Which OS for HTPC/Storage ??

[Dexmaus]

I recently purchased a HP Proliant Server ML150. and bought 4 Seagate enterprise 2TB hds, supposedly they have really low failure rates. I want to use this system as a backup system/file storage and be able to play movies on it regularly. which OS should i go with? I have a copy of Windows server 2008 from work but its only good for storage part.

 

[dropadrop]

You mean you'll just use it as storage for the movies? For a HTPC I run Ubuntu server minimal and XBMC as the front end. It works well for what it is (a media player), but Ubuntu IMO breaks too often to be used as a server. For that I would prefer CentOS or Debian (personally CentOS since I'm used to RHEL from work).

If only for storage (and streaming movies stored on it) you have a lot of options. If you just want something simple then have a look which dedicated storage OS (freenas etc) works well on the hardware. Otherwise take the route you want to learn (debian, opensolaris, centos etc).

 

[Cpmiller22]

Personally, I'd suggest getting a small dedicated HTPC (I have a zotac) and run xbmc with either ubuntu, win 7, or xbmc live for the os. Then you can have your server focused on storage. I personally run win2008r2 with 4 2tb seagates in RAID 5. Plenty of solid non-windows storage server recommendations out there if do a little searching. I'm actually also using my server to run vm's as well (windows HyperV). Ultimately there are lots of options, just depends on what you want to accomplish. That said, I would recommend separating your media playback and storage capabilities for lots of reasons.