Home Media Server

  • WELCOME TO THE NEW SERVER!

    If you are seeing this you are on our new server WELCOME HOME!

    While the new server is online Scott is still working on the backend including the cachine. But the site is usable while the work is being completes!

    Thank you for your patience and again WELCOME HOME!

    CLICK THE X IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF THE BOX TO DISMISS THIS MESSAGE

Kraven

Resident Bozo
Original poster
Jun 2, 2012
11,917
2,941
Northern, VT
Tired of dragging USB keys all over the how and thinking its time to link all the TVs together to a central server.
Anyone ever attempt this?

Cheers, K
 
What's your budget?

I'm currently running a 48TB unRAID server. unRAID 6.0 now supports Dockers. So, in addition to your storage, you can run Kodi, Emby, Plex, etc, all from the same hardware. I currently run Plex (for external use), Emby (for my in-house Windows Media Centers) and CrashPlan (for backing up whats on my server).

I'm almost out of space, so I'm running the pros/cons right now of upgrading all my 4TB drives to 8TB drives, or build a second, identical server.
 
My NAS is almost maxed out at 12TB and I have more stuff stored on external drives. Time to upgrade.

I was using WDTV boxes around the house that I had looking at the NAS, but since Tivo added Plex to the Roamio and Mini's last month I've been using it. I set it up to try and have it running on my desktop and looking at the NAS now.

I am impressed with it now, after I had some problems in the beginning. No switching TV inputs, the roamio and mini's can see everything from Plex. The Roamio's I have in Las Vegas and at the Lake also see the Plex server. I tried Plex on my Roku and Chromecast's also and it works great.

I just need to make a decision on more storage and whether to leave Plex on this i7 desktop or look at a NAS or separate server to leave Plex running on by itself.
 
I use two Linksys NAS300 (8TB)for my media and a WD Live Hub for viewing on the TV. I also Have another 8TB on computer that is shared on the network.
 
I have about 50gb of media so am trying not to bust the bank.

Both Rokus have PLEX, the Ipad has Kodi and the Linux laptop has both plex and Kodi.
 
What I was thinking of doing is setting up a spare desktop w/ the media along w/ kodi/plex and connecting it directly into the router in the utility room.
 
What I was thinking of doing is setting up a spare desktop w/ the media along w/ kodi/plex and connecting it directly into the router in the utility room.

That's a good start. If you aren't looking to spend a fortune, the Seagate 4TB (ST4000DM000) drives have been fairly reliable. If you are looking for somewhat protected storage, you will need something like FreeNAS or unRAID. Or you could use software raid if you are running Windows or Linux.
 
If you have a spare computer, you could make your own NAS out of it. Ive used BSD for NAS's before and it worked good, was quite a while ago now though. Only downfall was having to leave the PC with it installed on all of the time. I think FreeNAS is based on BSD.
 
Synology with 2 3TB drives, plus external, external hooked to router, 2 2 TB's hooked to WDTV live... various externals I can hook up plus my media servers can see my pc also...


I absolutely love my Synology box. Currently have 2 3TB drives with two empty drive bays for expansion.
 
Doing a DIY NAS solution.
Mini ITX running Debian with one of these in the cdrom bay:
Amazon product ASIN B00HKEI4JS
SSD for the OS drive. Currently a single 1TB drive for storage.
Going to setup RAID 1 (mirrored) using two 2.5 '' WD "RED" drives and mdadm. 1 TB is more than plenty for me.
Amazon product ASIN B00EHBES1UHOWTO here:
http://www.tecmint.com/create-raid1-in-linux/

And I have one of these UPSs. It works well with linux to cleanly shutdown the box via USB in case of power failure.
Amazon product ASIN B000XJJN60
Access via Gigabit Network interface connected to Cisco 3560G Gigabit switch.
Also Cisco access points on network running up to 300Mbps.
File transfer rates are pretty fast even on wifi.
 
Last edited:
I use a Synology 5 bay NAS with 5tb drives for the simplicity of management. I spend enough time wrangling about 100ish servers and 600ish OS Instances that I want to spend very little time on this.

I have > 400 Blu-ray disks ripped and just upgraded from 3TB disks around May.

I also have my music library ripped and new MP3 purchases are stored on an older ReadyNAS NV+ with 2TB drives.

Again, ease of use/management were the driving factors.

Inuse Dune Smart players and software named Zappiti for library management.



Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 
How much space do you have on your desktop? I would suggest getting a Popcorn Box. Several of us here have them.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)