Let's talk about home networking and media streaming....

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

So, I’ve got a pretty decent amount of media stored across 2 external 500’s on my home desktop.

I’m getting pretty nervous about failed drives/backup/lost data and such, as I mostly just do manual backups every month or so.

So with that said, I’m going to invest in a home server that will do automatic backups, be able to stream media to some sort of device that will interface with my home theater (more on this in a bit).

Anyway, I think I’ve decided on one of HP’s media vaults. I’m looking at the EX495 in particular:

Anyway, I then have to buy a device that will work with my theater system. Currently, I’ve got one of Western Digital’s units:

However, the capability of this thing is a bit limited.

So I guess the question is 2-fold.

  1. is there a better 4-bay storage device in the $500-$700 range with the capabilities of the HP
  2. for media playback and TV interfacing, do I jump on one of the Popcorn Hour devices, or wait for the upcoming D-Link Boxee Boxes?
    http://www.boxee.tv/box
2

I used my old computer as a home theater PC.

AMD 4600+, radeon x1950xt pro.

plays BluRay movies great on a 32" LCD in HD as aux display.

also dropped 4 1.5TB drives in it when they were cheap from newegg on BF.

Using it as storage, backup, and surveillance as well.
Had some break ins in my car, so I set up a camera shooting outside my window at my car to watch it.

Also have it recording TV and converting it to be stored on the computer.

Does everything fine and dandy, and doesn’t bog down unless I’m archiving a bunch of crap.
Surprised me actually.

I looked at what you are back when I was deciding, figured an actual PC would give me the most amount of freedom for everything, plus I already had one.

3

Ok, good info. Still, I’m looking for something that’s mostly plug and play.

I was thinking about a Drobo + Droboshare, but the capabilities of that compared to this HP unit or not even close, and the Drobo/Droboshare runs damn close to $600 with no drives.

I may end up pricing out hardware for a standalone HTPC setup for comparison’s sake anyway.

4

My suggestion- get yourself a dual-core Atom board, a four port PCIe SATA II card, at least three (but preferably four) drives for data, another drive for your OS of choice, and a case to fit it. Easily doable in $500-$700 depending on what size drives you choose.

Because you’re going to be relying on this as a backup device in addition to media serving, you should strongly consider a proper RAID setup (1, 0+1, 5, or 6- or if you want to avoid the issues with 5 and 6, consider using FreeBSD or OpenSolaris and doing RAIDZ or RAIDZ2).

Choose your drives carefully (Hitachi and Samsung units are cheap but have TERRIBLE warranty service. Seagate and WD both have good warranty service).

My setup:

Storage (media, laptop backups, etc):
Dual core intel CPU
4GB ram
Four 1TB drives configured as a RAIDZ2 array

For TV recording:
MythTV

To stream media:
MediaTomb (mythtv’s UPnP server isn’t super reliable)

For playback
Used to use MythTV, now juse use an LG BD390. BluRay player that also does Netflix, YouTube, and UPnP playback. Simple to use, no effort to maintain, and uses a fraction of the power the mythfrontend pc’s required.

5

ACK! Ok, that sounds a bit over my head. I’ll consider myself about a 4 or 5 on a 10 scale of techiness, and this sounds like a lot of work.

6

I’ve heard nothing but great things about the WDTV.

If I ever get around to it I’ll be dumping my HTPC, just not as integrated as I’d like (and its more work than I feel like investing to do it right now).

I’d think a WDTV or PCH would be up your alley, although to skin and customize a PCH it may be beyond a 4/5 on the techie scale. :smiley:

7

You don’t need to do any of this bullshit.

Assuming you have a decent connection, go and setup an account with Carbonite. I listen to the Leo Laporte computer show, he has an offer code, I think LEO for an extra 2 months of service.

It is right around 50 dollars for a year of service, plus 2 free months.

When you install the software, it automatically backs up the drives that you tell it to, even if you make changes it backs up automatically.

Then you forget about it.

You get an unlimited amount of storage. Right now I have about 700gb backed up on there.

Over time warner roadrunner, it took me about a month to make that first backup, now everything is just incremental.

If you think about it like I do, then you probably would spend at least $50 per year on hard drives, why not just pay them back it up?

You want to get the data off site, if the house burns down then your entire backup system will go with it.

8

actually, if you end up going with it, shoot me a pm with your email address. I can refer you and get 3 months free for me, and an extra month for you.

9

I can give you way more specifics then you would probably need (wall of text warning):

First and foremost I’m going to assume you’re like me and that you’re server / PC is not next to your TV(s)… that being said if you’re streaming video content you’re seriously going to want to do it over a WIRED network. Wireless can only handle so much throughput and you’ll find that it’ll get annoying for most any HD content - you need the bandwidth.
Now to address this: most server / media extender (settop boxes) are able to interface over cat-5/6/ethernet/etc… so all you really need is a home router at least, assuming you have enough ports. If you don’t have enough ports you should be able to pickup a switch for cheap and put it in after the router… we’ll address that if You NEED it. Otherwise plug the server & the STB into the router and call it done.

Far as serving up your media: I was a big drobo fan, but it’s very lacking as it’s basically a minimal managment NAS… what you really want (for the same price range) is an actual media server - Similar to what you posted. However I fully believe you’re better of with a full computer / whitebox for a number of reason, more control / more expandability / not tied to proprietary shit / more future proofable / $ for $ better performance most of the time / etc)… This sounds daunting but there is alot of options available that require just abit of effort to setup. To be honest the effort required is about that of setting up a new PC in general (install OS, update a couple of drivers, set basic settings / interfaces).
So for $5-700 you can build a solid media server that will allow you a ton of expandability. You don’t need alot of computing power but you will spend money on storage space (depending on how much you want) instead. I’ll go ahead and spec out an idea for you after a bit of a primer.
With a media server you’re going to want to run raid 5 as it’s the best of both worlds for quick access and reliability in the event of eventual hdd failure. Minimal downtime, and very easy setup.
You will want to run Windows Home Server - IBHate. You would not believe how good of a product WHS actually is… I say this because I didn’t believe until I was recommended it by many people that I believed. I had a legit key for free so I gave it a whirl. It’s basically a Windows 2003 O/S but geared toward consumer media serving. It is incredibly full featured (very little setup compared to alot of other solutions) and streamlined towards setting up media sharing / streaming, AS well as auto backups. Its got very little overhead (especially for a windows OS) and alot of really nice user interfaces. If you google around you’ll find alot of good testimonials, tips, etc.
This (plus the to be named hardware) will serve any PC or windows compatible extender that you have in the home, UPTO 5 devices (IIRC) maximum.

As far as a media extender / settop box solution that is all encompassing yet not a full blown HTPC (home theater PC) you’re going to want the hottest thing going: WDTV Live HD Media Player.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136499

Cliffs on WDTVHD: Handles every file format you’re going to throw at it, and it does so with a very user friendly interface as well as a pretty simple setup.
Its relatively new in the market but had developed a HUGE support base of users who love it. Relatively cheap; very easy to use; handles most all media formats; insofar its rock steady reliable.

Okay as far as your server hardware, you don’t need alot of computing power because you don’t have to transcode any of the media (very CPU intensive), nor is your hardware doing a whole lot of math processes. Keep in mind though that this is a purpose built machine whereas: You wouldn’t take a tractor trailer around Watkins Glen track. So it’s not gonna be your primary PC, it “could” be (you can surf the web, run MS Office etc), but thats really not the intent. So:

You have ~1TB now, I’ll guess that you wan’t 2TB (usable).
WD “Green” Drives are low power consumption but more importantly “low heat” drives - remember that your two biggest enemies are Heat & Power spikes.
Three of these (in Raid 5) will give you 2TB usable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

You don’t need alot of computing features so this combo will do you fine for infrastructure:
Mobo (onboard video): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130234
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116075
Fan / heatsink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118003
Free clip: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118045
Ram (2GB is plenty): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231085
Raid Controller (allows you to run hardware raid which is better then software raid generally, also give you 4 more sata ports to run more hdds as wanted / needed): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124027
Sata cables (to hookup 3 hdds & 1 Odd): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812226004
Flash card reader (WELL worth the price): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820223103
Blue Ray / DVD drive (not burner) to read / rip movies: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106325
Case (that allows upto 6 hdds, and seems to have nice cooling design): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119161
Power supply (remember heat & power spikes are what kill components so get a decent power supply -also- this one has (6) sata power cables): http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4236686&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

Grand total as spec’d: $632.36 on newegg and $74.21 from tigerdirect (power supply). Then add $100 per WDTV box.

This setup will do everything you want & much more. It will support any 775 Intel CPU (allowing you to upgrade when bigger/badder ones get cheaper); it supports the maximum ram you can run with a 32bit OS (4gb); and you’ll have room for two more expansion cards as needed. Oh, it’ll also allow you to run upto 6 HDDs (assuming you stick to 1tb each thats 5tb usable) so you’ll have plenty of room to grow / future proof.

I think thats enough info for now (I’ve spent way too long on this post lol), if you’d like anymore PM me, I’m not on here often.

Again, just my experience & opinion.

edit - sorry, I usually throw in an OS harddrive to run programs off of, then use the raid exclusively for storage. You won’t need alot, so something like this will do for another $35. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148231

And if you want to (depending on your TV service) you can add a Tuner card for ~$100 that’ll record upto two inputs (over the air HD [2,4,7,29]), and clearQam (think time warner service from the plug without a converter STB) cable. All natively supported by Windows Home Server Media player etc.

10

I just got the Western Digital unit for xmas. It’s FANTASTIC.

I know that JayS will also suggest the Popcorn Hour unit, it seems to get good reviews but the default UI(you can change it out with little effort) is supposedly horrible.

I currently just have a SMB share set up from my server, the Western Digital Streams blue ray movies like a champ.

11

The option Nick laid out is definitely quite reasonable on the hardware side. I’m a UNIX snob and have no first-hand experience with the windows media server he speaks of.

The one thing I’d add to both his proposed solution and mine is a UPS. They can be had quite reasonably (mine was $45 shipped) and if you want to keep your data safe and available they’re well worth the cost.

Remote backup solutions are different discussion entirely. When choosing one, consider:

  • Cost of the product/service
  • Business model of provider (you’re screwed if they go out of business
  • Security (do you want your email/tax returns/novel/family pictures/etc viewable by some random idiot at the service provider?)

For me, dual parity RAID is adequate for bulk data and local backups. My critical stuff (source code, tuned system config files, email, ESR backups) is also backed up via tarsnap (tarsnap.com - reasonably priced and secure).

By definition, anything I care about enough to back up is too important for me to trust to a company that provides “unlimited” backup space for $50/yr. Either they’re not storing your data safely or they’re selling for less than their costs- they’ll either raise prices to reflect actual costs or they’re doomed to fail.

I haven’t read anything that makes me trust Carbonite and I have no confidence in their business model. http://www.geek.com/articles/news/carbonite-loses-customer-backups-sues-promise-technology-20090324/

12

i love the pch, default interface isnt horrible, i already changed my skin, but the default is fine, plays everything i throw at it, tons of customizing can be done with it.

13

+1 more on the PCH. I’ve heard good things about the WDTVHD. My guess is with a Western Digital product it’s going to be easier to use but more locked down. Sitting here watching season 4 of lost in 720p streaming from my desktop. I wouldn’t want to run it without the YAMJ interface though. Out of the box you get something barely better looking than Explorer. I’d put setting up YAMJ right around a 4 out of 10 in terms of technical ability. Mostly you just need to be able to follow a step my step tutorial.

See my PCH thread (just search for PCH) for more details.

Right now on the server side of things I’m basically running with no safety net. 1TB drive full and a 500TB drive full. Server is a POS 2ghz amd with a gig of ram but it gets the job done. Struggles a bit repairing/unraring monster MKV’s but I’ve never had any problems streaming from it. A raid setup like Nikuk was talking about is the way to go for safe storage. Not real sure about doing an online backup of all my pirated movies. Some things I really don’t want in the cloud.

14

I do all of my streaming through my PS3. I recommend you do the same.

15

This only meets half his requirements for data storage not streaming of media.

Not to mention you could easily buy an external HD 1TB to back up everything and not worry about bandwidth being an issue when restoring files. I also don’t feel safe about storing files in the cloud.

16

lol

you want him to store pirated files on the cloud? brilliant

17

Interested in this thread… I may be doing this soon

18

here is another for PCH, although i dont use it for streaming from my computer anymore i just have an internal 1TB HD cause i didnt like always having my computer on. i love being able to watch ripped blu-ray movies in full 1080p on it

19

Gotta love CES

Syabas preluded CES today with its most ambitious media hub to date. The Popbox replaces the Popcorn Hour as the flagship media hub and revolves around a major, much more polished interface overhaul designed by Moxie’s inventor and former Microsoft executive Dewey Reid. In addition to showing visual thumbnails of virtually everything and universal search, the interface has applets known as Infopops that show weather, Twitter feeds and other data whenever the viewer pauses what’s playing. As with the previously available Popapps, new Infopops can be added over time.

The Popapps themselves are much more advanced. They can now store their content locally and use more complex code such as Flash, Java or Qt. The approach both allows for purely local content like games but also to tap into services that have previously been off-limits, such as Netflix, and can work with providers that would normally insist on between-video ads and other content besides the main feature. Much of the content available for the Popbox on launch carries over from the Popcorn Hour and includes selected ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN and NBC content, major podcasters such as Revision3 and Next New Networks, and non-video services like Facebook, Shoutcast MP3 stations and Twitter.

The changes are dramatic enough that the Popcorn Hour could be considered a “beta” for what the Popbox has become, the company tells Electronista.

Video processing has also been given a lift and now supports 1080p video up to a 100Mbps bitrate. As with the Popcorn Hour, the sheer variety of formats is the selling point and includes all common MPEG formats, H.264, VC-1, WMV and XviD; it can not only handle common containers for Internet video like Matroska (MKV) but also multiple subtitle formats, including Microsoft’s own. On a local network, the Popbox can stream content from an iTunes computer or media server using Apple’s Bonjour and can also recognize content delivered by DLNA and UPnP sources.

Hardware is kept simple and uses just Ethernet for networking and component and HDMI for video input; RCA and SPDIF are available for audio. While there’s no built-in storage for the Popbox itself, it has two USB ports to take external hard drives and an SD card slot. Syabas also promises a quiet device that consumes less than 15W of power and doesn’t require a fan.

Shipments to the US should start in March and, because of the lightweight design, should keep the price down to just $129.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/01/04/popcorn.hour.sequel.handles.1080p

It’s got great little touches like animated weather and automatic IMDb and AllMusic lookup for movie, TV and music info.

Syabas' Popbox: Get Ready for the New Media Streamer Champ

This will be enough for me to finally ditch the HTPC and pick up a PCH.

Anyone want a full HTPC in media center case? :mamoru:

20

NICE Walter. I was debating getting a 2nd PCH for another TV in the house but now I think I’ll just get one of these and move the PCH to the other TV.