Media Server

[Sadge]

Anyone have any expierience setting up a home media server? Here's my situation:

I used to work for movie studios and I have literally around 1000 DVDs. Now that my daughter is starting to crawl, I'm trying to rid myself of the bookcases that house these DVD's -- she simply spends her time pulling them down and leaving a mess for me to clean. So I did a little math -- giving 10 GB per DVD * 1000 DVDs translated into 10TB of information (I know these are all rough numbers, but ti's a good starting point).

I've been looking at the HP MediaCenter 500GB model (since I'm figuring I'm going to replace the 500 GB drive anyway there's no point in getting the 1 TB model that has 2 500GB drives). My problem then becomes 1) Getting another computer to attach to my TV for output of the DVD files, 2) transfer rates, and 3) storage space as the HP currently states that it can only handle up to 7 TB (although the brochure states unlimited upgrading). I know I'm going to have to go CAT6 but I was wondering if anyone had any expierience with this. Anyone out there set up their own media server? How does it work for you? Anyone have any other ideas to set up the server?

Any help here would be great. I'm not trying to break the bank, so I'd like to be able to keep to under $5000 if possible. Any suggestions?

 

[stevieg]

only bet for that kind of storage is to build it yourself

Best case is a coolermaster stacker it has 9 5.25" bays, which allows you to run 3 of these http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/mobilerack/CSE-M35TQ.cfm which would give you 15 3.5" sata drive bays plus the additional 4-6 Internal 3.5" bays

best bang for you buck HDD's are the seagate barracuda 7200.11 750gb which are about $175ea right now.

then you would need a couple these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009 which will run in a normal PCI slot, note these are not RAID, i will get to that in a second.

And lastly run windows home server, it has a very unique way of handling Data and protecting it from single disk hard drive failures, you choose what network "shares" to protect and which to leave vulnerable.


Steve

 

[Sadge]

Steve that's pretty awesome and about exactly what I was looking for.

Is homer server available for retail purchase? I thought that HP had an exclusive deal on that.

 

[Bearcub]

Is there a reason you wouldn't want to go with a raid setup? I mean, raid5 or something? Just curious.

Thanks!

 

[stevieg]

Is there a reason you wouldn't want to go with a raid setup? I mean, raid5 or something? Just curious.

Thanks!

for most things I don't feel the need to run a raid5 for data protection, thats the nice thing about home server is that you can choose what to have protected via Mirroring the data between two physical drives, for example in a raid5 setup if i had 4 750gb drives i would only have 2.25 useable capacity, raid 1 i would only have 1.5tb useable capacity. In my case i only have about 50gb of data that my wife would rip my nuts off if i lost (ie family digital photos) running the WHS setup I would have 3TB of useable space minus 100gb (50gb mirrored)

This really is nothing new as this is how AS400 and the rest of the mid0range IBM products have done it for the last 25+ years

Steve

 

[kukmuk]

Just curious, why don't you compress your DVD's to DIVX format (or something else if you prefer) and store them at about 700MB instead of 10GB? As for raw drive space, if you plan to have 14 750GB drives to hit your 10TB of data... I would highly suggest a raid 5, as you only lose the equivalent of 1 drive, but gain the ability to recover if any one drive fails. If you prefer not, you will still most likely need to buy some kind of enterprise level drive shelf, high capacity raid controller, multiple raid controllers, or some motherboard I have never heard of that has 15+ SATA connections.

Just my opinion, but I would suggest much less drive space (you really don't need it), compress your DVD's (quality loss is either negligible or not even existent for DVD quality), load Windows XP Media Center Edition (or Vista Home Premium / Ultimate) or MythTV if you are a Linux fan, toss in a 1/2 way decent tuner card (m780) and enjoy watching TV and DVD's from a nice looking menu off your computer. If you decide to go this route, feel free to PM me any questions, I have built numerous MCE computers.

--kukmuk

 

[Sadge]

I don't know -- any kind of compression makes me nervous when you're talking about playback on a 73"+ screen. I know that 10 GB per DVD is overkill as I'm sure the average space per DVD would probably fall somewhere in the 7-8 GB range.

This next statement will show you how stupid I am, but at this moment I don't care about backup. I wouldn't be getting rid of the DVDs that I own, so I would actually see the server as a backup of my DVDs. If for some reason the backup fails, I can go back to the original source without a problem.

Back in reality, I realize that it's not as easy as that. But it might be a moot point anyway, as I think I found what I'm looking for. I found a parts listing for a 40 drive system for under $2000 (without the drives). While I don't need that many drives now, I can scale down for my current needs and add on later. If anyone's interested, I'll find the link and you can see what I'm looking at (I just happen to be at home atm so I'm not on my laptop where the info is stored or I'd provide the link now).

Thanks for the response and the ideas, guys.

 

[htw]

Personally, I'd set up NAS device(s), and use xbox XBMC, or similar media device (there are several great ones available). Even if you use a PC, you can still do the same via win media connect, Nero Media Home, etc., instead of needing to go the media center. Just MHO!!

htw

 

[Bearcub]

Actually, with 14 drives, I'd prolly go raid6...but that's me. And, I understand the thing of a small part, but I would think that, with wanting to push everything up, the majority of the space he wants protected from loss, so mirror'd would actually eat up most of it.

 

[JimJohnson]

why not just buy a better movie rack for your DVDs so they cannt get into it? that be cheaper then droping 3k on a media server to hold your collection

 

[Bearcub]

why not just buy a better movie rack for your DVDs so they cannt get into it? that be cheaper then droping 3k on a media server to hold your collection

Maybe, but the Media Server is SOOOO much cooler!

 

[Zero0003]

I had the same idea. Which thats it what I'v been doing over the past few months. Used to work at a video store so have over 600 DVD's. Been converting them over to Xvid format. Still great quality. Every video is around 800mb - 1 gig in file size.


I wanted to be able to view my dvd's on my dell projector I have, so what I did was get 1 TB external hard drive. $300 roughly best buy. Also got the Media Player $250, Almost looks like a tivo box. Media Player is a Wireless Video source that you plug into TV and watch movies off a network computer with the movie hard drive, or attach it thru USB and watch movies thru that way.

If you got any question PM me.

 

[thez]

Or you could buy binders for your DVDs...I've got ~500 DVDs, and I have them separated into 27 binders, sorted by the first letter of the movie. Even that much separation wouldn't be necessary...you could combine three-letter combos in a single binder, (abc, xyz, etc). As for "backing up" your DVDs...at a $5000 max spending on this, you could just replace up to 250 of those DVDs if you manage to fuck them. Plus, binders store a whole lot easier than 1000 DVDs and (if you buy some of the more padded ones) can be fairly kid-safe.

 

[kukmuk]

JJ and Thez win so far with the KISS method, however MCE's really are cool. It is great to grab a torrent for a full season or series at a time of a TV show, I am working my way through Prison Break at the moment. It's awesome to sit down select the next episode and hit play.

 

[JimJohnson]

Don't get me wrong MCE would be cool, but the start up on a project like that from scratch. Is not going to be cheap if your wanting to slap in 10TBs. I think your 10GB per DVD is rather high. DVDs are 4.7GB r

 

[Sadge]

Yeah but we're talking retail DVDs which are DVD9's not DVD5 ... which is what ... 8.5 GB? So I rounded up. But like I said earlierthe reality is prolably somewhere between 7-8 GB per DVD (granted some will be DVD5, but I would think that most are DVD9's).

Attached is a picture of my current DVD setup. I've also attached my current components and a picutre of a closet behind the DVD wall.

Part of the reason I want a server is because I want to rid myself of all this crap sitting out (not only for ym daughter but for a "clena" look to my living room). The plan is to mount a TV to the wall where the DVDs currently are and "hide" everything in the closet. I have a cooling system for the room but the roon obviously won't house the amount of DVDs that I have. A rack-mounted system would work well for me I think.

@thez -- I already have several binders full of "other" DVDs movies. Part of the probelm is that I have a mild case of OCD and have the need to keep all my movies organized (if you could look close enough at the bookcases you'll notice they're in order). I literally spend hours going through the binders reorganizing them just to add new movie I aquire. It eats up so much time in my life that I figure the nedia server could also help there maybe (eventually). When I go out and buy a new DVD, I won't have to make room for it on the shelf or binder.

@ JJ -- Do you think you could come up witrh a better rack that would hold all them and keep them off the floor so the baby couldn't get to them? I'm sure I could find some shelves to mount to the wall but I don't think it would look very pleasing. I'm open to suggestions though.

I know I won't be able to do all this for under $5000. But I threw that figure out to show you I'm not looking to go high end -- someone suggested a $25000 server rig. I don't want to pay that much. The parts list for the rig that I'm looking at is around $2000 -- that's 1 main and 3 enclosures that hold 10 drives each for a total of 40 drives (obviously that doesn't include the drives themselves). The price for just the main hovers at around $800. Add a video card, sound card, OS and 10 drives and I think I can bring the main in for just over $2000. Then I still will be able to upgrade as my collection continues to grow. Remember that for now, I'm only looking to get rid of the DVDs that are on the bookcases. So while future expandability is important, just doing the main I think would be enough for now.

Hope that gives you guys some idea of where my head's at. I appriciate you guys throwing out ideas and suggestions. I really do listen to them.