NAS with ATV2 or new HTPC

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arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#108574 1-Sep-2012 14:49

Right, well I have an ATV2 that im borrowing off my work mate at the moment. Its pretty awesome, i love the remote and i like how its nice and small, and uses very little power.
I've got XBMC on it and am connecting it thru to my desktop PC that has some video files on it. I need to clear out that PC and move the videos to a central location.

I'm thinking of setting up a NAS, probably as a shuttle pc with freeNas on it. I'm wondering whether its best to just ditch the ATV and build my own HTPC. It'd be nice to leave it running 24/7 (to automatically download etc) so I want something with relatively low power usage, and quiet.

Which way do you think I should go?

PANiCnz

989 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680110 1-Sep-2012 15:53

If it were me I'd go for the combo of a central NAS for storage coupled with low power XBMC front ends such as the ATV2, Raspberry Pi or the numerous Android STB's that will shortly support XBMC.

FreeNAS can be configure to spin down the drives when idle, and the new Intel CPU's really don't use a lot of power at idle either.

Alternatively some of the nice QNAP NAS's use Marvel ARM CPU's so wouldn't use too much power but still offer the ability to host applications on them (LAMP etc).

arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680132 1-Sep-2012 17:23

Yeah that's probably the way I'm going to go.

How much does a Nas/shuttle box cost to build? Not really sure what specs I need..

PANiCnz

989 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680133 1-Sep-2012 17:25

If your aim is low power then you probably want to start from scratch with new hardware. If your willing to compromise on power usage then any old hardware will do.

A NAS/file server really only needs low end hardware.

Now would be a good idea to think about what other functions or roles the NAS might handle as this will guide you on what hardware is needed. e.g. will it host a SQL database for multiple XBMC clients?

PANiCnz

989 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680138 1-Sep-2012 17:29

I would think one of the Pentium or Celeron dual core chips coupled with a cheapish H61 board and a couple gigs of memory would be a good starting point.

A power supply around the 500w mark would be about right depending on other hardware and number of drives, ideally one with a single 12v rail.

The Western Digital Green drives are popular, but I've heard they don't play well in RAID, for this reason WD have just released the new Red series.

arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680505 2-Sep-2012 19:12

I want something similar to these:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=507935583

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=507766421

I like the small profile of them. These prices are alright, maybe i should buy one of these rather than make my own? Depends how much I could make my own for really

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680518 2-Sep-2012 19:34

I use the WD20EARX drives and they work just fine. There's a few performance and spec related drawbacks compared to higher-end drives, but they are more than made up for by the price.

flynkiwi

152 posts

Master Geek

#680548 2-Sep-2012 21:05

I have been thinking of doing something similar.
I am not too failure with lynx and found a good post about windows 8 as a home server. I know it's more hardware overhead but the drive pooling looks like a good option and being windows its easier.
http://www.wegotserved.com/2012/07/03/building-windows-8-home-server-introduction/
Thinking of xbmc front end but not sure what/how yet. Maybe rasberry pi.

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JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#680578 2-Sep-2012 21:49

I'm looking along the same lines as well. Preferred choice at the moment is a stand-alone NAS box, of which the QNAP TS-412 seems the front runner. Quite inexpensive compared to other options, the ability to put in a decent amount of storage, and an integrated low-power unit that seems to "just work" out of the box.

Will be used as a storage pool for backups (1xdesktop, 1x laptop), to stream music (to computers, an ipod and a stereo via an airport express), and as storage pool or films and TV (to serve 2x WD TV lives, and eventually the HTPC I also have on the drawing board). Plan is to load with 4x3TB drives, with 9TB usable and 3TB as a parity drive in RAID5. It has 2xeSATA ports that are compatible with port multipliers if I need extra storage down the road, and compatible 5-bay RAID5 enclosures seem to cost about $350.

Slightly cheaper than a purpose built PC, somewhat lower power draw, and less hassle all round. The HTPC will be more than complex enough, without making the storage solution more expensive and complex than it needs to be.

arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680606 3-Sep-2012 00:26

I ended up buying this http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=507766421

the P4 might end up being a bit slow, but we'll see how it goes

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680647 3-Sep-2012 08:51

IMO these types of devices would be your best option if you don't want another PC to build and maintain. Although FreeNAS and unRAID based system offer far more flexibility, they do take quite a bit of effort to build and keep operational.

arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#680963 3-Sep-2012 17:03

The benefit of getting a shuttle 'PC' rather than a dedicated NAS box is at least you can change to a nice lightweight *nix distro like lubuntu if you want more than NAS.
I'll be playing around with these options for a while before I decide on what to do. First I'll try freeNas though.

I'll post how it goes back in this thread

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#684712 12-Sep-2012 08:25

Update on my situation: I've ditched the dedicated NAS products for a full Linux Ubuntu server. The reason really boiled down to the ease of adding additional services on alternative platforms. While MYSQL works just fine running in a BSD jail on FreeNAS, it's still a pain to set up and painful if even more services are to be added.