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[jmone]

Always fun but I've got some Q's I'd love to hear if anyone has had any experience with:
1) can I pull Video (including HD) fast enough over a 100MB lan if I keep stuff on a "server" or do I build my 1TB Raid 5 Array on the acutal HTPC connected to my AV gear?

2) The new Intel MOBO has RAID 5 on board - should I use this OR WinXP Raid 5 Hack OR Vista Ultimate (comes with RAID 5)?

Thanks
Nathan

[glynor]

Always fun but I've got some Q's I'd love to hear if anyone has had any experience with:
1) can I pull Video (including HD) fast enough over a 100MB lan if I keep stuff on a "server" or do I build my 1TB Raid 5 Array on the acutal HTPC connected to my AV gear?

You can, but Video will be slow-to-start and glitch prone.  I did use video over a 100Mbit LAN at one time, and it worked okay I suppose (but I certainly wouldn't call it "good" or "great"). I now have a high-quality Gigabit LAN switch and all is good.  I'd look to moving to a Gigabit network if you're going to put the RAID on a remote machine really.  You won't regret it.

2) The new Intel MOBO has RAID 5 on board - should I use this OR WinXP Raid 5 Hack OR Vista Ultimate (comes with RAID 5)?

Software RAID scares me.  I'd look for a discreet RAID card with an onboard hardware RAID engine personally.  Of course, those are a LOT more expensive than using software RAID setups...

I imagine Intel probably did it fairly well (though it's still gonna be software based -- done in the driver).  nVidia's onboard RAIDs have been dismal and trouble-prone.  Haven't really heard any positive or negative stuff about the XP Hack method or Vista, but generally those types of software setups are much less fault and migration tolerant than hardware systems.

[jmone]

You can, but Video will be slow-to-start and glitch prone.  I did use video over a 100Mbit LAN at one time, and it worked okay I suppose (but I certainly wouldn't call it "good" or "great"). I now have a high-quality Gigabit LAN switch and all is good.  I'd look to moving to a Gigabit network if you're going to put the RAID on a remote machine really.  You won't regret it.

Both PC's have GIGABIT but I'm (still) waiting for a Wireless 4 Port Gigabit Broadboad Router (then I'll see if my cabling is up to spec!)

Thakns
Nathan

[Wile E. One]

I'm (still) waiting for a Wireless 4 Port Gigabit Broadboad Router

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=530

I'm not entirely sure if this is what you are waiting on... but it sounded like it to me.

[skeeterfood]

For the "RAID" server I'd look into unRAID, Sun's new ZFS, or even Microsoft's newly announced Windows Home Server that will be out this fall.

They're all RAID-like in that they make sure there are multiple copies of all your data on separate physical drives, but they all allow you to pull a drive from the system and read it in any other compatible system.  They also provide easy mechanisms for adding more storage to the data pool and you know you're going to expand it someday.

For a home media file server you don't need the blazing I/O RAID's disk striping is attempting to provide, especially over a measly 100Mb, or even 1Gb network...

-John

[jmone]

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=530

I'm not entirely sure if this is what you are waiting on... but it sounded like it to me.

Yup that looked good - but as we speak I've got my RAID-5 Array up in the HTPC and it is building the parity as we speak (and watch a DVD)!

[park]

Is that wireless router faster or better somehow than the the apple airport extreme base station? I'm about to move to a place with more than one room!!! (I live in Tokyo) and am looking forward to freeing up our macs and pcs (as well as being able to go home and sit on a sofa after work for the first time in years:) )