Use a server or have hard drives included in PC?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Use a server or have hard drives included in PC?

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Psilan

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#356592 26-Jul-2010 15:32

I do the same thing as Buzzy. I keep the htcp on 24/7 as it serves and downloads.

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buzzy

217 posts

Master Geek

#356611 26-Jul-2010 16:00

Nety: Buzzy is there a particular reason that you do not have your HTPC go to sleep?

Yeah. The HTPC's female, so it's a bugger to wake it up, and even then it's useless for half an hour after that ;)

On a serious note, because the HTPC's also a server for other machines in the house, someone could go to another system to watch a movie, listen to music, etc. All of that is stored on the HTPC, and if it's asleep then the remote PC can't access the music, movies, TV, etc. The result of which is serious WAF issues.

The alternative is to have a separate server, and I could put the HTPC to sleep. I'd still be running one PC all the time, so I didn't see the point.

Oh, and the longstanding hey-let's-randomly-delete-all-your-files bug in Windows Home Server put me off that. I back up to a USB drive that spends most of its time safely off the premises :)

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#356618 26-Jul-2010 16:03

Buying a "NAS" box seems to me a waste of money. I have looked at these options and I found that it was cheaper to use an old pc and just fill that with hard drives. It is even cheaper to buy a case and hardware to make a pc "NAS" that it is to buy those already made solutions.

Nety

2584 posts

Uber Geek

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#356664 26-Jul-2010 17:13

buzzy:
Oh, and the longstanding hey-let's-randomly-delete-all-your-files bug in Windows Home Server put me off that.

You mean the bug that was fixed in PP1? (we are now up to PP3) and it was only ever if you used specific software and only affected the files that you were using with that program.

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cldlr76

289 posts

Ultimate Geek

#356700 26-Jul-2010 18:28

Does anyone know if IPods, Iphones or Ipads connect alright to WHS to access media?

buzzy

217 posts

Master Geek

#356719 26-Jul-2010 19:13

Nety: You mean the bug that was fixed in PP1? (we are now up to PP3) and it was only ever if you used specific software and only affected the files that you were using with that program.

Yep, that'd be the one - it was relevant at the time I was making the decision, although in the end it wasn't the determining factor. Hadn't looked at it since, but at the time there were a lot of people griping about the lack of a fix.

PANiCnz

990 posts

Ultimate Geek

#356728 26-Jul-2010 19:47

I don't like the way WHS does it storage pools, seems wasteful to me, I prefer ZFS or RAID5 which is easier to implement with Linux/FreeBSD or a distro like FreeNAS

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Nety

2584 posts

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#356754 26-Jul-2010 20:40

PANiCnz: I don't like the way WHS does it storage pools, seems wasteful to me, I prefer ZFS or RAID5 which is easier to implement with Linux/FreeBSD or a distro like FreeNAS

The reason it is done the way it is from my understanding is you can throw any HDD in there and add it to the pool. No need for matching drives and also you can select what you want protected and what you don't.

golfpunk111

94 posts

Master Geek

#356862 27-Jul-2010 01:50

so i am doing the whs thing and using it as a media server as well as computer back ups gonna have about 6tb of storage there. i am now wondering what is the best way to stream the movies to my samsung led tv, i have a graphics card with hdmi out i can put in there, probably will cos it's spare and then i could also stick a blu ray drive in there and play blu ray discs from there direct to the tv through media center or something similar or i could use the ethernet cable and the dlna from the tv but i was reading that it may not be 100% compatible with whs?

probably will stick the graphics card in along with the AMD Athlon X2 3.2ghz processor in from my other computer then upgrade the computer afterwards to an intel i5

what you guys think about that would it be feasible?

shadybrothers

236 posts

Master Geek

#357392 27-Jul-2010 21:21

I have Serviio running on my WHS box. My Samsung sees the WHS box as a Dlna device and I can use the Samsung remote to navigate my media files. Highly reccommended.

this is a slap in the face!

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