Advice Needed: NAS or Server

[linesma]

I am looking to upgrade my HTPC setup to allow my media to be watched across different computers. With my current setup, all of my storage drives are installed internally in my HTPC, and they can't be accessed by other machines unless I leave it running. Since my living room television is of the "dumb" variety, I have an Android TV box so I can access Netflix and its Asian counterpart iFlix. What I am looking to do is combine my HTPC with my Android box so everything can be done from one machine. This would require me to "move" the drives in my current HTPC to some sort of network storage solution. Which would be the better option, a NAS or a Server?

 

I really am not looking to do any type of RAID setup. I keep back ups of all my media off-line.

 

Thank you for the advice!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why not just play videos on the htpc. No need for a nas or moving any hardware around. That's what a htpc I'd built for. 

[tlink]

you could keep the android tv box and let it access the nas, effectively making the android tv box a client to stream stuff. put the NAS in a closet/attic/basement somewhere running freeNAS with a plex server for encoding etc. a nas already is a server so im not sure what your distinction would be. do you mean a rackmount NAS vs desktop NAS?

[Windows7ge]

You could do a combination of both (kind of a NAS, kind of a Server) and build a FreeNAS box. You can never have too many backups trust me. Even a simple RAID1 between 2 drives is a good idea. It'd serve your purposes as a localized file server. Provided you have the bandwidth on your local network streaming directly off the system should be possible.

[linesma]

6 minutes ago, tlink said:

you could keep the android tv box and let it access the nas, effectively making the android tv box a client to stream stuff. put the NAS in a closet/attic/basement somewhere running freeNAS with a plex server for encoding etc. a nas already is a server so im not sure what your distinction would be. do you mean a rackmount NAS vs desktop NAS?

Thank you for the information. I did not know that a NAS is a type of server. What you are describing is exactly what I would like to do.

14 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why not just play videos on the htpc. No need for a nas or moving any hardware around. That's what a htpc I'd built for. 

I am currently playing videos off of my HTPC. The problem comes with Netflix and iFlix. They do not natively work through my Linux/Kodi setup. I am trying to simplify my setup to make it easier for my wife to use it. She just wants to turn on the TV and watch videos no matter where they are from,

6 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

You could do a combination of both (kind of a NAS, kind of a Server) and build a FreeNAS box. You can never have too many backups trust me. Even a simple RAID1 between 2 drives is a good idea. It'd serve your purposes as a localized file server. Provided you have the bandwidth on your local network streaming directly off the system should be possible.

Thank you for the information. I will look into FreeNAS. Making a localized file server sounds like what I am looking for.

 

Thank you all for the replies. You have given me more information to help me decide what to do.

[tlink]

3 hours ago, linesma said:

Thank you for the information. I did not know that a NAS is a type of server. What you are describing is exactly what I would like to do.

by rule of the thumb, anything that delivers data to a client is a server. thats why its called a server, it serves its clients data   and glad we could be of help