux. It has Intel HD Graphics which work well with XBMC and it has good single- and multithreaded performance, without demanding too much power.
RAM: basically I choose the cheapest DDR3-1600 2x4GB kit with CAS latency 9 with standard 1.5V that didn't have stupid heatsinks and was from a reputable company. Faster RAM has no benefit, except with AMD APU's.
Case: it's a well-designed case which serves the purpose of up to 6 disks.
PSU: a decent PSU, although you could go for a 80PLUS Gold for a little more if needed. Just check that it has atleast 6 SATA power connectors, some at the lower Watt specs do not have more than 4.

Others: ZFS requires complete disks and prefereably of the same size, so I recommend installing Linux on a fast USB 3.0-stick, considering the 6 SATA-ports will be occupied. If you just want a bunch of disks available through LAN and don't care about safety or redundancy, you can still use ZFS with just seperate volumes but it's benefits are mostly lost.

The Q6600 setup you have would be good enough for XBMC and also ZFS NAS but it is most likely a lot more inefficient power-wise. I don't know how much that matters to you. It all depends how much you use each system.
 
Shit I can't begin to thank you enough man, that's amazing help!!

You bring up a key point I forgot: noise! I forgot that was one of the things I thought of when I decided I want a separate HTPC :eek:

Yes I am comfy with linux, but you make a real good case for NAS. So just real simple, NAS is going to be a headless machine I can administer via web app/ssh/other means, from another computer yes? I would be fine with that.

Now the bottom line with my HDs and a NAS, that I gather from your post, is I can use up to 4 drives in that one (or models along that price), but realistically if I commit to the NAS route then I buy that and 3 new drives to really get the value of it OR I spend the $450 in your blueprint and pop my current drives into the SFF, and voila (I don't get the bells and whistles of the NAS ZFS deal), correct?

If so, then I'm looking at $370 (NAS)+~$300 (3x2TB more) for $670 for NAS vs. $450 for SFF, is that accurate? Thanks a ton
 
Yes it's about correct. No problem with the help, what good is knowledge if I can't share it :)
I may have not been entirely clear on the ZFS front, so I'll explain that a little more with my limited technical knowledge on the matter:

ZFS is a filesystem (FS), like NTFS and ext4, that is much more "involved" in the protection of data. You can use this in Linux, on the same machine you plan to use XBMC. Or you could build a dedicated NAS.

With most other FS'es, you'd have disks formatted in them and at a higher level (the FS doesn't know this) have a RAID-array made from them through software or hardware. This RAID controller would also prevent bit-level errors from happening upon reading-writing, but once it has send the data to the drive for write, it's up to the disk to prevent errors.

ZFS integrates the RAID function in the FS, so the FS knows it is operating in a redundant setup in this way it can directly see when a bit-level error occurs. This allows a much more resilient functionality, because even corrupt disks can't destroy your array (unless you are running without any parity) or feed you corrupted data. It also has many other advanced features like built-in snapshots and deduplication.

The fun in all this is, this can benefit a single drive in a desktop or an entire datacenter, because it scales from a single disk to 18.446.744.073.709.551.616 disks (yeah indeed, 18 quintillion) in a single "zpool" (look at it as a collection of disks) and it can have the same amount of zpools in a single installation.

The problem is, ZFS isn't yet integrated in many devices or OS's. Linux has had the support for a while luckily. This means you'll be able to use it on a Linux install (if prefered).

A NAS is then a storage connected through network. Basically it is an option if you want to use this but I highly recommend HTPC users to use NAS'es, because most people don't want to manage files in front of their TV but behind a PC) It also allows (if you want) some form of data protection if using ZFS with parity disks (RAIDZ) or the well known RAID5 most consumer 4+ HDD NAS'es support. Remember that any form of RAID requires equal sized disks, otherwise it will be the lowest common denominator (500GB in your case), which would be sad.
You could also store the disks inside the HTPC, but noise could be the concern.

You could have the Synology NAS and not need to worry about learning about NAS'es and it's inner workings, along with it being "out of the way", because basically once it's set-up, you probably won't be needing to touch it except for disk replacement. Many people just put them somewhere in a closet (mind the heat though), it keeps it out of sight, also for burglars. But mind you, these don't have ZFS (yet).

But to come back to the Synology, with 4 x 2TB disks you'd have 8TB of unformatted capacity, making it 6TB (3 x 2TB) with a single parity disk (RAID5), which means it would allow any one drive to fail. This would give you the same capacity as you have now (all 6 disks) but with the protection of a single drive failure and less drives that can potentially fail. Because it's a NAS, all the network-enabled devices could be allowed to use it's data. So it shares your data and protects it too. For the really important stuff, a good backup (daily copies to an external hard drive, for instance) is still recommended, as a NAS might still fail and give issues to retrieving data.

Or you could just connect them all (like with the hardware I recommended) and just share them all, as normal disks without the fuss. It all depends how important the data is. Can you live with a drive fail ? Can you live with managing files on the couch ? Can and do I want to handle a DIY NAS based on ZFS ? Do I need ZFS and RAIDZ or is RAID5 good enough for me ?
These need to be answered to get to a solution that's best for you.
 
That is super clear, thank you so much. I have always used ext4 on linux (had LVM for a while too), I had a RAID5 setup briefly, so ZFS makes sense to me.

So the Synology does not allow ZFS, or am I misreading what you said (likely haha)? I see on the newegg.ca page specs it has various RAID options but nothing about ZFS, so for ZFS I would need to go the HTPC route?

Can you live with a drive fail ?
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Welp I haven't had any fail yet (oh boy), and if I get what you mean by asking that (as in not having a drive fail since that's random and always possible, but rather the consequences of no parity/RAID so your setup is fudged if it happens @8:30pm when you got home hoping to watch a show with a hot meal :eek:), then no certainly I'd want to have the system with as much uptime as possible.

Can you live with managing files on the couch ?
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I was thinking I could do any management from my desktop which would be quite close, if not laptop and/or phone. This I don't think is an issue for me thankfully.

Can and do I want to handle a DIY NAS based on ZFS ?
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I think I am quite comfortable thanks to using linux for many years to handle these setups with all the shell commands that can be thrown at me :)

Do I need ZFS and RAIDZ or is RAID5 good enough for me ?
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This I am not sure about as I don't know enough about ZFS and RAIDZ to decide.

One thing's for sure, after many years of XBMC and home media library usage, I am at the most space I've ever used and capacity had, and I'm using (just tallied) roughly ~3.5TB of media storage, so I definitely fit into a small home server category and would go the route best for such a need.
 
Barebone NAS'es like the Synology and QNAP ones indeed don't support ZFS (yet), but I'm hoping them to eventually. So if you want ZFS, you'd need to build a PC for it (or use your current one). But I recommend using a system with low idle power for that because NAS'es aren't useful if you need to turn them on everytime to do something :) And if they are on 24/7, you'd want something with good energy-saving (Socket 1155/1150 platform has that), potentially splurge on a 80+Gold-rated PSU too.

But if you want redundancy, you'd have to look at storage setups that involve some kind of parity, like RAIDZ with ZFS of RAID5 with the onboard Intel controller or in Linux. But for that, you need/want equally-sized disks. It's a big cost but you could recuperate some of it with selling off the other drives (certainly the sealed ones).
 
That does illuminate the NAS situation for me. The choice between NAS and my own storage is clearer now. One option I came across is the Amazon Fire TV, which runs XBMC. At $100 or so that seems like a damn good HTPC/front-end option, allowing me to go either NAS or storage server build. What do you think of it?
 
I have no experience with the Amazon Fire TV, I do have experience with the Raspberry Pi, Apple TV Gen 2 and an Intel dual-core Celeron N2820 NUC. While the issue is not with the media (unless high-bitrate), it's mainly with the overall speed. The Intel NUC (dual-cores and up) have atleast decent performance so even the menu's still respond swiftly. The Core i3's and up would even be able to handle 4K UHD when the time comes, maybe even the Celeron N2820.

I guess you should find some clips on Youtube about the Amazon Fire TV, how it handles XBMC and judge for yourself. But indeed, it would certainly be a good solution. That's how I prefer it. A full desktop build is just to bulky and overspecced for media center usage nowadays.
 
Haha what a clown I am, didn't think of just checking for some clips :eek: I did search and watch some clips, this one in particular is interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHL42krl7IA He compares it running Frodo and the latest Gotham version (kind of sluggish unfortunately). I then checked the XDA thread he links to with full details of what does/does not work on FireTV and unfortunately there are some limitations at the moment (HD audio and 24fps no workie), and I plan on having a receiver and speakers by the time I move for some home theater goodness.

The guy in that video mentions he had a Synology 1812+ and I checked newegg.ca, it appears to be out of stock/an older unit (here: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...97&cm_re=synology_1812-_-22-108-097-_-Product), would you know what an "equivalent" unit is? I'm guessing it might be some beasty NAS beyond what I need, but I'm just curious.

I am leaning toward the SFF PC for the time being, putting Arch linux on it and just sticking my storage drives into it. I am trying to save every penny up for my condo and I think having that for a little while and then grabbing a full-fledged NAS and new drives around maybe Xmas time is the way I should go.

The parts you listed in your earlier post for SFF (newegg.ca links), are you pretty set recommending those after all this discussion? In case anything I've said would recommend different parts, cuz I'll likely end up buying those you listed. Thanks a lot
 
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