# Do I buy a NAS, or build my own video server?



## GamingDaemon (Jul 15, 2011)

Hello All,

I have a very nice home theatre setup:

JVC Projector
Denon AV Tuner
Denon Blu Ray Player
110 inch screen
5 electric reclining chairs
Riser for the back 3 seats for stadium seating

But I have a number of movies I ripped a while ago from my HD DVD collection (I was an early adopter ). I am planning to build a very small HTPC using the Intel Core i3-2105, but that is not what this post is about. My question is about accessing the video files. I would like my HTPC to be able to access the movies I ripped using RipBot264.

My requirements for the storage for the video files are:

Low power/wattage usage
Always on
Easy access to the video files

Every room in my house has at least two CAT6 gigabit Ethernet connections.

So, should I:

Buy a NAS? Like the Synology DS211J?
Build my own SFF server using an Intel Core i3 processor that is low power, and with 4 2TB hard drives?

I am worried that the NAS might be too slow. I have already tested that I can play my .mkv and .mp4 files stored on one PC in my house on another PC by simply accessing the network share across the network. It worked flawlessly. That is exactly what I want, but I feat that the NAS is not going to provide me with that functionality.

Which way should I go?

Thanks in advance...


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

I personally would go for a NAS for two reasons.
The first is they are quieter and secondly they use about 1/10th the power of a PC - typically 25 Watts compared to >250 Watts.
Most devices these days have the functionality built into them to do their job well, whether it is streaming audio, video or pictures. They also offer the ability to mirror the disk in case one fails.

However, I do not own one. Although friend at work reccomended a coworker make sure it had at least 512 mB ram for buffering.

Someone else here may have some experience and can give more guidance.

Cheers,
Bill.


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## fitzwaddle (Aug 25, 2010)

I found an extremely cheap and simple alternative that works for me (but for a single room): $100 external USB drive attached to a $100 Sony BDP-S380 bluray player that has USB inputs (front and back), and can play .mkv, .mp4 files from USB. No frills (no nice IMDB interface, or fancy player UI) - but effective.

Maybe not what you need, if you want multiroom support - but thought I'd throw it out there as another alternative for playing back ripped HD content.


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## GamingDaemon (Jul 15, 2011)

robbo266317 said:


> I personally would go for a NAS for two reasons.
> The first is they are quieter and secondly they use about 1/10th the power of a PC - typically 25 Watts compared to >250 Watts.
> Most devices these days have the functionality built into them to do their job well, whether it is streaming audio, video or pictures. They also offer the ability to mirror the disk in case one fails.
> 
> ...


I completely agree with you on the power. 25 watts versus 250 (and that's being nice) is huge. But I am worried about the "streaming" aspect. I want to be able to access the files like I would on any other drive. I don't want to have to go through an FTP or HTTP site to get to them. And the performance of the $199 Synology DS211J does not sound promising. I have heard it provides 18-30 MB/s for reads. Ick.

My concerns about how I would access the files, and the low performance is making me lean toward building my own server.



fitzwaddle said:


> I found an extremely cheap and simple alternative that works for me (but for a single room): $100 external USB drive attached to a $100 Sony BDP-S380 bluray player that has USB inputs (front and back), and can play .mkv, .mp4 files from USB. No frills (no nice IMDB interface, or fancy player UI) - but effective.
> 
> Maybe not what you need, if you want multiroom support - but thought I'd throw it out there as another alternative for playing back ripped HD content.


I don't believe my Denon 2520 Blu Ray player has any USB inputs  I suppose I could buy a cheap one that does, but the quality of that player would not match my current Blu Ray player (I would think)...


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Max AV bitrate for Blu-ray is 48Mb per second, or 6MBps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Bit_rate

If the xfer speed really is 30MBps, you'll be fine.


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## GamingDaemon (Jul 15, 2011)

Thank you eugovector for the Wiki link. I was looking for that exact information, and wasn't able to find it. Thanks again.

So given that, a pre-built NAS should work. Does anyone have any experience using a NAS to serve up BR or HD DVD movies to their HTPC this way?


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

I'm afraid I don't. I keep my equipment load pretty light around the house, so my HTPC doubles as my media server. The good news is that, with the power efficiency of 35-45w processors like the new AMD chipc, and even the intel celeron parts, you'll have plenty of power for both an HTPC and server, if you wanted to go that route.


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## cburbs (Mar 27, 2007)

Some thoughts on this -
1) how much storage space are you needing? 2tb, 4tb, 6tb , unsure
2) Some DIY ideas - Unraid, Freenas, Vortexbox, windows home server(WHS), Ubuntu Server. Google any of these for some good info. 

Have you looked at the HP microserver as an option.

Some things I don't like about the pre bought Nas devices is they lose support and may not be as tweakable as some of the ideas I listed above.


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## hakunatata (Aug 20, 2010)

I am in the same boat. I was looking at the QNAP-TS410, but read some bad things about it, and was thinking about just using my mac pro that I have hooked into my cat 6 network, but the waist of power has me a little concerned. Thank you for suggesting the HP Proliant. 
Dave


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## hakunatata (Aug 20, 2010)

does anyone have any experience with that particular item? I just want something that I can stick in a closet in another room away from everything else and be able to stream HD video and all my music and access all my files from any other machine on my network. I have all mac computers. Thanks in advance for your help.

Dave


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## cburbs (Mar 27, 2007)

Which particular item are your referring to? If it is the HP Microserver all I know is some people have run unraid and vortexbox on it without any issues.


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## hakunatata (Aug 20, 2010)

sorry, I sent the first message prematurely. The item I was referring to was the HP Proliant. I have been reading up on it and have been leaning towards it as my NAS. I was just seeing if anyone had any experience with it on a cat 6 network running all mac computers. And did anyone have any advice on which NAS software worked best on macs.


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## ja3hawk (Oct 13, 2011)

+1 on the nas. If you get one though, stick with Synology. IMO they are the best. I'm currently using a ds410+

Also, make sure you have network connectivity at both ends. Preferably Gig connections.

The NAS will have the ability to share out SMB shares. This will work with both Windows and Mac. The unit I have, has no problem streaming 1080p content over 100mb LAN network. I use a Boxee Box, Windows machine and a Macbook.


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## KalaniP (Dec 17, 2008)

I'll tell you what I don't like about every NAS I've ever seen out on the market: What do you do if the electronics glitch? Many use either linux or some oddball proprietary format, especially if there is any sort of raid. With an actual HTPC of some sort, you literally have files on a normally-formatted drive. You can backup, you can use normal file recovery tools, etc., in the event of a problem. Microsoft is unlikely to discontinue Windows (and NTFS-formatted drive usage), and Apple is unlikely to discontinue OSX (and HFS+-formatted drive usage), and recovery tools are readily available.

My personal choice, in your shows (particularly since you said you are a Mac household) would be to get a Mac Mini with a Thunderbolt-to-USB3 adapter and just start adding really big external hard drive. You can stream directly from iTunes to any Mac or iDevice on your network no problem... or if you don't like the built in tools, use Twonky or Plex or any of the alternative methods out there.

Personally, I simply hang external USB2 hard drives off my iMac and stream 720p to several AppleTV2's around the house, but not everyone likes that solution, particularly if you want to view full-quality blu-ray rips instead, but it is a very simple and easy solution. Backup is via Chronosync to another USB drive, no biggie. It's just a normal hard drive with a normal format connected to a normal Mac, so recovery possibilities are the same as any other normal drive... no funky formats or special electronics needed.


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## ja3hawk (Oct 13, 2011)

KalaniP said:


> I'll tell you what I don't like about every NAS I've ever seen out on the market: What do you do if the electronics glitch? Many use either linux or some oddball proprietary format, especially if there is any sort of raid. With an actual HTPC of some sort, you literally have files on a normally-formatted drive. You can backup, you can use normal file recovery tools, etc., in the event of a problem. Microsoft is unlikely to discontinue Windows (and NTFS-formatted drive usage), and Apple is unlikely to discontinue OSX (and HFS+-formatted drive usage), and recovery tools are readily available.


EXT3 and EXT4 are the common filesystems used on most NAS devices. These are a common standard. It may take a bit more effort to move these drives to another Linux system but its not hard by any means. If something happens to the electronics on the NAS, the drives could be pulled out and the array can be recovered on a linux system or another NAS... It's really down to personal preference. I don't like storing local media files on my htpc because it's a standalone hard drive that could fail. If one of the drives fail in my NAS, I'll just replace that one drive. It provides redundancy. Either way, we should be backing up our data :bigsmile:


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## KalaniP (Dec 17, 2008)

ja3hawk said:


> EXT3 and EXT4 are the common filesystems used on most NAS devices. These are a common standard. It may take a bit more effort to move these drives to another Linux system but its not hard by any means. If something happens to the electronics on the NAS, the drives could be pulled out and the array can be recovered on a linux system or another NAS... It's really down to personal preference. I don't like storing local media files on my htpc because it's a standalone hard drive that could fail. If one of the drives fail in my NAS, I'll just replace that one drive. It provides redundancy. Either way, we should be backing up our data :bigsmile:


Agreed.

That said, if you have a device with a hardware RAID (or a cool software raid, like a Drobo or similar), most I've seen tend to use non-standard raid setups, and recovery is nearly impossible.

Not quite as bad with simpler devices that use EXT3 and EXT4, I'll grant, but not as easy as normal HFS+/NTFS, either. (also, Macs can read EXT3, I believe, not sure about EXT4, and not sure if they can write, but that does help a little... maybe)


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