[ZestyChicken]

So I'm really torn what to do with my home network. Right now I have:
- 2 Win7 Intel PCs (1 gaming class, other 5 years old)

- 1 Win7 AMD PC serving as home media server.
>6 2 TB drives in 2 JBODs, FlexRAID to backup first JBOD to second
>XBMC c MySQL database, Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, Couch Potato
>Attached to big screen TV via nVidia HDMI card (runs XBMC)
>Has Haupauge TV capture card (not hooked up presently other than IR)

- MacBook Air (runs XBMC)

- MacBook Pro (runs XBMC)

- iPad 2 (waiting to jailbreak iOS5 so I can get XBMC back on it)
______________________________________________________

So here's my quandary. Since getting the Mac laptops for my wife and I, I'm really digging OSX. I'm thinking seriously about getting a Mac Mini server (actually would get the 2.5 GHz model, upgrade the processor and add server) for several main issues:
- parental controls across the house
- centralized calendar and contacts
- VPN software
- a more powerful machine to use with iMovie and Aperture
- move away from Samba if I can

Here's the issues I'm concerned with:
- Macs don't support HD audio over HDMI (though the hardware they run on do). I don't really want to run Win7 on a Mac (why pay the Apple premium)? So that kind of sticks me with needing a Win7 machine (or Ubuntu I guess) attached to the Main TV
- I don't know what to do with my current media server. I could convert it to FreeNAS or UNRaid, but I don't really know how well that will work with the Mac Mini Server. Doesn't it work best with attached storage?
- I looked into attached storage but can't fine a decent solution I like. Seems like the Pegasus thunderbolt solution would be nice but 1) I want it bigger, 2) I want it cheaper and 3) I don't want to pay for drives I already have. It may just be that I need to wait for the thunderbolt storage market to mature...
- Not sure what the heck to do with the TV capture card...may move it to the only Win7 machine I plan to keep...

Any thoughts on successful setups in a mixed environment like this?

[T800]

I grew up using only OSX. A little while after I started streaming content I ended up with a Mac Book Pro as a media server. It worked really well at first (with a few HDDs connected via USB). When I started to stream Blu-ray with HD audio the USB connection just wasn't fast enough for higher bitrate movies like Ironman and The Dark Knight. Luckily because of the age of the MBP I was able to add a duel eSATA express card. It worked great until my collection got bigger and bigger. I ended up with 2 eSATA 4 bay DASs for Movies and one USB 4 bay DAS for TV Shows and other stuff.
Other than having loads of cables, noise and space used up it worked great until I ran out of space again.
I ended up building an unRAID server for movies and then an unRAID server for TV Shows. Now I can atleast expand to 16 x 3TB drives for movies before I have to look for more space.
OSX is what I would run on a laptop or a desktop without a doubt. For servers and fully fledged media players it is limited.
I still use the MBP as a central hub. It runs sickbeard, SABnzbd, Audio Galaxy, Maraschino etc. I connect to it via VNC or logmein to manage my everything. If I want to upload andything to my servers it is via the MBP. It works very well along side the unRAID servers and I'm very pleased with what I have now.

[ZestyChicken]

I grew up using only OSX. A little while after I started streaming content I ended up with a Mac Book Pro as a media server. It worked really well at first (with a few HDDs connected via USB). When I started to stream Blu-ray with HD audio the USB connection just wasn't fast enough for higher bitrate movies like Ironman and The Dark Knight. Luckily because of the age of the MBP I was able to add a duel eSATA express card. It worked great until my collection got bigger and bigger. I ended up with 2 eSATA 4 bay DASs for Movies and one USB 4 bay DAS for TV Shows and other stuff.
Other than having loads of cables, noise and space used up it worked great until I ran out of space again.
I ended up building an unRAID server for movies and then an unRAID server for TV Shows. Now I can atleast expand to 16 x 3TB drives for movies before I have to look for more space.
OSX is what I would run on a laptop or a desktop without a doubt. For servers and fully fledged media players it is limited.
I still use the MBP as a central hub. It runs sickbeard, SABnzbd, Audio Galaxy, Maraschino etc. I connect to it via VNC or logmein to manage my everything. If I want to upload andything to my servers it is via the MBP. It works very well along side the unRAID servers and I'm very pleased with what I have now.

Thanks for the reply. How do you rip your blu rays? I guess you don't... I use my PC with Makemkv for many of my archived Blu Rays. Apple no likee Blu ray.

Sounds like you don't watch much on actual TVs?

I really like the idea of unRAID given its flexibility. I think you can run a number of those apps on Unraid btw. Definitely sickbeard and Sabnzbd. It's just a little intimidating given that it's a lot of command line crap. Might try it though. Have you gotten Time Machine working with it?

I need to look into Maraschino. Looks kind of purdy...

[darkscout]

- Macs don't support HD audio over HDMI (though the hardware they run on do). I don't really want to run Win7 on a Mac (why pay the Apple premium)? So that kind of sticks me with needing a Win7 machine (or Ubuntu I guess) attached to the Main TV

AppleHDA don't do this?

- I don't know what to do with my current media server. I could convert it to FreeNAS or UNRaid, but I don't really know how well that will work with the Mac Mini Server. Doesn't it work best with attached storage?

FreeNAS and serve everything up over NFS. Everything local is going to be faster to the MacMini Server, but to everything in the rest of the house they won't care.

[T800]

Thanks for the reply. How do you rip your blu rays? I guess you don't... I use my PC with Makemkv for many of my archived Blu Rays. Apple no likee Blu ray.

Sounds like you don't watch much on actual TVs?

I really like the idea of unRAID given its flexibility. I think you can run a number of those apps on Unraid btw. Definitely sickbeard and Sabnzbd. It's just a little intimidating given that it's a lot of command line crap. Might try it though. Have you gotten Time Machine working with it?

I need to look into Maraschino. Looks kind of purdy...

I rip the a whole disc with makemkv then extract the main feature via tsmuxer so I end up with a .ts file.

Do you mean broadcast TV? The only things I watch on TV is Top Gear and sometimes The Apprentice. Everything else is done via sickbeard,

You can run those apps on unRAID but with having them already set up on the MPB and so easy to control on there that's how's it gonna stay for now.

After I have migrated all my music to one of the unRAID servers and version 5.0 is released I will try Time Machine.

[JustinAiken]

I love MacOS, my desktop is a hackintosh and I have a MBP, but unraid for storage and Linux for the XBMC computer is a better way to go...