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Does anyone else use Windows Home Server as (among lots of other things) a way to play your media library over your LAN to your tv(s)?
I do and I'm looking for others in this very small demographic to share tips and ideas... but right now I'm too tired to elaborate.
Post any thoughts if you're interested.
Thanks,
NS
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Can you confirm whether or not WHS works OK with XBMC? I've been considering getting this for a while but I was concerned that it may not work well with XBMC.
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I am working on setting up my WHS now. I have been transferring all my media files from the desktop to the new WHS box. I really don't forsee any issues. If anything the WHS should be a more stable platform for sharing media.
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BTW, WHS worked just fine for serving to XBMC, but WHS itself was causing me issues (although I think it was entirely because of the older hardware I installed it on, possibly because of my excessive use of utorrent on it).
I'd like to encourage others to check WHS out though. I think it's a fantastic product with tons of desirable features (especially web interface), and I will probably be a WHS owner in a few years. Server 2003 being free for me will keep me happy for now.
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hazeh
Senior Member
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I've been using freenas without problems for a long time now.
I seriously doubt I'd ever consider using WHS but I'm still a little interested in how they compare.
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I had a WHS server, and I guess it did some things OK. It is really easy to set up and run so it has that going for it. But the upload speeds are severely throttled by the DE. DE doesn't kick in until you have multiple HDDs.
I was seeing upload speeds of < 3MBps. It was fast enough to stream to XBMC without problems, but if you are regularly throwing 4-8GB iso's to your media server 3MBps is a PITA. To give you an idea of how slow that is I am using the exact same hardware and network and I am seeing 40-50MBps on my linux server. The final straw for me was when the WHS started creating problems with avi files, to the point where I could not play them on XBMC. So I switched to Linux.
Linux can do everything WHS can do and then a bunch, much faster, much more stable. I can also run LinuXBMC on the server for HD content. Need I also mention that linux is free and doesn't have any of the WPA activation headaches...The only downside is it isn't as easy to set up and manage. It is not rocket science though and anyone who is pulling their xbox apart to add a modchip and then installing xbmc should be able to figure it out.
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I use unRaid as well. Its great!
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Geeba
Posting Freak
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I run WHS! works great! as stated it backs up all my PC's and even looks after the AV needs to as well as all the remote features and the stuff cousinsp mentioned. the folder duplication is great! And Orb software is genius!! (still playing with that)
I've never had any problems steaming from it ether... its fast and reliable. Gigabit everywhere bar Xbox of course... I store files as AVI, VOB, ISO, RAR.. everything and it all plays fine. make sure you install Power Pack 1 thou as there was a file coruption problem with early releases.
If your using a torrent client on it use a sperate drive and dont pool it... then get all the downloads on that prior to moving them to your share folders...
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I have heard good things about unraid but is there any big difference beteween that and free raid?
worth the 69$ over free?