Phase 2 of whole home setup

[grumpy4869]

Hello LTT gurus! I am moving into the planning stage for the second part of my home setup and need some help. Phase 2 consists of prepping my computer, network and digital storage systems to support phase 3 (a/v upgrades). Before I start, I completely understand that I most definitely have a 1st world problem. For an overview, my current setup is as follows (please don't take this as bragging, there are a lot of people out there who have much better setups than my own and I am always cognizant of how lucky I am to be in my particular position and I am only giving this information out to provide a full picture of what I have going on). 

 

4300 sq/ft two story home with finished basement (three floors that my project touches) 

 

Basement setup: ALL CAT5e runs and all audio prewire for entire house terminate in basement utility closet that contains large Internet equipment wall box. From there (in the same utility closet), some of my router ports are fed to a strong series 27u A/V cabinet that contains a Blu Ray player, Control4 hub, directv box, 24 port poe ethernet switch, and a Denon AV receiver.   The basement is pre-wired for 3 zones of audio and three tvs though nothing is currently plugged in down there. Zone 1=7.2 surround sound and theater area video prewire. Zone 2=2 channel audio for ceiling speakers over pool table. Zone 3=2 channel audio for ceiling speakers over poker table. 1 video and ethernet only area (not really a zone - no audio prewire) in the basement bedroom. 

 

On the main floor is set up as follows: zone 4=5.1 prewire in formal livingroom area with video (nothing plugged in this zone), zone 5=5.1 prewire with video run connected to Samsung TV in informal living room that everyone actually uses, office with dual ethernet ports with the following equipment in it: desktop computer-

Asus Rampage V Extreme MB

Intel 5930k

Asus 3.1 USB Type A Card

16GB DDR4 Corsair Dominator Ram@2133

Intel 750 400GB PCIe SSD (OS/Programs drive)

Samsung Evo 512GB SSD (Docs drive)

4-WD Red 2TB HHD~in RAID10 config (Photos/Videos and Music drive)

Corsair H110GT AIO~in push/pull

2-Asus Strix 980

Corsair AX860 PSU

ROG Front Base

Asus BW-12B1ST Blu Ray Writer

3-Asus VN248 monitors

8-120mm Corsair SP fans

Networked printer/scanner/fax

WD cloud NAS (backup for all appropriate clients in the house) 

 

Top floor setup: loft Zone 6=5.1 and video prewire with old large protection style TV. Master bedroom zone 7=2 channel audio with video. Cat5e wired for WiFi repeater in attic. 

 

Outside setup: zone 8 (backyard) , zone 9 (side yard), zone 10 (front porch) each wired for 2 channel audio. 

 

In addition, we have multiple clients that use the Internet throughout the house. We have 2 laptops, 4 iPads, two cell phones, one TV, directv box & Blu Ray player in sons room, 1 TV, directv box & Blu Ray player in daughters room, 1 xbox1 in master bedroom, 1 Xbox 360 and 1 Playstation3 (xb1 and ps3 plugged into old projection TV in loft). 

 

I'm sure I missed some stuff, but that is the bulk of it. Currently the ONLY things that are integrated with the control 4 are the informal livingroom, the living room Nest thermostat, and the basement nest thermostat. This consists of the Samsung TV, directv box, Blu Ray, and receiver pushing out to 5.1 in the living room from the basement. 

 

Backstory: my wife managed to blow up the plasma in our bedroom and I am going to replace it.  I am probably going to move the Samsung TV from the living to the master bedroom and get an OLED to put into the living room. 

 

Goals: ultimately, i think my goals fall into 4 buckets: network, audio, video, ancillary crap

 

Network: I want to have all of my content available via any client that I chose. I would like to have a central repository of content that all clients can access on demand and simultaneously should the need arise. I would also like to have true backups of important data from my main pc, phones, iPads, and laptops. I currently save ISOs of my main PC, laptop, and phones to the WD cloud and then copy that drive to a backup drive that otherwise lives in a fireproof gun safe. 

 

Audio: the ability to play any audio file and use of audio apps (iheartradio, Pandora, etc) on demand, simultaneously and asynchronously (for example - I want to be able to play Pandora throughout all audio zones in the house AND have the ability to let the kids play Xbox with surround sound for their games while the wife and I enjoy a movie with the master bedroom audio). 

 

Video: I would like to have all video sources throughout the house have the capability to access any video content simultaneously and asynchronously. (for example I want my son to be able to watch a Blu Ray in his room, while my daughter watches a family video from a digital family album, while I watch the Super Bowl in the theater, while my wife watches cooking videos from YouTube in the master bedroom. AND I want the ability to embarrass my kids with baby pictures on every TV in the house at the same time - I couldn't think of another reason for wanting this capability). 

 

Ancillary crap: we have pre-wired the house for touchscreen controls throughout various strategic locations throughout the house (I think we pre-wired for 6 touchpads). In addition, I would like to integrate my garage door, blinds, and lights into one user friendly interface via the control4. Finally, I would like to be able to control all of this via my office pc, laptop, iPad, phones, touchscreens or remotely from work.

 

Anyhow, my most immediate concerns are how to set up my network and PCs to accommodate phase 3 of this project which will be to set up a theater area in the loft (instead of the basement as was previously planned), set up audio throughout the house, and set up video in the master bedroom. 

 

So I am now looking into NAS storage, obviously beyond my current WD cloud. I think that a large central server that contains all of my audio/video/other data would be the way to go. I am currently thinking that this NAS needs to have at least 50Tb with room for expansion. Ideally, this will be a rack mounted server (I don't really care how loud it gets, the utility closet is sound and thermal insulated). Does this sound about right? Do I need to or should I build another PC dedicated to HTPC use to put in the utility closet? I am probably going to upgrade my monitors to 2k or 4k monitors with better refresh rates and will replace the 2 980s in the office pc with 2 1080s and build a custom waterloo. That would mean that I would then have 2 980s left over. I could use 1 of those gpus to run physx and one in a high end htpc that I could build. I could also use the AiO cooler from that same rig and throw it in the HTPC. I am a bit lost as to whether or not I need to build an HTPC and what specs are important for a NAS build to support all that I am trying to do with my system. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Assume a budget of $7500 for the networking/NAS portion of this project. 

 

Thanks much for all of your help. And sorry for the crazy long post!

[gtx1060=value]

holy shit your house is huge

4300 sqft? thats 4 times the size of my apartment - are you using the access points linus reviewed in his video? i feel like CAT running through such a large house is kind of inefficient - for a house that large and with walls - you may end up needing 3 or 4 of those seamless access points