Help me build a server please

FXB

FXB

New Member
I want to build a server from the components I already own.


Desktop​

OS:Windows 7 Professional 64 bits Case: Antec Three Hundred MOBO: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition RAM: Mushkin Silverline 2x4Gb DDR3 HDD: 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB PSU:Thermaltake TRX-650M​

It must be quiet.

It must use relatively little power when it's not streaming media. This device will be running 24/7 and so running costs cannot be ignored.

If must not generate a lot of heat. This server is going to live in a, relatively, air-tight cupboard and I don’t want to install extra cooling in the cupboard. Doing so would use power and add noise.

It must be flexible enough to do pretty much what I want with it.

I want to be able to record TV programmes with it. I then want to be able to stream these programmes around the house. Computers and tv's alike I have an xbox 360 so it must be able to support these.

It must be able to run torrent downloads. I want this server to automatically download my favourite TV shows and make these shows available to my Media Streamers and xbox.

It must be powerful enough to support multiple, simultaneous, High-Definition video streams. Not only that, but it must be able to do this whilst doing other things too, such as backing up my desktop computers or re-encoding video files.

It must be headless. BUT I don't want to learn hundreds of commands to be able to configure it so I need a GUI interface too. Hmm, headless AND a GUI interface?

It must be stable. I don't want to be tinkering with it every 5 minutes. Nor do I want to be rebooting it every couple of days.

I don't want to have to buy an operating system for it. I already have win 7 pro 64 bits

Since this server will live in a cupboard and be running 24/7 I want it to be able to monitor its own temperatures and to shutdown automatically if things get a bit too "toasty". I want it to send me an email if it's going to shutdown so I know it's not happy and is in need of my attention.

As mentioned above, it must be able to throttle down when idle. By this I mean the drives must spin down when they're not being used. This will save power and ease cooling.

If I ever get bored with it, or change my mind about this whole central media server idea, then I want to be able to put it to good use elsewhere. e.g. use it as a desktop computer.

I am also working on moving to a Apple dominated environment so the server must work in that environment as well.
 
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I'm thinking of going the linux route my big concern is transferring the data I already have on my HDD. Can linux read an NTFS drive?
 
I posted this in another thread, it might help. It's a list of software that can be used for streaming media to different computers/devices, and a comparison chart between them. I know some of them can stream to a xbox and such, so give it a read through i suppose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_streaming_media_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_streaming_media_systems

I'm actually working on a similar project, except I'm just streaming music and downloaded videos, but my catch is it must be cross platform.


Edit: and a lot of your temp stuff could most likely be run via a batch script. Email is a maybe, might have to incorporate some special programs into the script.
 
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Today I learned that you need home sharing enabled on a computer to stream with the apple TV is there any way i can install itunes on ubuntu server and stream from there?

if not what is the best way to automate downloads, backup, TV recording in windows?
 
NyxCharon said:
i would look for a better solution. I'd use something else to stream the media, using wine is always buggy. Vlc can ever stream media.
Click to expand...

the issue is that the Apple TV can only use iTunes unless I jailbreak it then I could use plex.
 
Depends. What is the list of hardware that this server will be streaming too, not to mention, the future list, since you mention something about moving to apple products. Once I understand what hardware you need to stream to, I can help you make a decision. Like i said, I'm working on a smaller scale media server, so i'll share what i know.
 
for the time being I would like to stream to my xbox 360 and my MBP. In the future I would stream to an iMac,mbp,ATV possibly xbox 360. As previously mentioned I want it to download new TV episodes, movies, music. Backup all the devices to it as well as locally (say have an iPad backup on a computer and on the server) it needs to be flexible as far as the drives I add as my storage needs expand and flexible when I add devices to the network (most likely new apple products)
 
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Do you have a college (.edu) email address, by chance? If you do, and your college is a partner with Microsoft, you could download a full, legitimate copy of Server 2003, 2008, or 2008 R2 from Microsoft Dreamspark. Just a thought, so you could potentially run a dedicated server OS and keep the Windows 7 license for another PC.
 
This is the device I am using:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQPe4GZzY8
-Cheap, (around $100-120) and fills your needs + more.
-DLNA feature (Share media via media center players, xbox, PS, WII, smart TV etc.)
-Torrent directory (Drop you torrent files there and come back later for retrieved file)
-Supports FTP.
-Cool slide show home page.
-No addition software needed.
I have the 1 Gb version.
You can check my Home page out here:
http://piperserver.iomegalink.com
Some forums say they are noisy but I found mine very quiet.
Also, some forums say it fails at random, again I have not had any problems.
Couple other models avaliable.
Hope this helps,
 
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Pipes said:
This is the device I am using:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQPe4GZzY8
-Cheap, (around $100-120) and fills your needs + more.
-DLNA feature (Share media via media center players, xbox, PS, WII, smart TV etc.)
-Torrent directory (Drop you torrent files there and come back later for retrieved file)
-Supports FTP.
-Cool slide show home page.
-No addition software needed.
I have the 1 Gb version.
You can check my Home page out here:
http://piperserver.iomegalink.com
Some forums say they are noisy but I found mine very quiet.
Also, some forums say it fails at random, again I have not had any problems.
Couple other models avaliable.
Hope this helps,
Click to expand...

This is not what I am looking for. I want to build my own server and I want it to be expandable. I also want to build from hardware I already own and keep the cost low.
 
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