Tikker's HTPC, part2

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:38 am

This is more directed at the back end of things. The Fileserver, and the DVD ripping/encoding portion of things

The nice thing about fileservers, is that you really don't need a lot of horsepower (depending on how smart the gear is you're streaming to)

If it's another pc, you could use something like a p2 350, with 128 mb of ram and be VERY successful.

Currently I'm experimenting with 2 different fileservers.

The first is just an old PC that I've upgraded bit by bit. It's now a celeron 2.6 Ghz(free cpu!) with 1.5 gb of pc 133 ram (all free stuff too)
I've got 3x 300gb hard drives in it, and currently have about 750ish gb of movies/mp3/pictures.

I use this machine to serve all the files, as well as to do my Video encoding. I use dvd decrypter to rip the movies (this software has since be squashed by SOme compaNY) to a video stream, and then autoGK to encode it to a high quality DivX movie

with this machine, it generally takes about 4 hours from the time I put the DVD into the drive, to the time I can watch the movie on my HTPC (or laptop, or prismiq, or Lyra)

I'm also fiddling with a NSLU2. it's a linksys box, about half the size of a normal broadband router, that accepts USB hard drive enclosures, or just USB flash drives. It's nice because it uses about 1/10th of the power of a fileserver, and is completely silent, with no moving parts.

It's also hackable ala the wrt54g's, so lots of development and 3rd party applications are available for it. I'm undecided if I'm going to use it as a fileserver, or if I'm going to just stick a 4 gb flash drive on it, and use it as a small webserver, or just potentially to use it as a repository for all my network backups (ghost images)

For the fileserver, the standard build is xp pro, running Ghost, Teamspeak, mysql, php, a phpBB forum, and streaming software for the prismiq, and MRTG to monitor the rest of the network for congestion

Post by **Lyion** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:44 pm

Good stuff.

I run an NLSU2 with Unslung as my file/webserver on my local LAN. I have 2 250 Gig HDDs attached to it.

My HTPC is up and running Windows Media Edition 2005, but I have a lot of things I want to nab.

I also need to find a killer deal on a speaker system for this. My 42" LCD TV is stellar, though.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:11 pm

are you going to use the PC as the amp/receiver, or a seperate system?

Post by **Lyion** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:16 am

Tikker wrote:are you going to use the PC as the amp/receiver, or a seperate system?

I'm not sure yet. I'm looking at a really sweet Sony amp that I want, but that may be way down the line.

For now I just want surround speakers in my office.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:50 pm

lyion wrote:Good stuff.

I run an NLSU2 with Unslung as my file/webserver on my local LAN. I have 2 250 Gig HDDs attached to it.

What additional features of Unslung are you using?

I've been contemplating mucking around with it, but haven't had the motivation to do so cause I can't really pin down any benefit to doing so..

Although I'm pretty sure I"m going to do the hardware mods of doubling the CPU speed(more like removing the resistor that limits it) and probably soldering in more ram

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:14 pm

I'm running the smaller http server on my home network and hosting two small websites , not apache, the tiny one. I have mysql for my backend mythtv database (which I dont use) on it as well. I also upgraded busybox and have additional ssh functionality.

Unslung took me 5 minutes to install and preserves the base functionality. It really is nicely done.

I doubt I'll do anything to it, as it webhosts, fileserves, and provides a mini database anything I want to network store and works fairly fast.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:17 pm

The part that I was interested in, but I'm really having a tough time finding good data on, is the ability to spin down the Hard drives in the USB enclosures

I really don't want them spinning top speed 100% of the time when I probably only access them 2-3 hours a night, tops

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:02 pm

Tikker wrote:The part that I was interested in, but I'm really having a tough time finding good data on, is the ability to spin down the Hard drives in the USB enclosures

I really don't want them spinning top speed 100% of the time when I probably only access them 2-3 hours a night, tops

Power it off when you aren't using it.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:40 am

that's not really a great alternative or a real fix

it IS possible to do some spindown stuff on it, but they're very linux centric, and i'm not a linux user

Post by **Lyion** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:01 am

Let me know if you see anything you want me to test. I'm pretty hardcore into Linux.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:04 pm

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/FAQ/Spi ... BHarddisks

it's not that it's hard, it's just that I don't have a linux machine built to do it with

and i'm not f'ing building one just to do it

Post by **Lyion** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:20 pm

This is really not feasible, unless you want your /var in the RAM, which defeats the purpose of the whole NLSU setup. I don't like copying dev and var every boot and having them default to RAM.

Really, I think you can do this with power configuration setup, but I'll have to investigate.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:10 pm

quick update:

I can now stream live TV wirelessly throughout the house

Using VLC on my HTPC I capture a tv stream (my tv comes via multicast, but you could do the same thing with a capture card) and then just cache it slightly (100ms) and then unicast it to my laptop

works great, and I'm just building a new antenna this weekend to let me pick it up from the garage

vonkaar · Post by **vonkaar** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:44 am

PM Granh (my little bro) and see if he'll come in this thread. He has a lot of HTPC experience.