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Started By
Message
Thinking about installing a whole-home media/network server
Posted on 8/21/14 at 2:49 pm
Posted on 8/21/14 at 2:49 pm
Who out there already has one set up?
As hardware becomes cheaper and servers become easier to configure... and as people are now wanting all of their devices/media to be connected and have a connection to them at all times, I can see this starting to become the norm. Everything can be stored, accessed, and run from a central location. Our wireless is fast enough. Our drives are fast enough. Our need/want is there.
I've got big plans for when I start building my home.
As hardware becomes cheaper and servers become easier to configure... and as people are now wanting all of their devices/media to be connected and have a connection to them at all times, I can see this starting to become the norm. Everything can be stored, accessed, and run from a central location. Our wireless is fast enough. Our drives are fast enough. Our need/want is there.
I've got big plans for when I start building my home.
6
Posted on 8/21/14 at 2:59 pm to ell_13
quote:
Our wireless is fast enough...
I've got big plans for when I start building my home.
Wire it.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:01 pm to Spock's Eyebrow
The static devices, sure... but tablets and phones won't be wired. 
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:09 pm to ell_13
I could be wrong, but I don't see things moving in that direction at all. It's all moving into datacenters, not your home.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:11 pm to Spock's Eyebrow
quote:
Wire it.
all you need is windows 8 to run it.
..this coming from someone who suffered through a dedicated WHS installation.
eta what defines a 'media server' anyway? a nice fast computer with an SSD somewhere in your house?
with chromecast and roku 'clients' scattered around your house along with phones & laptops & tablets...everything's already shared.
its all about the cloud bro.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 3:13 pm
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:13 pm to Casty McBoozer
quote:
It's all moving into datacenters, not your home.
cloud is good for lots of stuff but you will always need a big drive/array for your stuff too.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:14 pm to CAD703X
Cloud all the way.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:18 pm to CAD703X
quote:
cloud is good for lots of stuff but you will always need a big drive/array for your stuff too.
And people need to backup their data, but they don't. I don't see home media servers becoming normal unless it comes from the game consoles or maybe even the set top boxes if SSDs ever become really cheap. Western Digital is trying to sell a "private cloud" NAS that even includes mobile apps, but it's still a very niche product and I don't see that changing.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:19 pm to Prosecuted Collins
quote:
Cloud all the way.
no.
my 50GB BD MKVs will never fit in any cloud nor would it stream properly.
shite like that needs to be local.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:36 pm to CAD703X
quote:
no.
my 50GB BD MKVs will never fit in any cloud nor would it stream properly.
shite like that needs to be local.
It will.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:38 pm to ell_13
Oh, and I don't know if this is helpful to you, but what I've done at home is I have an old computer with a couple of TB drives in it that I store my media on. It shares it via a simple SMB share.
I also have an Ouya connected to my TV and wired with ethernet. On the Ouya I installed a custom port of XBMC and I stream all my media to my TV/stereo using that.
I also have an Ouya connected to my TV and wired with ethernet. On the Ouya I installed a custom port of XBMC and I stream all my media to my TV/stereo using that.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:40 pm to ell_13
The only time I would consider getting a media server or NAS would be if I had a ton of movies. With iTunes Match there is no need to have my 30 gigs of music on a hard drive. Pictures and documents need to be able to be backed up or be recoverable with RAID but now a days you can just put all that shite on a cloud server like Dropbox.
ETA: I too suffered with a dedicated windows home server. Realized I didn't really need it. I deleted all my porn and started streaming it like the rest of America
ETA: I too suffered with a dedicated windows home server. Realized I didn't really need it. I deleted all my porn and started streaming it like the rest of America
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 3:44 pm
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:47 pm to Casty McBoozer
quote:
It will.
i'm super confused. if i grab 3 or 4 50GB movies a month i practically hit my data cap (THANKS COMCAST)
i can't imagine trying to stream them over the web from a cloud ever. even with gigabit who wants to deal with the hassles of something hiccuping because of internet traffic?
or are you saying that stuff needs to stay local?
Posted on 8/21/14 at 3:53 pm to CAD703X
How are you getting 50 GB movies anyway?
Posted on 8/21/14 at 4:02 pm to aaronb023
quote:
How are you getting 50 GB movies anyway?
The first rule of this is that you do not talk about this. The second rule of this is that YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THIS.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 4:51 pm to Casty McBoozer
quote:not with Comcast starting to charge by the GB
I don't see things moving in that direction at all. It's all moving into datacenters, not your home.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 4:51 pm to CAD703X
quote:
all you need is windows 8 to run it.
Correct. Share media from within Windows. Windows Media Player has a built-in DLNA server. It's very nice and functional.
quote:
eta what defines a 'media server' anyway?
A device that makes media content available to other devices.
quote:
a nice fast computer with an SSD somewhere in your house?
If you're using an SSD for a simple media share, you're wasting a ton of money for very little impact on performance. The drive isn't going to be the bottleneck. The client hardware + network traffic are where you'll hit problems. This assumes, of course, client decoding of content. On-the-fly transcoding from the server-end would have a different set of requirements. Still, the gain and bottleneck would come at the CPU before the drive in any case I can think of. Someone can correct me, but I don't think I am wrong here. The only place that an SSD would help is if you were both writing the data to disk AND sharing it over the network simultaneously. This is, quite honestly, a pretty silly way to do it, but I have seen people write interesting little programs for sending their actual Blu-Ray Disc drive content across their network. An SSD would help here. Otherwise, RAID (redundant array of inexpensive discs) is the way to go. Run 5400rpm discs; you won't notice a difference.
quote:
with chromecast and roku 'clients' scattered around your house along with phones & laptops & tablets...everything's already shared.
Assuming you're playing locally-hosted media, yes. The Roku is not great at playing locally-hosted stuff. You need to watch filetypes and sizes pretty closely. They're fidgety. If you get it set up right, great. Otherwise, just talk to Casty about how good a Roku is at playing local content. It's definitely awful, natively. Plex (a media server in its own right) has an app that alleviates the limitations to a decent extent.
quote:
its all about the cloud bro.
I don't want my media to be reliant on my ISP's connection when I can host my own content locally.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 4:57 pm to Hopeful Doc
I want my own server for media and network to solve in-home and out-of-home solutions. I don't just want cloud service to access music or documents. I want it all from anywhere.
And yes, I'm looking at RAID 5. Most bang for buck, IMO.
And yes, I'm looking at RAID 5. Most bang for buck, IMO.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 4:57 pm to Prosecuted Collins
quote:really just moves costs around
Cloud all the way.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 5:18 pm to ell_13
quote:
I want my own server for media and network to solve in-home and out-of-home solutions. I don't just want cloud service to access music or documents. I want it all from anywhere.
Hell, I can do that with the $270 gateway I use. It doesn't take much to do what you want to you're looking for.
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