Kodi Community Forum

Hi,
I have 6 2TB HDDs running on my desktop. My Desktop is running out of space,so I want to build server. The HDDs contain around 400 HD Movies. Since I am new to this I would like to know, what are my BEST options here. I would like to have a server and a HTPC w/ XMBC seperatly.

Start by finding a case that will hold however many hdd's you want to have and are happy with - Im happy with my fractal desgin r2. Next a mother board with lots of sata ports - probably atx sized for more expandability. These days I prefer intel cpus, but anything will do. I'd be looking for a current low end intel cpu with inbuilt gpu , eg celeron/i3 - but this depends on what you want the file server to do, eg encode musc/videos on the fly etc. A small ssd for the system drive + 4gb or ram, maybe more if using windows. A quality PSU with a high efficiency rating, I like corsair but there are other brands.

Got 3x 5.25 bays?

http://www.xcase.co.uk/product-p/caddy-53v2.htm

thx for the advice so far. Yes Im already looking for a case and mobo. Probably with SATA Backplane.But I want also to prevent data loss in case of HDD malfunction. Can I build a RAID or something?

Buy a 6 bay NAS.

Cant afford it. Want to build a server myself. But how do get the harddrives together as one single storage. Thats my idea. Is this possible even they are already in use? The thing is when I ask in a german forum people don't real good advice to rookie. Thats why i ask here.

Do you want raid or drive pooling? I know you can pool existing folders together in linux with aufs and you may get away with building a raid array by using mdadm to create a degraded raid array and add your drives to the raid array as you copy more data to it.

Drive pooling sounds interesting to me. But i have just little xp with linux. What linux version would you recommend? I definitely want to get into it.

Here are some cases I've used to build 6+ HDD servers I really like:

Fractal Design Node 304 FD-CA-NODE-304-BL Black Aluminum / Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case $54.99 + FS @ Newegg.com
LIAN LI PC-Q25B Black Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case $109.99 + $5.99 @ Newegg.com
LIAN LI PC-Q08B Black Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case $109.99 + $7.99 @ Newegg.com

For motherboard, I've used the ASUS E35M1-I, C60M1-I and P8H77-I with G1610 CPU. The latter is the only one among that list that's somewhat easy to find. All have 6 x SATA ports. You can add a PCIe card to them as well to support up to 10 drives.

My personal home server is with the PC-Q08, a 2-port SATA III controller, a hot-swap 5.25-to-3.5" converter, ASUS E35M1-I motherboard, 4GB RAM and WHS2011 running on a 64GB SSD plus 6 x 3.5" HDDs. For the PSU I am using the FSP 80 PLUS Certified 300-Watt Micro ATX/SFX Power Supply FSP300-60GHS-R with some molex-to-SATA power splitters.

My most recent customer server build was with the PC-Q25 case and P8H77-I motherboard with a G1610 CPU, 8GB RAM and a 120GB SSD.

BTW, the best defense again data loss is backup not RAID. RAID is about reliability and failover, not about data protection. RAID will not protect you from accidental deletion. Having an off-line backup of your data will.

Id go with unraid for the s/w ,easy to install and can always add more drives as needed

@dougie fresh:
thanks for case recommendations. Will take a look at it.
And i know that RAID is not the best defense against data. But it gives enough security to me, since i just need it for movies not personal recordings.

@Richard39
already read about unraid but the writing speed of unraid is a little low. 30mb/s is not very much.

I recommend disParity: http://www.vilett.com/disParity

Works with existing file structures. This provides the main benefit of RAID (protection against data loss due to drive failure) without having deal with a rebuilding RAID arrays (or with the added power and heat of spinning all of your drives to access any file). Another upside is you have access to all of the files on working disks. So in a scenario where you have 4 drives + 1 parity drive, and the parity drive AND a regular drive fail, you still have access to 3/4 of your data drive. In RAID 5, all would be lost.

Also, the fractal case looks very nice. If you want room for expansion and desire hotswap functionality you might look at NSC-800

http://zackreed.me/articles/72-snapraid-on-ubuntu-12-04 is a good tutorial on howto build a setup with Ubuntu/snapraid/aufs.

You can also use snapraid on Windows and you can continue using ntfs.

Thx again for the good tips. I feel much better in this community than in a german forum. The answers are way better than what i am used to. Helps me a lot finding an accurate solution. Any suggestions about Openmediavault? Linux seems to have a lot of distributions. Hard to decide for a novice.

@bodapunk:
Well the u-nas nsc 800 looks nice. But 45$ for shipping is too much, even if there are not really too many cases eligible. I have another recommendation for http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/content/rebel9-economy