Disk Space for Movies in home network

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kiwis

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#254423 11-Aug-2019 19:12

I've got a desktop PC in one room.

In another room, I have a laptop which I've got connected to a TV via a HDMI cable.

I want to be able to store movies on a nutural device which can be accessed by either at anytime.

For example, If they're on my PC it needs to be on to watch them on the laptop/tv and I don't want to have to copy them across each time. I could use an external drive but looking at a disk or something which can be connected via cat5 cable maybe

Is there something I could do?

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#2294353 11-Aug-2019 19:20

You want a NAS unit. Is a shared networked drive basically.

XPD / Gavin

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chevrolux

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#2294354 11-Aug-2019 19:21

A little baby NAS would be all you want. A little two-bay unit would do the trick.

Synology is my personal favourite, purely because their software is REALLY good. But these days probably any of the good brands would do the same job.

Consider running Plex to manage your media and for play back.

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#2294355 11-Aug-2019 19:23

Agree with above. I have a 4 bay Synology NAS and it Just Works. I use it for backups and sharing media to all devices on my home network.

Cheers - N

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kiwis

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#2294367 11-Aug-2019 19:40

cool, can you convert an old laptop or is a speciality bit of kit?

hio77

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#2294368 11-Aug-2019 19:41

kiwis:

cool, can you convert an old laptop or is a speciality bit of kit?

That would make to to start out, you will likely quickly outgrow it though

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2294378 11-Aug-2019 19:52

kiwis:

I want to be able to store movies on a nutural device which can be accessed by either at anytime.

A NAS is the way to go as others have suggested, but we need more information to provide informed suggestions. I have an eight-bay NAS for this very purpose, with 24TB of usable space, almost full. A little two-bay NAS won't come close to meeting my space and data redundancy requirements.

Here are a few things to consider...

How many movies do you plan to store?
Do you need redundancy in case of disk failure?
Are the movies downloaded or ripped from DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray?
Do you want the films stored with their original quality from optical media, and do you require multiple soundtracks?
Are you wanting to play these on a range of devices for which transcoding may be required?

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#2294391 11-Aug-2019 20:21

kiwis:

cool, can you convert an old laptop or is a speciality bit of kit?

Its a standalone bit of kit.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NASSYN01190/Synology-DiskStation-DS119j-1-Bay-NAS-Server-Marve

That one is the most basic, single drive - do recommend 2 bay or more, for redundancy so if a drive fails, you dont lose anything.

They do not come with drives, so you have to factor those into the price as well.

XPD / Gavin

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chevrolux

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#2294434 11-Aug-2019 21:32

SirHumphreyAppleby:
kiwis:

I want to be able to store movies on a nutural device which can be accessed by either at anytime.

A NAS is the way to go as others have suggested, but we need more information to provide informed suggestions. I have an eight-bay NAS for this very purpose, with 24TB of usable space, almost full. A little two-bay NAS won't come close to meeting my space and data redundancy requirements.

Here are a few things to consider...

How many movies do you plan to store?
Do you need redundancy in case of disk failure?
Are the movies downloaded or ripped from DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray?
Do you want the films stored with their original quality from optical media, and do you require multiple soundtracks?
Are you wanting to play these on a range of devices for which transcoding may be required?

I wouldn't see the point in redundancy if it's just movies. So 2x 12TB drives gets you pretty close to 24TB ;-)

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2294484 12-Aug-2019 05:53

chevrolux:

I wouldn't see the point in redundancy if it's just movies. So 2x 12TB drives gets you pretty close to 24TB ;-)

If you'd spent hundreds of hours ripping your entire DVD and Blu-ray collection, ensuring every TV episode is ordered and named correctly, I think you'd see things differently.

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#2294491 12-Aug-2019 07:00

"Buy a NAS" is the standard answer, but isn't always necessary. A NAS is just a low power computer made to share files from disks, but some have other functions. A standard PC can do this job just as well, you already own it, and you're probably already paying for the power to run it.

Instead of spending hundreds or thousands on a NAS I just got a couple more drives for my PC, which is on most of the time anyway, media is shared across our network. Our media players are on Ethernet, but WiFi works fine. I just used standard windows file sharing, Kodi picks it up fine.

Item

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#2294521 12-Aug-2019 08:48

I just got an 8Tb WD drive cheap from Amazon and plugged into my main PC which runs Plex.

I then use Plex on my Apple TV in the lounge and the Plex app on mine and the wife's various devices to stream the content. Works brilliantly

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1cloud

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#2294539 12-Aug-2019 09:40

kiwis:

I've got a desktop PC in one room.

I raspberry Pi with an external hdd would do. a good budget solution

BarTender

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#2294546 12-Aug-2019 09:45

If you wanted NAS style features on a desktop PC then you could consider unraid or freenas.

Unraid is a one off purchase vs freenas which is free. But you get a whole lot more features and support with unraid.

I have two NASs at home, a WD NAS which works well enough and if I was to upgrade I would probably go for a Synology.

Plus I purchase an old full sized 2U rack server off Trademe which had 6TB in it for less than $120 (it has 12x600GB disks I am running in a Raid 5 11+1). I run Unraid on that and only power it on when I need it as it's dammed loud and sucks a LOT of power. But for "cheap" enterprise grade storage you couldn't go wrong as buying a new disk wasn't even that cheap.

antoniosk

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#2294547 12-Aug-2019 09:46

I would really work through the end to end expectations of your experience before you buy anything.

For example it was common for many nas drives to deploy iTunes server capability,,., which was ok for full blown iTunes on a computer and poor on their mobile devices, let alone other brands.

It’s not hard, just map what you want to view on from where and then work backwards.

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antoniosk

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#2294548 12-Aug-2019 09:46

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