Looking for Advice on Media Server Please

[tevaron]

Here is what I am currently looking at:

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Tevaron/saved/2rjv

 

I have the ram already lying around.  What I am wanting to do is use this as a media server and back-up.  I will most likely run it in Raid-5, and use it to stream to 2 televisions as well back up my desktop, laptop, and phone.

 

I think the power supply is probably overkill as I haven't added all the wattage and pcpartpicker doesn't have some of the components listed. 

 

I could use some advice on the RAID card, the one I choose is supposed to be hardware based and seems to be the best price I could find of the hardware controllers, if anyone knows another good one at a better price point, by all means let me know!

 

 

I would also like any suggestions on an enclosure, size isn't really an issue, though a good value would be nice. 

 

Finally I do not have a ton of networking experience. I want to bond the 4 gigabit ports on the nic, I currently have an ASUS RT-N66U, will this be sufficent to handle the traffic or will I need to look into something else?

 

Thanks a lot guys, any help is greatly appreciated!

[WoodenMarker]

Looks fine. Just get a cheaper cpu/mobo: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Fqc9

Haswell's power save states should help.

[tevaron]

Nice, thanks for the input! I was just afraid I was on totally the wrong track, The power savings on the haswell will definately be nice, I will need to pick a board with at least 2 pci-e slots though, should be fairly easy to find

[tycheleto]

Here is what I am currently looking at:

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Tevaron/saved/2rjv

 

I have the ram already lying around.  What I am wanting to do is use this as a media server and back-up.  I will most likely run it in Raid-5, and use it to stream to 2 televisions as well back up my desktop, laptop, and phone.

 

I think the power supply is probably overkill as I haven't added all the wattage and pcpartpicker doesn't have some of the components listed. 

 

I could use some advice on the RAID card, the one I choose is supposed to be hardware based and seems to be the best price I could find of the hardware controllers, if anyone knows another good one at a better price point, by all means let me know!

 

 

I would also like any suggestions on an enclosure, size isn't really an issue, though a good value would be nice. 

 

Finally I do not have a ton of networking experience. I want to bond the 4 gigabit ports on the nic, I currently have an ASUS RT-N66U, will this be sufficent to handle the traffic or will I need to look into something else?

 

Thanks a lot guys, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

 

Looks like a good build you have there. Another alternative you may want to look into to save some money is software RAID. Doesn't quite have the performance of a high end RAID Card, but saves yourself some cost and gives you more upgrade options long term. Do look into things such as FlexRAID or its alternatives. Do note that this would mean you need to have a motherboard with more SATA ports, or be prepared to buy cheap SATA cards(non-raid) for extra ports.

 

Not much you can do regarding the power supply, it's a good low-cost power supply that is Seasonic so pretty trusted. If power costs are very high you may consider moving to the Seasonic G-360 Gold PSU, but it'd take at least 3+ years to pay off so it's tough to say.

 

As far as I know the ASUS RT-N66U does not support link aggregation(combining the speed of multiple ports), so you cannot use that for your high speed connection to the server. Also unsure if the Startech NIC you have selected supports link aggregation either. I think you can get away with running a quad-gigabit connection from the server to the switch, and gigabit out to other devices(as well as the router), but the router cannot handle the 4 gigabit connection from what I can find online.

 

If you are running a 4 port RAID card with 4 drives, you can probably saturate gigabit, but doubt you need past a 2 gigabit connection. If you are running software RAID, a single connection will probably not even saturate gigabit(because you will be drive speed limited), so it's only a concern if you are planning to have multiple devices each accessing different drives on the server simultaneously.

[Flynn]

You only need a gigabit nic, you don't have any special networking needs.  I use a couple RASPBMC boxes in my place, along with a cheap media server I basically frankensteined out of spare parts from servers I had laying around.  I have no lag, no quality issues, and no buffering problems.  Hell, I get better quality from my cheap server than I do from cable lol.  

 

Trust me, you don't need a work horse, you just need it to work.  It's not really doing anything special other than hosting out media.  So your primary concern should be power consumption, and host demand when asked for a file.  

[localhost]

I second Flynn's post. I have a beefy home server set up and even that has only a single gigabit connection. Streaming files to multiple devices at the same time has absolutely no issues.

 

You'll be spending a small fortune on just decent link-aggregation capable devices, if you do go that route, for very little gain. Besides, all the clients and cabling (Cat6 minimum) should also support >1Gbit connection speeds for you to see any benefit. For a server, power consumption and availability are key - exactly what Flynn said.

[Flynn]

I second Flynn's post. I have a beefy home server set up and even that has only a single gigabit connection. Streaming files to multiple devices at the same time has absolutely no issues.

 

You'll be spending a small fortune on just decent link-aggregation capable devices, if you do go that route, for very little gain. Besides, all the clients and cabling (Cat6 minimum) should also support >1Gbit connection speeds for you to see any benefit. For a server, power consumption and availability are key - exactly what Flynn said.

 

I like this guy.  lol

 

The big thing about any build is first to identify purpose and scope.  Once you have that you prioritize resources, and then budget the resources by priority while making sure your budget and priorities are not causing any upstream or downstream bottlenecks.  So in identifying what you are trying to accomplish, that NIC is out of control for your scope.  This is how @localhost and I arrived to what we identified, power consumption and availability.  (Assuming this server is running 24/7 which it will if it's going to be hosting out your media.

 

EDIT:  btw, you don't need to bond anything.  Just run your nic to a switch and put all your htpcs on the same vlan, or dont if you want your entire network to have access to the media, it doesn't really matter which so long as it fits with your mission of serving out media to your htpcs efficiently with very little power (because trust me, you will notice that shit on your electric bill if you go hog-wild on this thing).  

[silencerbob]

You might like MediaPortal. Its a great little HTPC software package that works amazingly well. I was using my 4 year old gaming PC to stream TV channels to multiple pcs on my network (while gaming). You can catalogue your movies, TV shows, music, photos etc.

You don't need raid cards or anything high end at all.. To stream out of the server side or to receive on the client end. It can even work over the internet ( as long as u have the upload bandwidth ).

I've been using media portal for like 7 years... Mainly because it has a tv server ( which is what XBMC cannot do ).

[tevaron]

Thanks for the advice guys, I have been really busy the past few weeks and hadn't gotten a chance to check back, I will definately be looking into all of these options, saving money is always good!