NAS for Media

[Twitch03]

I am getting ready to install CAT6 cable throughout my house and wanted to store my blu ray rips in a central location for playback. I currently have two WDTV's and a portable hard drive, but running out of storage and tired of moving the hard drive from room to room.

1. Am I correct in thinking that I dont need something powerful enough to transcode, since the WDTV will be doing it?

2. Is CAT6 fast enough to send a 20-30GB full blu ray rip without it lagging in high bitrate scenes?

3. What I'm ultimately looking to do: rip blu ray on computer>transfer to NAS>playback with WDTV's.

Looking for at least a four Bay NAS, not opposed to building something if its more cost effective.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Twitch03]

Would something like this do what I need?

http://store.buffalotech.com/store/bufftech/en_US/pd/productID.310552100/quantity.1

 

[Fallen Kell]

I am getting ready to install CAT6 cable throughout my house and wanted to store my blu ray rips in a central location for playback. I currently have two WDTV's and a portable hard drive, but running out of storage and tired of moving the hard drive from room to room.

1. Am I correct in thinking that I dont need something powerful enough to transcode, since the WDTV will be doing it?

As long as it is a supported file type, you will not need to do transcoding.

2. Is CAT6 fast enough to send a 20-30GB full blu ray rip without it lagging in high bitrate scenes?

CAT6 is simply a cable type, not the protocol being used transfer data. If you have your CAT6 cables connected to approved RJ45 punchdown connectors, and tested/certified the lines/connections, then you should be able to connect them to a 1 gigabit ethernet switch/network, which should be able to handle compressed 1080p video (i.e. h.264 or similar). But if you connect the CAT6 to a 10/100 hub, then, no, it will not be fast enough.

3. What I'm ultimately looking to do: rip blu ray on computer>transfer to NAS>playback with WDTV's.

Looking for at least a four Bay NAS, not opposed to building something if its more cost effective.

Thanks for any input.

Personally I would build something. Get a case like the Fractal Design R3/R4/R5 (whichever is cheapest), and build a cheap PC in there. If you want more functionality, get a rack mount case, like a Norco RPC-4224, or a Supermicro case, and build your system in there with a couple LSI SAS controllers and load up FreeNAS or similar for the OS.

 

[azazel1024]

just ignore hubs, they basically don't exist.

A 10/100 switch is more than enough to feed a media player with Bluray rips. You are talking MAX 50Mbps, which is half the speed of a 100Mbps connection. Odds are excellent that the WDTVs only have 10/100 ports on them anyway (just about all media players I've seen only have fast ethernet ports).

So in answer to your question, the cabling is fine, the NAS is probably fine you should be good to go.

I would not build your own, unless of course you have some idea how to build a computer or setup an OS for basic server tasks (which is easy, but it certainly beyond "I know how to turn it on and get on Facebook").

 

[smitbret]

just ignore hubs, they basically don't exist.

A 10/100 switch is more than enough to feed a media player with Bluray rips. You are talking MAX 50Mbps, which is half the speed of a 100Mbps connection. Odds are excellent that the WDTVs only have 10/100 ports on them anyway (just about all media players I've seen only have fast ethernet ports).

So in answer to your question, the cabling is fine, the NAS is probably fine you should be good to go.

I would not build your own, unless of course you have some idea how to build a computer or setup an OS for basic server tasks (which is easy, but it certainly beyond "I know how to turn it on and get on Facebook").

As long as you have a basic idea of how RAID 5 works and have ever installed an OS, then you can pretty easily do one of these:

www.limetechnology.com

Resource light and you may have a lot of the parts laying around in the garage.

 

[Twitch03]

As long as you have a basic idea of how RAID 5 works and have ever installed an OS, then you can pretty easily do one of these:

www.limetechnology.com

Resource light and you may have a lot of the parts laying around in the garage.

Build a house?

 

[Phaetos]

build a house?

rofl ^^^^^

 

[smitbret]

Build a house?

Sorry, forgot the hyphen.

www.lime-technology.com

 

[boomhower]

WDTV can play about anything so no need to transcode. CAT6 is fine. I'm a huge fan of Synology but there certainly is a price premium on them, though worth it to me.

 

[Twitch03]

WDTV can play about anything so no need to transcode. CAT6 is fine. I'm a huge fan of Synology but there certainly is a price premium on them, though worth it to me.

It seems like their solutions are all powerful enough to transcode, what other benefits do they offer for the price premium? Do they have a significantly higher transfer rate or stability?