Media Center PC help needed

[Kilamon]

I know someone said that external drives would be too slow, but I've looked around on Newegg, and I saw some positive reviews from people who bought them and used them for the same thing I have in mind. I might see if I can borrow someone's external drive and try it out. That way, if it works, great. If not, then I can look into other options.

Sorry, Mike, seems we've gone off the original topic of the OP.

Anyways, here's the link to the raid article I mentioned.

I wanted to ask why you feel an external hard drive is necessary? Are you going to be traveling and want to take your movies?

As for the raid, if you want 2tb, I saw that there's 500gb hitachi for $100 each, or 1tb for $369 (with coupons). To get up to 2tb, you can use 5x500gb or 3x1tb. You will lose one drive's use to the raid5 array, and you can expand raid5, so the 500gb drives may be less expensive and easier later down to expand.

[MadMike]

I wanted to ask why you feel an external hard drive is necessary? Are you going to be traveling and want to take your movies?

I wouldn't be taking them out of the house, no. I just figured it would be the easiest to expand as my collection grows.

[JustADude]

I wouldn't be taking them out of the house, no. I just figured it would be the easiest to expand as my collection grows.

As Kilamon mentioned, massive internal drives seem to be cheaper than the same size external drive, and the RAID-5 can have extra discs plugged in and it'll automatically redistribute the load across the new volumes. There's also much less space lost to 'formatting' issues on a RAID array, since the computer sees the whole thing as only one disc.

[Kilamon]

As Kilamon mentioned, massive internal drives seem to be cheaper than the same size external drive, and the RAID-5 can have extra discs plugged in and it'll automatically redistribute the load across the new volumes. There's also much less space lost to 'formatting' issues on a RAID array, since the computer sees the whole thing as only one disc.

Yep. You can do a cheap linux server with a big raid5 array and store that in another room and then also build out the mid-quality HTPC with a simple (yet sizable) drive to allow you to rip the DVDs (unless you want to use Linux for it) and store your PVR movies/shows. Then, you access your media library across the network where it's safely stored on the raid array. Bonus from this method is that you don't have to worry about keeping all those drives cool in your entertainment center AND you can use a larger case to allow you to use more hard drives as well as have more capacity for expeansion, physically. BTW, this is what I did. I use my normal workstation (XP) to rip DVDs to store on the Linux server (also my PDC, DNS, DHCP, Print Server and File server) and I can access them from any machine on the network including the HTPC which has a smallish 250gb hdd and cheap celery processor. It plays all my MP3s from the network, all my movies, and I can record live tv as well. Works pretty nicely. I think the new TiVo standalone machines are capable of accessing network resources, too. You might want to check that out.

[MadMike]

Sorry, Mike, seems we've gone off the original topic of the OP.

No problem. Since we now have another forum more suited to what we were discussing, I split this conversation off from the other thread and moved it here.

A few things have changed since we discussed this last, and any help you or anyone else can give me would be appreciated.

I found a nice piece of software for managing my movies called "MediaPortal". But unless I want to be searching through several different folders for my movies, it looks like I'll have to go with RAID after all, if for no other reason than to show all the movies as being under the same folder. So I'll need some help figuring out how to do that. I'm assuming I'd need some sort of external enclosure, since only so many drives will fit inside a case, especially if I get a Media Center one. If you could recommend something, that would be a big help.

Now, to address some of the other comments:

1. I don't want to just get a DVD jukebox, as I'd like to network my collection, and eventually get computers for the other TVs in the house and have them be able to access my movie collection. Besides, if everything is on computers, and one of them breaks, I know how to fix it. Not so with a jukebox.

2. I would prefer not to have to build a seperate server, but I will if I need to. I'd prefer not to have to buy a second set of parts (case, motherboard, processor, etc.), and I'm not sure where I'd even put it. If possible, I'd like the main computer to be able to double as both a media center and a server.

3. I've seen the terrabyte drives, but at the moment, they're horribly expensive, moreso than the 500GB ones, dollar per gigabyte. It would be nice to have, and I wouldn't need nearly as many drives, but unless the come down in price by the time I'm ready to put this together, I think the best thing would be to get several 500GB drives.

4. My friend who was going to bring over the external drive had to cancel on me, so I never got to find out if it would have been fast enough or not. Doesn't matter anyway, since I've scrapped that idea.

5. I have a link to my wish list somewhere, if anyone can take a look and tell me if I'm on the right track. If you see an external drive on the list, ignore that. That's left over from when I thought I was going that route, and may not have gotten around to updating it yet. I might end up changing a bunch more things, but if someone could at least let me know if I'm on the right track, that would be great.

[RichS]

5. I have a link to my wish list somewhere, if anyone can take a look and tell me if I'm on the right track. If you see an external drive on the list, ignore that. That's left over from when I thought I was going that route, and may not have gotten around to updating it yet. I might end up changing a bunch more things, but if someone could at least let me know if I'm on the right track, that would be great.

Mike, I have a Media Center PC that I put together with leftover parts & some new ones.

Looking over your list, I'd boost the RAM another 512MB for 1 GB. Just get another 512MB stick to take advantage of dual-channel.

There's a few of questions I have also -

Are you thinking of doing more with it eventually than just media storage? If you want to do more, then maybe get WinXP MCE over WinXP Home.

I didn't see a graphics card listed - what are you going to be using, and are you going to have this connected to a TV? You can go with a lower-end card (you're probably not going to be doing anything 3D with this system), but you have to make sure that there's an output your TV supports (S-video for an older set, DVI or VGA for newer). A fanless graphics card would be a good choice for a system like this - the less noise, the better.

[MadMike]

Looking over your list, I'd boost the RAM another 512MB for 1 GB. Just get another 512MB stick to take advantage of dual-channel.

Someone had mentioned that previously. I meant to add another stick, but forgot.

Are you thinking of doing more with it eventually than just media storage? If you want to do more, then maybe get WinXP MCE over WinXP Home.

The only other thing I'd want to do with it is record TV, hence the TV card. I know nothing about TV cards, so I have no idea if the one I picked is any good or not. What would be the advantages of MCE? The MediaPortal software I've chosen to use is free, and from what I've seen from the screen shots, looks a lot like MCE.

I didn't see a graphics card listed - what are you going to be using, and are you going to have this connected to a TV?

Hmm, I could have sworn I had one listed. My son has a spare one that I might be able to use, but I thought I added one just in case.

Yes, the whole idea is to hook it up to the TV thru S-video, and the stereo thru an optical connection. That's why I added a sound card, instead of just using the onboard sound that all motherboards have these days.

Another thought I had about a separate server -- how much of a machine do you need for a server? My son has quite a few computers just sitting around, although they're a bit old. I think the best one he had was something like a 300mhz Pentium 2.

[Shabo]

Oh no, please tell me you aren't seriously thinking of setting up the P2 as a server. That would be heinously slow. There would be no way you could put anything greater then W98 on it (2k would take up too much system resources) and you probably wouldn't have a good playback rate. At all.

I was talking with one of my fellow techie geeks, and he was saying that for Raid arrays, you only need a raid controller, hard drives, and case, and that you could set one up for $800. He was also saying that the cheapest way to get the network to all of your tvs would be to buy original XBoxes, mod them out, then install windows media center on them and network them to the raid server. This could be easier said than done, but I'll see if I can find anything online that is a how-to kind of thing.

Ok, I found a nice article with step by step instructions on setting up a raid array on a regular PC. RAID

Here is another article of how someone created a setup with just raid controllers, drives, and a ps, and done as cheaply as possible. You might want to get bigger HDs though, lol. Poor Mans Raid

This is how to mod the Xbox to be able to play things on it from the network. Xbox Mod

[RichS]

Oops! I guess I didn't go over the previous posts completely...

Since you already have the MediaPortal software, I'd stick with XP Home then. Looks like MediaPortal has the same capabilities as XP MCE for free. If I didn't get XP MCE for free, I'd probably give that a try. If Microsoft pushes it's DRM further, I just might anyway, either that or Myth TV.

I don't know if that TV card's good or not either. Personally, you can't go wrong with Hauppauge. I use a Win-TV 150 MCE, and video quality is great! I found this on NewEgg - it's a little bit more $ than what you have listed, but I bet it'd be well worth it. As far as graphics, I didn't see one listed, but any good card with an S-Video output would do well.

Other than that, it looks like you'd be set with that system.

As far as servers, I haven't a clue. Only server I worked on was an ancient dual P166.

[MadMike]

Oh no, please tell me you aren't seriously thinking of setting up the P2 as a server.

Well, not anymore. I started to realize that as I was looking at parts. I guess there's no getting away from having a separate server. So I'll have to put together a wish list just for that. I guess I won't need speakers, and I have an old CRT sitting around. Maybe I can find space for it in the laundry/storage area. It's not like I'd need a comfortable place to sit at it and use it, unless the thing goes down and for initial setup, and even then I wouldn't have to be on it for long.

I've been looking at RAID cards. Looks like I'm going to have to go SATA, because the IDE ones I saw look like they can only handle four drives max.

I think I saw a couple that can handle 12 drives. I don't know that I'd need that many, but the more the better. I also saw some motherboards that say they're RAID-capable. Does that mean I wouldn't need the card?

I'm starting to get the idea, I think. Someone mentioned that RAID-5 would be the way to go. Just one question that I can't seem to find the answer to -- do all the drives have to be the same size? By the time I'd need to add to the thing, the bigger drives will probably come down in price, and I might want to add some of them. What I'd really like is to use some of the terrabyte drives I've seen on Newegg, but they're still hellishly expensive.

Any idea what type of processor would be good to go with? Maybe the one I have for the media center?

Personally, you can't go wrong with Hauppauge.

Thanx, I'll have a look at that one later. I'm sure that one would be good, I think I saw that one listed somewhere in the software I'm using.

[JustADude]

To answer your questions in order:

Yes, that means that the MoBo has a RAID controller built into it, so you wouldn't have to get a controller. Just be sure it's SATA 3GB/s standard, since that's the fastest out there.

The drives don't all HAVE to be the same size, but the array works most smoothly and efficiently if they all are. You'll need to add up however many you need to get the total storage, then add one more for the parity checking to get the total number of drives. I'll also once more recommend getting a small, separate physical drive for the OS, so you don't have R/W bottlenecks if the system has to do something during playback.

Just about any processor created since the birth of WinXP should do you just fine. You'd want to get at least 1Ghz, but I don't think you can find one under that these days anyway.

[MadMike]

I'll also once more recommend getting a small, separate physical drive for the OS, so you don't have R/W bottlenecks if the system has to do something during playback.

Understood, and that brings me to another question...

How would I exclude one of the drives from the array if I'm using a motherboard that supports it, rather than a RAID card? With the card, I assume that all I'd have to do would be to hook one drive up directly to the board and not the card.

I've updated my wish list recently. On the recommendations I've received so far, I've doubled the RAM, switched to a Haupage TV card, and added a video card (I could have sworn I had one listed, but there didn't seem to be one when I checked.)

If this looks OK, I guess the next thing to do would be to put together a server. I've seen some motherboards that handle a large number of drives, but I also noticed that some of them have dual LAN ports. How would you use something like that?


EDIT: How does this motherboard look for the server?

[RichS]

How would I exclude one of the drives from the array if I'm using a motherboard that supports it, rather than a RAID card? With the card, I assume that all I'd have to do would be to hook one drive up directly to the board and not the card.

With the motherboards I've seen that have onboard RAID, they have separate SATA or IDE adapters for RAID, so it's almost the same as a separate card - just attach the separate drive to the normal SATA or IDE adapter on the board.

I do separate drives on my HTPC also - one smaller main drive for the OS & downloaded Internet TV, and one separate drive for recording. Another good reason for this is if the OS has a problem, I can just format & reload without losing my recorded content.

I've updated my wish list recently.

Looks good to me - the 7800GS card will be more than enough to do the job, and I like the upgrades both to the Hauppauge TV card and the Corsair memory.

[JustADude]

How would I exclude one of the drives from the array if I'm using a motherboard that supports it, rather than a RAID card? With the card, I assume that all I'd have to do would be to hook one drive up directly to the board and not the card.

As RichS said, there'll be a separate place to plug the drives in, plus you'll have to go in and build the array once the physical drives are installed. It'll either be done in the BIOS setup, or during another setup screen that comes up during boot.

I, personally, would avoid that ABIT board, since the reviews seem to indicate it's got some issues. Otherwise, the specs on it look great, though.

[MadMike]

OK, I'm getting confused again. I know you advised me not to use the board I linked to, so I'll just use it as an example.

I think it had 10 SATA connectors. How do I know which ones can be used for the array?