Home Media server

[shea99]

So im not sure where to put this topic but i guess ill start here as potentially need to have a new build.

I have a spare Acer Aspire XC-603 lying round the house not being used, specs below, and i want to turn into into a home NAS to mainly store movies for everyone to access.

(Intel j1900, Integrated graphics, 1TB HHD, 4gb DDR3)

Now im completely new to this aspect of networking and do not know whether this will be suitable at all or what other things i may need or as to the best software to use. 

So any advice is helpful.

(I can spend a little on it but dont want to be spending loads)

[Sauron]

The hardware is more than enough for a home storage server. Mine has worse specs than that and it works perfectly.

 

As for the software I'd recommend a light Linux distribution (really whichever you prefer, if you don't want to touch it much then something like Debian would be ideal); you can use samba to make the storage drive accessible within the network. If you also want to stream movies through DLNA you can use ReadyMedia, it works very well for me and it's very light on your system.

[shea99]

9 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The hardware is more than enough for a home storage server. Mine has worse specs than that and it works perfectly.

 

As for the software I'd recommend a light Linux distribution (really whichever you prefer, if you don't want to touch it much then something like Debian would be ideal); you can use samba to make the storage drive accessible within the network. If you also want to stream movies through DLNA you can use ReadyMedia, it works very well for me and it's very light on your system.

Brilliant thanks i shall defo look into these

[shea99]

19 hours ago, Sauron said:

As for the software I'd recommend a light Linux distribution (really whichever you prefer, if you don't want to touch it much then something like Debian would be ideal);

Do you recommend Debain for ease of use ? as i am fairly new to the software behind it and dont have much linux experience. Seen freenas and others recommend 

[Sauron]

12 minutes ago, shea99 said:

Do you recommend Debain for ease of use ? as i am fairly new to the software behind it and dont have much linux experience. Seen freenas and others recommend 

I wouldn't say Debian is "easy" in a general sense but you don't really need to interact with it much beyond initial setup - I wouldn't recommend it as a desktop operating system (to a new user) but for a home server it's as good a distribution as any. Other distributions won't give you a GUI for setting up ReadyMedia out of the box anyway. If you don't feel comfortable with Debian (though there's no harm in trying) you can just go for Xubuntu or another light Ubuntu variant.

[shea99]

On 4/29/2019 at 5:49 PM, Sauron said:

I wouldn't say Debian is "easy" in a general sense but you don't really need to interact with it much beyond initial setup - I wouldn't recommend it as a desktop operating system (to a new user) but for a home server it's as good a distribution as any. Other distributions won't give you a GUI for setting up ReadyMedia out of the box anyway. If you don't feel comfortable with Debian (though there's no harm in trying) you can just go for Xubuntu or another light Ubuntu variant.

Ok ive choose Plex as my media sharing software (also looking at using ReadyMedia aswell) and following this guide https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-plex-media-server-on-debian-9/#updating-plex-media-server have set up my server and its running fine. However i now cannot actually add my media into the source files as its coming from root /opt/plexmedia which i do not have permissions to edit so cannot transfer my media over. Any help ?

[Sauron]

29 minutes ago, shea99 said:

Ok ive choose Plex as my media sharing software (also looking at using ReadyMedia aswell) and following this guide https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-plex-media-server-on-debian-9/#updating-plex-media-server have set up my server and its running fine. However i now cannot actually add my media into the source files as its coming from root /opt/plexmedia which i do not have permissions to edit so cannot transfer my media over. Any help ?

just select a folder you have write permissions on...? /opt/plexmedia is just an example in the guide. If you really want to use that folder you can change its permissions

sudo chown -R <yourusername> /opt/plexmedia
chmod -R 755 /opt/plexmedia