Trying to build a media server

[firefiber]

Hi folks,

This is my first go at this, so be gentle! I want to build a media server - the only problem is that I really don't know where to start. I mean, I have the hardware figured out more or less:

Mobo
CPU
Case
HDD (x4)

Haven't decided on the PSU yet, but a fairly decent 600W will do, I guess.

My question is, should I build a media server, or a torrent box, or a file server, or a box with Plex running or XMBC - this here is the problem, I'm so confused with the amount of terms and names and types. Here are a list of things I want to do:

1. It should be a torrent box (auto-download torrents on a schedule; awesome Lifehacker articles about it a while ago). It should have a torrent client running all the time. Before anyone jumps on me - Legal Torrents.

2. It should stream videos (or basically any kind of media) to the TV. Basically, (once I get a wireless dongle for my TV) I should be able to access the files on this box from the TV.

3. It should have shares for different users. There's 4 users in the house (me included). Two desktops and two laptops. All of them should have their own private shares on the box. And this should be seperate from the public media share.

4. It should act as an FTP server. I should be able to access my stuff from outside the network (on my phone, etc). I should ideally also be able to download stuff directly to the box from outside.

5. It should be a music server. Play music from the box to the home theater (and to the phone, from outside the network).

6. I should be able to map it as a network drive (for scheduled PC back-ups, etc).

Now, my question is: can I do all this with one box? If so, how? Where do I start, do I need any other components (or better ones), what software do I use?

One of my friends suggested running vSphere or something, and have multiple virtual machines running (one for FreeNAS, one as a dedicated torrent box, etc). This seems like an overly complicated solution IMO.

Help, anyone?

Also, I'm not sure if I'm in the right section for this - it IS to do with networking, so I hope I am. D:

 

[mfenn]

I don't think that I'd get a Phenom II for an always-on server, something from Intel would idle a lot lower.

Pentium G2020 $65
ASRock H77M $70

Also, 1TB drives seem kind of small for a dedicated media box. I'd bump them up to 2TB for 50% more.

Seagate 2TB 7200RPM $70

As for software, you could totally do a VMware ESXi box with a bunch of VMs on it, but honestly that does seem overly complicated unless you like to tinker. A Windows 7 box could accomplish all of those functions:

1. uTorrent (or one of a myriad of other torrent clients)
2. Plex for DLNA and straight SMB shares for smarter devices
3. SMB shares
4. Filezilla FTP server
5. Plex DLNA
6. This is really the same as 3, SMB shares

 

[firefiber]

Okay, so I found this article on Lifehacker, basically to turn a FreeNAS box into an internet PVR (with sickbeard, which is awesome!). This is exactly what I want to do with the torrent part of it (have it download stuff on a schedule, and maybe also point the torrent client to a specified watch folder, so I can drop stuff into that folder when I'm away from home).

But would this gel with the other stuff I want to do? Would I be able to stream the stuff that's on the box to say, my TV off FreeNAS? Anyone know how to do this?

If I go with Windows 7, how would I assign private shares for different users (as in, say 250GB for each user - but there are four 2TB HDD's). Would I need to partition four 250GB parts off the hard drives? Or can I just assign a specific amount of space for each user?

I've never used Plex (or XBMC for that matter) so I'll have to read up on it first I s'pose. Or maybe install it on my current PC and see how it works.

(as an aside, I really don't know which section this thread belongs in - it's got a wee bit more to do with software than hardware now, oh well)

 

[firefiber]

Okay so after reading a bit further I've decided with Ubuntu. It seems to be the easiest (or at least more fun). Most of the questions have been answered, save for how to set up shares. I've never done this, on Windows or any other OS so I'm not sure how to go about it, and how exactly it works (are they seperate partitions or just specified amounts of space?).

Anyway, as for the hardware, I needed to know whether I'd need a dedicated GPU for this box? I'll be playing a lot of - scratch that - only ripped BluRay movies. And how much RAM would I need? 8 gigs enough? Finally, if I want to connect my home theather to this box, how would I go about it? Would I need additional hardware?

 

[smitbret]

Why don't you just build a box with WHS 2011? The OS is about $50 and will allow everything you mentioned since it's just a Windows OS.

You didn't really mention RAID except for a quick blurb about FreeNAS. Is that something that you are looking for in the box, too?

Your hardware choices aren't the best, IMO, either. If you are using Plex because you'll need to transcode on the fly then you'll want a CPU with a little more juice. I would look at a Vishera 4 or 6-core if you wanna stay AMD. If you get the right Asus motherboard, you could also set it up with ECC memory for data integrity. This is the reason I went with AMD over Intel for my NAS build. Also, you could easily step up to 2TB HDDs for just a little more cash if you watch the sales on NewEgg. They just had 2TB Toshibas at $71.99.

 

[firefiber]

I actually wanted to stay with AMD - though mfenn suggested going Intel. As for watching the sales on NewEgg - I don't live in the US (or Puerto Rico for that matter 😛) so I'll have to end up using something like BongoUS to have it shipped from NewEgg to me. That or go around trying to find the parts locally - which is a no-no. Dubai is horrible when it comes to computer parts and pc building.

Also, referring my previous post, what sort of GPU woud you recommend? Should I hunt for a mobo with an onboard (maybe a Radeon 4000) or get a dedicated card? And what about connecting it to a home theater system? What sort of additional hardware would I need?

As for setting up RAID - I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Thanks for all the help so far guys!

 

[smitbret]

Double Post

 

[smitbret]

Ok, so I've been following this thread at work and haven't been able to really look closely. For that I apologize. It looks like you've got a few things going on that I didn't realize. It sounds like you want a NAS/Media Server/HTPC combo. Is that correct?

I generally don't recommend the Media Server and HTPC be in the same box but it can be done with the right software and hardware, especially if you're streaming to only 1 device. For these purposes a discreet GPU will just add heat and noise. Get an APU or motherboard with onboard graphics. Any modern APU will drive 1080P for an HTPC. Make sure your motherboard has an HDMI port to connect to your TV. I recommend this combo for low TDP and because it has 6 SATA ports with HDMI out. It's also a Quad Core CPU which will help if you ever need Plex to transcode video on the fly to other devices like mobile phones or media streaming boxes. The Dual Core you have listed will really struggle with that. An Intel I3 would be a little less power hungry but will cost quite a bit more up front.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130662

FreeNAS is a great option if you want a RAID (actually ZFS) but you'll lose space for the parity and while the plug-ins may provide the usefulness, it's going to be hard to set it up to do everything you want. You want Media Center organization with streaming capabilites and that will be rough with these dedicated NAS solutions. You should very strongly consider getting Windows Home Server 2011. It is cheaper than Win 7 ($50) and gives you a complete Windows environment to setup XBMC, Sickbeard, Plex, uTorrent, VLC, etc,. whatever other software you want to install.

Also, you don't need a huge PSU. Try this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139026

Unless you go with a power hungry CPU and a discreet GPU, you won't need more than a 300-400W PSU until you hit HDDs numbering in the double digits. My 6 HDD NAS with 6-core CPU doesn't draw 90W at idle and no more than 125W when the CPU is fully utilized.

The info in the linked thread will be hugely useful for you:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2264328

 

[Zap]

Haven't decided on the PSU yet, but a fairly decent 600W will do, I guess.

That's around 3x what such a box would actually use at full load, and around 6x average load, assuming smart component choice.

I don't think that I'd get a Phenom II for an always-on server, something from Intel would idle a lot lower.

I agree on the Phenom II, but the latest FM2 APUs seem to be able to idle super low. They may be a decent choice instead of a dual core Intel depending on whether on-the-fly transcoding is needed, or some more advanced GPU accelerated playback.

Also, 1TB drives seem kind of small for a dedicated media box. I'd bump them up to 2TB for 50% more.

I'd go even bigger. 3TB drives are not very costly $/GB. I would do a small SSD for boot (to make it more "appliance-like" in performance) and a single 3TB drive such as a WD Red for storage. Add more drives as needed in the future. Also, anything important needs a backup, probably on an external USB HDD. Networked performance for a handful of clients don't need RAID, and obligatory RAID is not a backup statement.

 

[firefiber]

I'm a little broke right now - I just finished building a gaming rig two months ago, so I gotta have a budget, sadly. With all your suggestions (and taking into account the fact that I'm broke 😛, and getting these parts will be way more expensive for me, since I'm having them shipped) what do you guys think of these parts? Also, how much RAM would I ideally need? I've read in a couple of places to throw as much RAM as is possible, but is there really any need for this? I get that I'll be running quite a few applications all the time, but would I need more than 8GB? Anyway, I chose two paris (2X4GB and 2X8GB), tell me which I'd honestly need!

MOBO
CPU
RAM (optn #1)
RAM (optn #2)
PSU
HDD (x4)

I chose a mATX PSU - any issues with this? If there are, I'll just go with the one smitbret suggested

I might end up getting just two 2TB HDDs for now and then getting another two later on, dunno. But you guys were right, getting four 1TB drives wasn't going to be enough. I already have two 1TB drives on the PC almost full (all of which will go into the NAS/Media box once I set it up). For the case, I'll have to obviously look around for one locally, as I wouldn't really be able to ship it.

On the software side, still haven't figured out the OS. I'm more inclined to go with Ubuntu (I'm a lot more familiar with that than WHS), but if anyone has any good reasons to ditch it and go with WHS, let me know!

I actually have a much clearer idea of what exactly to build now - thanks folks! I was utterly confused at the start.

 

[smitbret]

I'm a little broke right now - I just finished building a gaming rig two months ago, so I gotta have a budget, sadly. With all your suggestions (and taking into account the fact that I'm broke 😛, and getting these parts will be way more expensive for me, since I'm having them shipped) what do you guys think of these parts? Also, how much RAM would I ideally need? I've read in a couple of places to throw as much RAM as is possible, but is there really any need for this? I get that I'll be running quite a few applications all the time, but would I need more than 8GB? Anyway, I chose two paris (2X4GB and 2X8GB), tell me which I'd honestly need!

MOBO
CPU
RAM (optn #1)
RAM (optn #2)
PSU
HDD (x4)

I chose a mATX PSU - any issues with this? If there are, I'll just go with the one smitbret suggested

I might end up getting just two 2TB HDDs for now and then getting another two later on, dunno. But you guys were right, getting four 1TB drives wasn't going to be enough. I already have two 1TB drives on the PC almost full (all of which will go into the NAS/Media box once I set it up). For the case, I'll have to obviously look around for one locally, as I wouldn't really be able to ship it.

On the software side, still haven't figured out the OS. I'm more inclined to go with Ubuntu (I'm a lot more familiar with that than WHS), but if anyone has any good reasons to ditch it and go with WHS, let me know!

I actually have a much clearer idea of what exactly to build now - thanks folks! I was utterly confused at the start.

Definitely on the right track, now. I looked at your parts list and noticed you were looking at 1TB Retail kits for the HDDs. Right now on NewEgg, the 2TB version is the same price. I'll link it below and throw down some ideas. You'll probably get better performance if you run a single, smaller drive for the OS and miscellaneous stuff, leaving the bigger drives for storage and serving.

As for your memory question, I would just go with the 2x4GB. The rule of thumb when using ZFS (FreeNAS, RAID4free, etc.) is 1GB per TB of storage. It doesn't sound like you'll have that much storage or plan on running ZFS so there's no need for that much. The $$$ can be put in better places.

The CPU/MB you picked are fine, but there's no HDMI port on that MB. You'll need add'l equipment for HTPC use unless you are able to connect with VGA to the TV and run an RCA to stereo cable. I did the math from your links and it came to $613 without the case. This setup ran $545 an will perform substantially better.

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687 (New socket and better upgradability)
Memory 2x4GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
OS HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
2x2TB Data - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149397
PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687 (Probably a little overkill, but good)

I stayed with the Toshiba HDDs because that's what you picked and they have a bit longer warranty than the Seagtes. I have been running my NAS with 2TB Seagates and have been impressed with the noise, temp and performance so far, though. The CPU is a 65W instead of 100W so it'll run cooler and draw less electricity and is rated faster. You'll appreciate the extra horsepower if you end up transcoding with Plex, trust me. The socket is also FM2 instead of FM1 so you'll have better opportunity to upgrade in the future. You'll have 1TB for OS and Misc and 4TB for storage. You could even trim back on the PSU a little bit and shave another $10-15.

 

[Cerb]

but would I need more than 8GB? Anyway, I chose two paris (2X4GB and 2X8GB), tell me which I'd honestly need!

No. Just as a file server, you wouldn't neeed more than 2GB or so, maybe 4GB w/ ZFS RAID-Z. ZFS' dedupe (optional) chews up RAM and disk I/O, but if you don't need to save space from lots of VMs, or versioned backups, it's not likely worth the performance hit. 8GB would give you room to use ZFS if you want, and have RAM left for other services that can make use of it (like MythTV, or your torrents).

The, "throw as much RAM as you can at it," approach is much more useful for business users, home/office developers, etc., that keep increasing their I/O loads, and shouldn't be needed for a home NAS/HTPC.

 

[mfenn]

An important question that I haven't seen directly answered is "Is this machine a server or will you be expecting to play media directly from it (i.e. HTPC)?"

This is important because the requirement for doing media playback invalidates a large set of server OS's.

 

[mfenn]

Okay, so I found this article on Lifehacker, basically to turn a FreeNAS box into an internet PVR (with sickbeard, which is awesome!). This is exactly what I want to do with the torrent part of it (have it download stuff on a schedule, and maybe also point the torrent client to a specified watch folder, so I can drop stuff into that folder when I'm away from home).

But would this gel with the other stuff I want to do? Would I be able to stream the stuff that's on the box to say, my TV off FreeNAS? Anyone know how to do this?

uTorrent can do all of this natively, including a web interface for management.

If I go with Windows 7, how would I assign private shares for different users (as in, say 250GB for each user - but there are four 2TB HDD's). Would I need to partition four 250GB parts off the hard drives? Or can I just assign a specific amount of space for each user?

You just create an account on the machine for each user and set the share permissions on their directory. You can also do quotas.

I've never used Plex (or XBMC for that matter) so I'll have to read up on it first I s'pose. Or maybe install it on my current PC and see how it works.

Plex is pretty simple, you just point it at your media directories and it does its thing. On the fly transcoding is not a problem on a dual-core unless you want lots of simultaneous streams. On my quad core, CPU usage goes to max when somebody starts up a stream as Plex is buffering ahead a bit, but then it settles down to about 10% average.

 

[smitbret]

Transcoding is gonna depend on the source media and the destination. If it's just a simple DVD rip then any dual core will be fine. However, when you start stepping up to HD and 1080p, it'll take a quad core to really keep up in real time at any kind of quality and depending on the specific content, I've had quad cores struggle for real time with action sequences.

 

[firefiber]

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687 (New socket and better upgradability)
Memory 2x4GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
OS HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
2x2TB Data - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149397
PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687 (Probably a little overkill, but good)

Aaaand I'm sold! I thank you, good sir! These are perfect and well within my budget! Albeit, there's a slight hiccup - my gaming rig is acting up, I think one (or both) of the SSDs are down, it's been giving me BSODS for about two weeks now. So I might end up having to buy new ones. If that happens, I might have to push this back a little, which absolutely sucks. Oh well.

The only thing I need to figure out now is the shipping. I hate that NewEgg doesn't do international shipping and basically no other good site does. I'm left with Ebay - and generally everything is pricier on it, but I guess I've got no choice. I got me two 2TB HDD's yesterday - they offered the same price on NewEgg so that was awesome. They did have the A8, but no FM2 mATX mobo's.

The, "throw as much RAM as you can at it," approach is much more useful for business users, home/office developers, etc., that keep increasing their I/O loads, and shouldn't be needed for a home NAS/HTPC.

Perfect! I thought as much, I'd use that cash to maybe upgrade the gaming rig later on! =D

An important question that I haven't seen directly answered is "Is this machine a server or will you be expecting to play media directly from it (i.e. HTPC)?"

A bit of both actually. Mostly it'll hold all my ripped blu-rays. And I'll be playing them on the TV (via HDMI). Occasionally I might watch a movie or summat on the phone or tab. But otherwise the streaming will mostly be for music. And it'll be where I have my scheduled PC backups written to. And as an FTP server (so I can get to my files from wherever).

Transcoding is gonna depend on the source media and the destination. If it's just a simple DVD rip then any dual core will be fine. However, when you start stepping up to HD and 1080p, it'll take a quad core to really keep up in real time at any kind of quality and depending on the specific content, I've had quad cores struggle for real time with action sequences.

The A8 won't have trouble though, would it? I mean, if it's going to be sluggish I might maybe wait a bit so I can save up and get an A10. What do you think?

 

[smitbret]

Aaaand I'm sold! I thank you, good sir! These are perfect and well within my budget! Albeit, there's a slight hiccup - my gaming rig is acting up, I think one (or both) of the SSDs are down, it's been giving me BSODS for about two weeks now. So I might end up having to buy new ones. If that happens, I might have to push this back a little, which absolutely sucks. Oh well.

The only thing I need to figure out now is the shipping. I hate that NewEgg doesn't do international shipping and basically no other good site does. I'm left with Ebay - and generally everything is pricier on it, but I guess I've got no choice. I got me two 2TB HDD's yesterday - they offered the same price on NewEgg so that was awesome. They did have the A8, but no FM2 mATX mobo's.



Perfect! I thought as much, I'd use that cash to maybe upgrade the gaming rig later on! =D



A bit of both actually. Mostly it'll hold all my ripped blu-rays. And I'll be playing them on the TV (via HDMI). Occasionally I might watch a movie or summat on the phone or tab. But otherwise the streaming will mostly be for music. And it'll be where I have my scheduled PC backups written to. And as an FTP server (so I can get to my files from wherever).



The A8 won't have trouble though, would it? I mean, if it's going to be sluggish I might maybe wait a bit so I can save up and get an A10. What do you think?

Just to be clear, local playback of BR Rips won't be a problem for any of these CPUs.

Transcoding is so the rips can be streamed and played back on mobile phones, Xboxes, PS3s, BR players, Roku boxes, etc. and The codecs and containers often need to be converted if the original file isn't in a format the destination device understands. This is very CPU intensive and a high action, 1080p Blu Ray rip takes a lot of CPU resources to convert at any level of quality. My Phenom II x4 955 can transcode 1080p BR rips in real time but only if I don't dial the quality up to high on the transcoder. If I want to be absolute pristine quality then it will only encode at about 17 frames per sec which is about 7 frames per second too slow for real time.

That's why I say that you can never have too much CPU.

 

[mfenn]

Transcoding is gonna depend on the source media and the destination. If it's just a simple DVD rip then any dual core will be fine. However, when you start stepping up to HD and 1080p, it'll take a quad core to really keep up in real time at any kind of quality and depending on the specific content, I've had quad cores struggle for real time with action sequences.

My particular test was 1080i TopGear S20E1 TV rip to 720p h.264. The particular scene was the season preview near the beginning with lots of a fast cuts and motion. So a pretty stressful real-world test, but certainly not the most stressful out there.

 

[mfenn]

A bit of both actually. Mostly it'll hold all my ripped blu-rays. And I'll be playing them on the TV (via HDMI). Occasionally I might watch a movie or summat on the phone or tab. But otherwise the streaming will mostly be for music. And it'll be where I have my scheduled PC backups written to. And as an FTP server (so I can get to my files from wherever).

I highly suggest going with Windows then unless you're already an expert on Linux codecs and video drivers.

The A8 won't have trouble though, would it? I mean, if it's going to be sluggish I might maybe wait a bit so I can save up and get an A10. What do you think?

If an A8 can't do it, then upgrading to an A10 won't help, there just isn't much difference between the two. Whether or not an A8 can do realtime depends on your input and output quality. I suspect "yes" though.

 

[smitbret]

I highly suggest going with Windows then unless you're already an expert on Linux codecs and video drivers.

I second this. WHS 2011 will work fine for cheap and Windows 7 would be ideal.

 

[smitbret]

My particular test was 1080i TopGear S20E1 TV rip to 720p h.264. The particular scene was the season preview near the beginning with lots of a fast cuts and motion. So a pretty stressful real-world test, but certainly not the most stressful out there.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I typically run my transcoder (uses ffMPEG) for Highest Quality 720p, instead of 1080p, and my Phenom II and FX-6100 can both transcode between 40-60 fps. I like to run the BR rip of Batman Begins through any new setups. The scene with all of the bats screaming across the screen really seems to test the limits from my experience.