what I need from the expertise here present is some fool-proof guidance on how I would go about setting up a spare computer to be a media server. The base unit is a nice quiet thing that I bought for my dad about 5 years ago. It's small form factor but enough room for a couple of disks; I think one of the things I'll need is some sort of IDE to SATA card since it'll only take IDE disks. I'll also be putting a wireless card in.

 

What I want is a mirrored raid setup in it so that photos etc will be automatically backed up. I'll be fitting big disks as music will be ripped to it in some sort of lossless format.

 

So, how do I go about the actual setting up of it? Only have the one monitor connected to my main system and having a monitor set up just for the server would kind of defeat the object of sticking a small, low powered machine out of the way somewhere. Also what software should I use. Can't afford to splash out on some super-duper OS for it. There is also no room by the TV so I can't put it there (when I say small, it's about the size of two shoe boxes on top of each other)

 

So, yeah, help me please!

An adaptor like this perhaps.... Looks like it plugs into the IDE socket on the motherboard and gives me the two SATA sockets I need. Or am I missing something?

Probably best go for windows, XP or 7. Jim them.

 

Does it have any PCI slots? If so get a PCI SATA card.
WiFi is probably going to be slow and frustrating.
Ideal locations... Under the stairs or attic.

RAID is not a backup! RAID is designed to protect against disk failure, it won't help with disasters or user related mishaps or theft.

But anyway.

It depends how geeky you want to get / how far your knowledge will stretch.

If the graphics in your re-purposed media server happen to be NVIDIA based and you're comfortable with Linux, I would highly recommend giving XBMC a try. It has picture viewer with transitions, music player with visualisations and CDDB-esq support, film and TV support with information scrapers that gather episode names, plots and such like from IMDB and other (more reputable) sites. It's really rather good.

You can get a Live CD / USB image (based on Ubuntu) for it so you can try it out if you don't fancy installing it. It is also available for Windows if you'd rather not go near Linux, which I can perfectly understand.

Oh wait, you mean headless media server, not HTPC. Oh well, Ignore XBMC then. Stick Windows server on it.

My knowledge will stretch pretty far, once it's been prodded sufficiently! I was messing about with Linux quite a lot about 12 years ago but not since then so I have no real issues with getting my hands dirty! Photos and what not will be backed up too, for day to day things I'm going to assume that it's unlikely that I'll lose two disks at the same time :-)

What do you use as a backup?

I use a USB HDD and CDs / DVDs for more important stuff.

 

I have a RAID1 setup in my PC, but I've learnt the hard way not to treat it as a backup.

one power surge type mishap (or water damage, accident, etc) can take 'em both out pretty easily if they're in the same box though.

For an OS, you might want to consider Windows Home Server. It's quite cheap, even if you don't get help from Jim.

It provides backups of clients, and also has some basic management of backup to USB drive or whathaveyou. Also provides a DLNA media server, and a web interface for uploading/viewing your files/videos/photos, etc.

I've been running a V1 (based on server 2003) box for a couple of years now, and am now migrating to 2011 (based on server 2008 R2). It's pretty good at 'just working'

Yeah - at the moment I have crap all over the place so while I get around to reinstalling etc, seems like the ideal time to get everything set up properly. I already have a couple of external USB drives, just need to organise so its easy to do regular backups :-)

I'll look into that then ta

That adapter should do the job, but on the topic of adapters like that, I wouldn't trust them too much. I've had a couple of the similar adapters that have died or just refused to work with certain drives and worked with others. I've also found some chipsets don't like all hard drives, especially larger ones.

Thanks for the tip - starting to think some sort of NAS might be better...windows home server 2011 needs a better machine than I have and according to what I've been able.to find so far points to earlier versions not liking windows 7 too much. I'll have to get off the phone and start having a look on a proper computer

How about a HP N36L?

It's £242 on Ebuyer, but you can claim £100 rebate from HP. Comes with 1 250GB HDD, but has space to hold 4 HDDs and a optical drive. It's x86 capable too so will run Windows (Home) Server or some Linux or whatever you fancy throwing at it.

What Matt said.

 

If I didn't already have more than the amount of drives to put in one of those I'd buy one myself.

What Matt said, thirded.. I've had one for about 7 months now I think, loaded with a couple of 2TB drives and the standard one for the OS, with WHS2011 and DriveBender ('cos MS decided to remove the duplication feature); add Mezzmo or a free alternative as a DLNA server, and you've got a great thingy in a little box.

That is exactly what I run my WHS2011 on :)

Such as Serviio

Precisely - although I had some issues with Serviio, so I'm sticking to Mezzmo for now.
I'm also following this thread to set up SABnzbd and Sick Beard (but without XBMC 'cos my TV can stream DLNA so I don't need it). Geekness!