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Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 14:59

I currently have my HTPC in my living room with all of the drives inside of it. (3 1.5tb drives) but recently I've been wanting to make another HTPC for my room so I've decided that a file server is the best way to go. I have another PC laying around that I'm going to use for this server (I believe it's a dual core 3.2ghz amd, 2gb of ram)

Now here's what I want it to do...

Act as file server to all PC's in the house will be able to strem movies/shows from it
Run Sabnzbd, sickbeard, and couchpotato so I don't have to run it on my main PC anymore.
It doesn't have to be on 24/7 because I don't use the HTPC that much. I'd like to have the ability to use WOL to turn it on when I need it.

I don't necessarily need it in a RAID array or anything. I'm really just looking for something simple.

Thanks in advance for your help!

RudolfR · 2011-10-26, 15:45

IIRC Core2Duo's aren't very energy efficient, but since it won't be running 24/7 that might not be too important.

Other than that, what is it that you need help with?

Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 15:51

RudolfR Wrote:IIRC Core2Duo's aren't very energy efficient, but since it won't be running 24/7 that might not be too important.

Other than that, what is it that you need help with?

I guess I should have mentioned that in the post lol

What OS should I use? Can I just run Windows 7 and share the drives from there?

BigO · 2011-10-26, 15:59

You could just run windows if you want but i would recommend looking at a more server OS for stuff like Raid and back ups. It would suck to get a server set up with tons of media only to loose a drive and loose all that data.

THere are many good options to choose from - FreeNas, unraid, flexraid. If you poke around and do some searches there are some comparison threads and such to help you choose if you so decide to.

Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 16:05

BigO Wrote:You could just run windows if you want but i would recommend looking at a more server OS for stuff like Raid and back ups. It would suck to get a server set up with tons of media only to loose a drive and loose all that data.

THere are many good options to choose from - FreeNas, unraid, flexraid. If you poke around and do some searches there are some comparison threads and such to help you choose if you so decide to.

I've looked at those options but it seems like running the programs as sabnzbd, SB and CP is a huge pain in the ass, and that's where I'm being turned off by them.

BigO · 2011-10-26, 16:22

Yeah there is some extra configurations required for getting these apps to work but the question that you need to ask, is what is more important.

Is it some time up front to get some apps running correctly, or possibly loosing a large portion of your media collection. For me my data's safety is pretty important since my collection is so large (around 11tb so far).

Mallet21 · 2011-10-26, 16:27

Jorge18 Wrote:I guess I should have mentioned that in the post lol

What OS should I use? Can I just run Windows 7 and share the drives from there?

If you already have the Win7 (or XP) license then that would be easiest. My file server is essentially my office PC that I share the drives with to my TV PC's.

Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 16:48

Mallet21 Wrote:If you already have the Win7 (or XP) license then that would be easiest. My file server is essentially my office PC that I share the drives with to my TV PC's.

Are there any drawbacks to this? Besides of course a HD crash/fail.

Kirky99 · 2011-10-26, 16:51

I just setup a File Server running Win 7 Pro and FlexRAID. I like it a lot! Switched from an Ubuntu install.

I had SAB, Sickbeard and couchPotato all running on Ubuntu and they worked great. Had a software RAID5 array which worked great as well. The problem I had was I'm not Linux proficient and with the upcoming PVR functionality, I was looking at having to custom compile a kernel and whatnot to get that machine working as a PVR backend. My drives were getting full and it was a good time to decide if it was worth it. I decided against staying with Linux.

I'm way more comfortable in Windows, have SAB, Sickbeard, Couchpotato all working again, installed MySQL for the one library to rule them all functionality and also have the PVR backend working great. I didn't have to do anything other than install drivers for my capture devices and it's all roses.

FlexRAID is nice, I have 2 x 2TB drives (one parity drive right now). I'm running a 6TB storage pool the my movie library is installed on. everything shares from there and it's currently working great. Takes a little bit to figure out, but support over at the FlexRAID forums has been good (can't say that about the supoprt over at the TV Headend forums).

If you like Windows, there's not really a need to stray. What you want done can be done.

**Beer40oz** · 2011-10-26, 17:35

Well yes use windows it will be the easiest for you. But yes the only problem is if you loose your data then it's gone.

Well no data is safe anywhere even on a unRAID server or so on.... even if you have parity.
So the rule of thumb the files that are precious to you do a second back up somewhere else.

But a server is great for all your videos. I just finished my unRAID rig and I am very impressed. It's so easy but time consuming.

Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 17:53

Beer40oz Wrote:Well yes use windows it will be the easiest for you. But yes the only problem is if you loose your data then it's gone.

Well no data is safe anywhere even on a unRAID server or so on.... even if you have parity.
So the rule of thumb the files that are precious to you do a second back up somewhere else.

But a server is great for all your videos. I just finished my unRAID rig and I am very impressed. It's so easy but time consuming.

How would I do it in Windows7? Just use the sharegroup or whatever they call it feature?

Mallet21 · 2011-10-26, 18:03

Homegroup makes it really simple.

Jorge18 · 2011-10-26, 18:23

Mallet21 Wrote:Homegroup makes it really simple.

I'm going to give that a shot and see how I like it. If not, I'll look into another solution.

Thanks for the help guys.

Kirky99 · 2011-10-26, 19:22

I think the problem with just sharing is you are limited to the size of the drive. Using FlexRAID's Storage Pool, you in effect combine all the drives into one big drive and then share that. I have one share called Movies and one share called TV, even though in reality, those directories are spread around to three other drives.

The good news with FlexRAID is you can acutally put existing drives into the array with the data. So, start with what you have, then add more later and if the need arises, you can go with FlexRAID, or some other solution.

Does Homegroup work if sharing to non Windows machines?

jackh · (This post was last modified: 2011-10-26, 19:27 by jackh.)

My two cents:

I have a similar setup at home, only the server has a single 1TB drive (for now). I's an old P4 with just 512MB of RAM. I'm running Xubuntu (XFCE is lighter) and a Samba server among other things. Fairly easy to configure, even though I am no Linux expert.
Despite the old hardware, it's responsive, snappy and stable. With your hardware you should have no problems running the apps you are looking for.

If you like the idea of going Linux, I'd say it's a great choice! Big Grin

Edit: NFS for native Linux sharing is in the works, in addition to the existing Samba. the point is: I can still keep growing.... for free!