File server for streaming movies/tv/music

jozi

Hope this is the right section

Building a new system for a friend and he's thinking about using his old setup as a server to store all his movies, tv shows and music etc.

It's a core2duo pc with 4gig ram which I'm sure should be more than enough.

What kind of OS is suitable and easy to use? His main pc will either be streaming directly from the server in vlc or via xbmc (probably add another unit to his tv down the line).

Also, any nice things that can be done like sending torrents to the server from his mobile/tablet outside the netword etc?

FreeNAS. unRAID.

If he's not techy (presumeably not since you're building it for him) you might be better off just sticking with Windows.

Pretty much any decent torrent client or nzb downloader can be accessed via web interface.

jozi

Sticking with windows would mean setting up folder shares like I would do if sharing files on a different pc?

Anything at all that can be setup once and left there if what we're after. He's got about 4-5 drives we will use (un-raid is limited to 3). Only thing is that it might be turned of during (some) days, re-booting would have to be possible without user inputs.

Both those options look like they will work though.

jozi

Got Freenas setup and running, bit of hassle or at least nothing seems to be straight forward!

Small problem transfering 3tb of date though from different drives, it's really slow.

For 1.22tb it's going to take 38hrs roughly, it's transferring at around 10-11 MB/sec.

I tried googling if it's possible to connect a usb drive to the server and transfer from usb straight to the right drive. I think it's possible but I've no idea how it's done.

Been considering maybe trying windows home server 2008 (found a 180 trial on the ms site) if it's possible to transfer usb ---> server.

Anyone any idea's?

---edit---

For now we're using filezilla to transfer all files it seems to fluctuate between 10-19MB/sec but at least I can still browse the folders on the server from the same windows machine.

I would need to know what your network setup is and what kind of array you use in FreeNAS (plus drive types).

If you are new to network storage in general I would recommend running a trial setup for a couple of weeks before commiting fully to a setup and copying all your files over.

jozi

The server and one pc will be wired. I've a 10/100 switch but might get a giga bit one. The htpc is wireless, there's a chance the wired pc might get a Wi-Fi card also. Wireless comes from a Vodafone Wi-Fi router, switch is also wired into this.

Weren't going to use an array, just 4 individual drives. Their all nearly full and no room of money for other drives. I know there's a risk of losing everything this way.

Server is a dfi Ian party ut Mobo with a athlon 64 3200 with 2gb ram for now

So with a 10/100 switch you're going to be limited to about 11MB/s.

That will be fine when watching media (full Bluray needs about 5MB/s, rips need much less) but as you've found it'll be slow initially getting stuff on there.

The speeds you get over wifi tend to be slower again (than fast ethernet), unless you have a very good wifi setup.

witnessmenow

jozi wrote: »

The server and one pc will be wired. I've a 10/100 switch but might get a giga bit one. The htpc is wireless, there's a chance the wired pc might get a Wi-Fi card also. Wireless comes from a Vodafone Wi-Fi router, switch is also wired into this.

Weren't going to use an array, just 4 individual drives. Their all nearly full and no room of money for other drives. I know there's a risk of losing everything this way.

Server is a dfi Ian party ut Mobo with a athlon 64 3200 with 2gb ram for now

The thing about using old computers as servers is they are power hungry.

A HP N54L when on offer costs about €120, which honestly could be made back in the year.

An extra 100W left on all the time is roughly €25 every two months. Just something to consider!

I have the less powerful N40L and its plenty powerful to stream movies over the network or whatever.

Have a look at transdroid if you are on android, its great. I use it with Qbittorrent and its the job. You will need to setup a Dynamic DNS address if you want it accessible to the outside world. Let me know if you need any more information on that.

Dont worry about backing up Music and Movies etc They can be replaced. If you are keeping personal Photos make sure to back them up somewhere.

jozi

I was just browsing lastnight and came accross ubuntu with samba server installed. Being familiar with ubuntu I might give this a go.

I thought the 10ish MB/s was slow, but if thats all then thats it so. He went and bought a wireless card this eve, hopefulyl it will be enough for streaming, I just know it's 450mbps.

I told him about the power thing, his reply was that it will only be on when he's at home or needs it and not while at work. I'm the same re all downloadable things like music, it can be replaced, I'll look into a local backup for the important stuff if he has anything at all.

I might look into transdroid although he's got a iphone and a android tablet.

jozi

I ran through this guide earlier this evening: http://lifehacker.com/5919558/turn-an-old-computer-into-a-networked-backup-streaming-or-torrenting-machine-with-ubuntu

All seems to be working fine and from my mates pov things are a lot easier as well.

Just wondering though, if I put a old drive from a win7 machine in to the server with Ubuntu, can I just mount and share it and not have to worry about formatting or partition tables?

Just files to transfer over and a few other things like setting up torrents for him and hopefully it all streams well enough.

witnessmenow

jozi wrote: »

I ran through this guide earlier this evening: http://lifehacker.com/5919558/turn-an-old-computer-into-a-networked-backup-streaming-or-torrenting-machine-with-ubuntu

All seems to be working fine and from my mates pov things are a lot easier as well.

Just wondering though, if I put a old drive from a win7 machine in to the server with Ubuntu, can I just mount and share it and not have to worry about formatting or partition tables?

Just files to transfer over and a few other things like setting up torrents for him and hopefully it all streams well enough.

NTFS formatted drives works with Ubuntu, but it has some limitation. If I am not mistaken only one user will have access to the drive at a time, the user who mounts the drive. So if User A mounts the windows drive, User B,C etc will not have access to the drive.

jozi

As far as I know the drives mount on boot but I don't know how that effects things? I'll try it out this evening if I get a chance.