XSeries-forum

One for the IT gurus on here.
I am looking at installing a home network in the house.
Mainly for storage of music, photos and movie files plus other stuff.
I have 2 x laptops in the house, his and hers LOL....
I want to be able to stream these files to my Samsung LED tv using DLNA.
At the moment I am doing this using my laptop without any problems using Mezzmo software but it means my machine has to be left on all the time. It copes with most stuff but struggles with HD movie files. I do understand that it should be hardwired to the TV for these HD files for seamless play back.

I am looking at the follwing NAS servers and would appreciate some feed back from the IT people as to which would better suit my needs. I would be looking at installing 2TB drives or 2 x 2TB drives.

1. http://www.synology.com/products/produc ... 1&lang=enu

2. http://www.synology.com/products/produc ... 1&lang=enu

3. http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=191

4. http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=192

Any help would be very much appreciated.
Are they easy to install and setup ???

cheers

I got a Netgear Ready NAS Duo and it has worked spot on . I've had it about 6 months now and use it for streaming HD movies via a Popcorn Hour. For my music I have a couple of Apple Airport Express. Btw the NAS was simple to set up and had raid technology so automatically mimics the second hard drive.


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If you use Windows shares, it can not get the data fast enough on the network to get it to the TV or media streamer for HD content.

I did tests on my setup, with Windows sharing (SMB) it was 7 Mb/s, with Hanewin software it was 13 Mb/s on a Gb network.

Hanewin can be downloaded from here: http://www.hanewin.net/nfs-e.htm

You can not stream HD content wireless without issues though, so wired is the way to go. SD is fine wirelessly.

You cold also see if one of these might do...

https://www.ripcaster.co.uk/node/270

The unit is now out of production (just) but there are stocks still about. I've got two of them providing full streaming over a gigabit backbone infrastructure. They also provide a full backup capability for all your PC's allowing recovery from dead to fully up as you were in a couple of hours. I'm slowly increasing the disc capacity up to 4 x 2TB (Hd video and large still photo libraries takes a lot of storage space) in each unit. I started with 1x500GB and 1x750GB drive.

And yes you do need to run 1080 HD over wired as you need at least 24Mb/s steady to keep up the data rate on AVCHD H.264 transfers. Uncompressed runs at about 750Mb/s!!

In terms of setting up, they're very easy. The OS is actually Windows Home Server V1 - a cut down Server2003. There is a new version of WHS due any time now (a cut down version of Server 2008 R2 but no OEM hardware yet - well not until the 27th May anyway. You can build your own too. The boxes are more expensive though and HP don't make one. Learn more here...

http://www.tranquilpcshop.co.uk/products/Leo-HS4.html

Oh, and I am a reseller of Tranquil PCs so I get a discount

They gave me the resellership as I bought about 5 of the homeservers so far + I explained to them how you can increase the network speed to stream HD content.

I'm all ears..........might be looking at one of their new systems. The Leo HS4 looks like it could be replacing my earlier HP NAS systems ( not the servers ) which are getting a little long in the tooth now, especially as they're up 24/7/365.

Need to upgrade its internals though.

Ping me when you need something, most stuff is 10% off for me.

I've ordered the 1st option above along with a WD caviar black 2TB HDD. Should arrive saturday so will probably be back on here asking a lot of questions when I can't get it to function

Just an update. Finally got the chance to install this. Found it quite straight forward in the end. The only thing that stumped me for awhile was port forwarding but I got there in the end.

yeah, that can be a bit of a mare !!

Just awaiting a nice shiny new Tranquil box courtesy of that nice man pvr

Should keep me busy for a while setting it up........well it's too wet to cut the grass innit

You mean that order that I cancelled after you paid me?

[quote=""pvr""]Ping me when you need something, most stuff is 10% off for me.[/quote]
Just wondering why you choose them, what would a setup cost 2x2tb extra slots would be good.

How do they compare to QNAP always hear good things about them but pricey.

At present the choice for WHS2011 systems is limited. You either re-provision an old PC to make it a server assuming you can still get all the right parts etc and it's reliable enough, or you buy pre-built. When WHS V1 came out it was well supported with a number of manufacturers, but for some reason they made their best products only available in the US. I have two WHS Mk1 HP units. One suffered a premature PSU failure and HP's UK support was a disgrace. The other later variant unit is a slower Celeron version of what was offered elsewhere so needed a CPU upgrade to a Pentium Dual-core to match the better specced but unavail outside the US version. HP and a number of other suppliers have either decided not to continue, sell a much more expensive option aimed at small businesses or no longer offer anything outside the US. No idea why though.

Most Home Servers are low power devices using low spec CPUs such as the Atom. If like me, you need to be able to do a lot more things like video transcoding of H.264 Full 1080 HD Video recorded at the 24MBps rate, or even directly off my ProHD cam then you need some grunt so it can keep up with the QuadSLI (4-graphics GPU units running as a bloc) main computer system. I specced the Tranquil box with an Intel Sandybridge i7 (default is an i3) and 8GB (2GB) of RAM. No one else offers that kind of power in reserve. I can now add 3TB drives as I need them up to 40TB max. 2TB drives are between £60-£122 each depending on performance. The ones I use are about £63 each. If you go for a full spec Tranquil Leo HS4 then your budget will need to be around £1100, possibly a bit more. In base spec it's a bit under that.

Yes I could have gone out and bought a rack mounted or floor mounted server system, but I don't need to add lots of users or have twin redundant PSUs, full failover capability, every kind of RAID out there and a massive price for Enterprise hard drives. I'm not a sysadmin and don't need MS Server 2008R2 in its full version. I'd love a HP DL380 or a Sun Sparc box (if they still make em) but.......

[quote=""X5Sport""]I'd love a HP DL380 (if they still make em) but.......[/quote]

Damn!

Threw out 70 of the buggers - G5's! BUT you couldn't of had one even, government account...