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[Z0001]

Hi

We have moved home and now want to have MC on several machines around the house with all our files in a secure central location. I'm thinking this is a server.

Are servers generally reliable at streaming multiple streams without compromising quality ie no jumpy video?

Currently we have 32TB of media over 11 HDDs (2TB and 4TB) and I want to use these in an efficient manner and build in some redundancy. We also have a 4 bay Qnap NAS with 8TB in a RAID 5 which has become too small to be of use to the media collection and so is quite empty. I would be happy to ditch the NAS if I could build something to use all disks. So that's 15 HDD and this will expand I'm sure.

The server will be on all the time, so I'd want it to be low power, but I won't want to compromise streaming bandwidth (don't want 3D movies compromised, not sure if that's a risk).

I would prefer a windows based server as I am familiar with windows.

Would anyone out there have some guidance and pointers on how to embark on this and what key things to bear in mind? Eg should I be thinking a single server box, or a a smaller server box and multiple externally connected drive bays to allow expansion.

Many thanks
Z

[dmarkovi]

I'm interested in this as well.

I was thinking of picking up a used AMD g34 dual socket motherboard and building around but that isn't going to be low power.

I currently run my server off a phenom x6 to two window clients and multiple DLNA clients through gizmo and haven't had any issues, but I plan to run more window clients + a 6 tuner tv card when I move to the new place.

[JimH]

I'm going to move this to the hardware board.  You'll get more advice there.

It's impossible to be very specific about hardware since there are so many variables.

[mwillems]

Hi

We have moved home and now want to have MC on several machines around the house with all our files in a secure central location. I'm thinking this is a server.

Are servers generally reliable at streaming multiple streams without compromising quality ie no jumpy video?

Currently we have 32TB of media over 11 HDDs (2TB and 4TB) and I want to use these in an efficient manner and build in some redundancy. We also have a 4 bay Qnap NAS with 8TB in a RAID 5 which has become too small to be of use to the media collection and so is quite empty. I would be happy to ditch the NAS if I could build something to use all disks. So that's 15 HDD and this will expand I'm sure.

The server will be on all the time, so I'd want it to be low power, but I won't want to compromise streaming bandwidth (don't want 3D movies compromised, not sure if that's a risk).

I would prefer a windows based server as I am familiar with windows.

Would anyone out there have some guidance and pointers on how to embark on this and what key things to bear in mind? Eg should I be thinking a single server box, or a a smaller server box and multiple externally connected drive bays to allow expansion.

Many thanks
Z

Have a look at these threads for some thoughts on storage setup:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88815
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89647.0

Bracketing out the storage issue, the two most important things to consider for server performance are bandwidth and on the fly transcoding needs.  If you're wired toa Gb switch, then bandwidth isn't likely to be an issue (a bluray rip might only use 30Mb/s), so transcoding is the bigger issue.

Do you need the ability to transcode on the fly, and if so how much transcoding do you need to do?  The more transcoding that needs to be done at any one time the more "grunt" your server needs.  I had an old laptop acting as a server for a while with a 2000-ish passmark, and it could (just barely) handle transcoding a 1080p stream; more than one stream would choke it.  If you want to be able to transcode multiple 1080p streams you'll need something with a 5k-8k passmark or better: (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/).  

Many DLNA renderers will require transcoding (depending on what formats you store your media in), and Gizmo playback on devices always requires transcoding right now.  However, if all of your clients will be PCs running JRiver, your server needs very little CPU power to serve them (my same old 2k passmark laptop could handle four simultaneous streams as long as no transcoding was involved).

My own current solution is a homemade NAS with a low power processor and all my drives in it, and a slightly higher power PC that's both an HTPC and the actual server.