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Thread: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

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    Question Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    I have a lot of important data ie home movies pictures etc as well as 4TB of DVD movies (backups)

    Over the years I have lost so much data going down the 1 external hard drive root!!. I am now wanting to set something up with raid to protect all my Data.

    Any ideas on what I should be looking at ?

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    Late Night Ninja! CrazyMonkey's Avatar
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    A large sized NAS? or some form of low-powered home server?

    Both are storage/backup solutions. Both have their pros and cons.

    Depends on what you want, by 'sharing' your media do you mean having it accessible on your network or the ability to 'stream' it to media devices such as a 360?

    NAS solutions are usually smaller, draw less power and produce less noise. Some NAS solutions support network streaming, torrenting and a wide variety of other options.

    Small home servers allow more flexibility in what you can do, the way you can set it up and obviously extendibility in the future.

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    Headless Chicken Terbinator's Avatar
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    I'd say go for the home server approach - building it will be more fun!
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
    CAT-THE-FIFTH: "The Antec 300 is a case which has an understated and clean appearance which many people like. Not everyone is into e-peen looking computers which look like a cross between the imagination of a hyperactive 10 year old and a Frog."
    TKPeters: "Off to AVForum better Deal - £20+Vat for Free Shipping @ Scan"
    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    Late Night Ninja! CrazyMonkey's Avatar
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    I'd say go for the home server approach - building it will be more fun!
    Oh and this is the way i did indeed go myself.

    Not only did you build it yourself (and have fun doing so) but i feel more secure in the knowledge that i know my data is being stored inside what i made - i know what's in it and how exactly it is running

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    I have quite a lot of spare PC parts at my parents house.

    I have..

    PSU
    Motherboard
    Intel CPU
    Memory

    Whats else would I need ?

    Am not really to botherd about sharing my media all round the house. just want all my hard drives in a raid setup to protect the data.

    The only problem I can see with building my own PC for it, is its gona cost a lot in electric to run.

    How about this ?
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294

    Any ideas if it would work well with a WD TV live or PS3 connected via USB ?, so I can watch all my media

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Well you could farm off your existing components and build a box based round the AM2/3 platform. Thats why i did:
    CPU: £25 - single core Sempron 140, possible unlcoked to 2 cores, gets the job done even as single core 25W TDP.
    Motherboard: say £40-70, again depeding what you want.
    Case: You could get a uATX case such as the P180 - it has 8 HDD bays IIRC.
    Sata card: depending if the onboard Sata ports aren't enough these cost around £15.

    Then obviously you could use your existing case and pick the HDD's of your choice!
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
    CAT-THE-FIFTH: "The Antec 300 is a case which has an understated and clean appearance which many people like. Not everyone is into e-peen looking computers which look like a cross between the imagination of a hyperactive 10 year old and a Frog."
    TKPeters: "Off to AVForum better Deal - £20+Vat for Free Shipping @ Scan"
    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    YUKIKAZE arthurleung's Avatar
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    Well you could farm off your existing components and build a box based round the AM2/3 platform. Thats why i did:
    CPU: £25 - single core Sempron 140, possible unlcoked to 2 cores, gets the job done even as single core 25W TDP.
    Motherboard: say £40-70, again depeding what you want.
    Case: You could get a uATX case such as the P180 - it has 8 HDD bays IIRC.
    Sata card: depending if the onboard Sata ports aren't enough these cost around £15.

    Then obviously you could use your existing case and pick the HDD's of your choice!
    A bit of soft-modding will get you up to 13 drives in a Mini P-180 with a 5.25" spare for disc drive.

    For cheap storage I would say a simple Acer Revo with some USB HDDs, and doing a software mirroring (not RAID but just 2 copies on different external drives)
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by arthurleung View Post
    will get you up to 13 drives in a Mini P-180
    how do you do this? Are you using 2.5" drives?

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by killie99 View Post
    how do you do this? Are you using 2.5" drives?
    by using a 5.25 => 3.5" converter.
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
    CAT-THE-FIFTH: "The Antec 300 is a case which has an understated and clean appearance which many people like. Not everyone is into e-peen looking computers which look like a cross between the imagination of a hyperactive 10 year old and a Frog."
    TKPeters: "Off to AVForum better Deal - £20+Vat for Free Shipping @ Scan"
    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by arthurleung View Post
    A bit of soft-modding will get you up to 13 drives in a Mini P-180 with a 5.25" spare for disc drive.
    Care to expand on this Arthurleung?

    What mods are you thinking of? I can't work it out, I could get 11 3.5" drives in there with a 5x3.5"-to-3x5.25" cage, but that's it.

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    I'd say to break down what you have to "store" according to the importance of it, and the damage if you lose it.

    One thing to consider is how often each type grows, or changes. For instance, if it's business accounting data, it'll probably be changing day-by-day, and perhaps minute-by-minute. That's a very different problem from archiving collections of old photos or DVD movie "backups".

    And on the subject of DVD movie backups, if you're talking about backups of commercial DVDs, then copying them is still illegal in the UK (which is, of course, where HEXUS is based) and so would be copies of backups. So I assume you're referring to home movie backups, perhaps from one of those cameras that writes direct to mini-DVD.

    On that basis, you need to determine how frequent backups need to be, and the budget for protecting them. One option is a home server with a large disk capacity, but that only gives you one copy, and doesn't protect against fire, or perhaps burglary, etc. Another option is to back up large and infrequently changing files onto a more permanent media. like a DVDR. You then need to decide how many copies gives you protection against the possibility of a disc failure when you need it .... i.e. when the master copy has failed. Oh, and buy decent discs, and store them properly.

    Another possibility is to buy a device that lets you plug bare SATA drives in, use them and then unplug them again, and then add the requisite number of SATA drives. Again, how many copies do you need, and with 4TB of "copies", are you prepared to pay for the cost of the drives to make multiple copies, because whatever method you use to back up, a single backup might fail (or get nicked, destroyed in a fire, etc).

    The above applies whether you use plug-in drives, a NAS or a home server.

    If you decide to "archive" fixed or rarely changing data, then you can still use a NAS, or home server, to back up the stuff that does change frequently. YOU can then use a much less expensive server or NAS because it'll have far less disk space, or you can use a couple of NASs/server ..... perhaps one at a remote location. That way, you're protected against disk failure, and against fire/flood/theft, etc.

    Backup is always a case of looking at the data to be protected, and it's structure and value, and balancing that against the cost in time and hassle of backing it up.

    I remember doing a company audit many years ago, and the Finance Director proudly showing off their new mini computer, and the racks of neatly-labelled backup tapes stored above the computer. I asked him what would happen to his ability to collect outstanding balances if he had a fire in the machine room, due to the sales ledger data only being on the computer, and the only backup being in the same room. He, quite rightly, went white with fright and soon changed that particular piece of monumental stupidity. Similarly, I take some fairly extensive precautions with my business and accounting data, because losing all the contact data would be a hugely inconvenient (and probably expensive) blow, and losing the accounts data would put my ability to comply with company and tax law in serious doubt. I don't take the same level of precautions with, for instance, downloaded documents like PDFs of the relevant legislation or VAT guides, because I can always download them again if I lose them.

    That's what I suggest. Look at your data, and decide how to back up different types according to the cost of doing so, and the potential loss if you don't should the worst happen.

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    A small atom powered home server is more than sufficient for most users unless you need to do recoding etc.
    The flexibility of being able to add any size hard drive, internal or external and have them utilised in the storage pool, while letting the system take care of duplication across any two drives beats a Raid setup for the vast majority of consumers.
    The latest version also allows you to have, say, a further couple of external drives, which can be used in rotation to backup your important files off the server for off-site storage.

    Plus, if you have the available hardware now, you could always try the Microsoft 100 day free trial to see if it's suitable for what you want.

    Colin

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Funkstar View Post
    Care to expand on this Arthurleung?

    What mods are you thinking of? I can't work it out, I could get 11 3.5" drives in there with a 5x3.5"-to-3x5.25" cage, but that's it.
    I can't see how it is possible to get 13 drives in a P180 mini - if I remove the power supply I could fit a couple of hard drives but don't know where teh power would be coming from then
    I am intrigued if this is possible.

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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Atom only has 1x pci-e port and 4 sata ports though, storage is limited right off the bat.
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
    CAT-THE-FIFTH: "The Antec 300 is a case which has an understated and clean appearance which many people like. Not everyone is into e-peen looking computers which look like a cross between the imagination of a hyperactive 10 year old and a Frog."
    TKPeters: "Off to AVForum better Deal - £20+Vat for Free Shipping @ Scan"
    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    YUKIKAZE arthurleung's Avatar
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    Quote Originally Posted by killie99 View Post
    I can't see how it is possible to get 13 drives in a P180 mini - if I remove the power supply I could fit a couple of hard drives but don't know where teh power would be coming from then
    I am intrigued if this is possible.
    Remove the included trays, and the plastic bits that comes with it. and find some blanking plate (or make one yourself) to mount 5x3.5" HDDs.

    I fitted 5 HDDs in the middle chamber, and the upper chamber is a couple mm higher than the middle one so it will also fit 5 there. Then use a 5.25 -> 3.5 adapter for the bottom


    Don't have that much hdds to fit in but you get the idea.
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    Re: Can you help me choose a easy way to store and share my media ?

    any one any views on drobo ?

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