molko

Guys, I'm struggling a bit here and could do with a heads up

Generally what I do is copy a film from my main PC to a USB pendrive and stick the pendrive into my WDTV Device (which is connected to my TV via HDMI)

I am in the market to update the above with something a bit more sensiible.

I'm not sure if what kit I need though. My needs are

- Mass storage (6TB)
- Ability to stream films/music/etc to my TV over Poweline (or equivalent)
- Ability to stream films/music/etc to Laptop etc wirelessly
- Also want to be able to host Virtual Machines etc for general dev work

The device can sit either close to the TV, in which case the 'HDMI out' could go straight into the TV (and I could get rid of the WDTV) or can sit next to my main PC and I woul need to stream stuff over the Powerline

I'm unsure of the 'tech speak' with regard what I want.

Advice sought, thanks

tony de wonderful

Sounds like you want a NAS & a media centre?

I'm no expert on this but I sorted myself out with a raspberry pi and a couple of 1TB USB HDD's. The pi runs Xbian and acts as a NAS in conjunction with the HDD's with one HDD being a redundant mirror to the other (backup). I can read and write to the NAS using AFP. The pi connects to my TV via the HDMI.

It's hardly all singing and dancing but plays stuff at high def no problem. I think I could stream from the interweb too but I don't have the bandwidth.

Graz

Up until the point you said you want to host VMs a NAS would probably have done the job but I'd go for a microserver.

Site it near to your router, Ethernet cable to the server, and another to plug the router into the powerline adapter. Router will provide the Wi-Fi side of things.

Pretty much the setup I have - HP Proliant Microserver with 4TB of Raid 1 storage, powerline + WiFi, but I don't have the WDTV thingy as my TV and BR player has most of that functionality already.

Ant

Hp do cashback on micro servers iirc

molko

and them stream / pull from the Microserver via the WDTV ?

Graz

Yeah. Depends what OS you run on the server but you will need something that provides a DLNA media server which the WDTV can stream from. I run Windows Home Server 2011 which has this built in. I also run Serviio as the built in server won't stream .mkv files to my TV. Also messed around with Asset for audio (streams Flac and does on the fly conversion to MP3 for devices that don't support Flac.) Seems like you can do most of what WHS 2011 does with Windows 8 as well. Obviously many flavours of Linux also available.

john banks

What about having a box at your TV that has the storage and media player on it? It will be on your network and always on. I use an old Windows 7 laptop with only its USB and optical drive on its side facing outwards from the shelves under the TV, connected via HDMI to the TV and through an analogue audio cable to my receiver (which is too old to have HDMI). That way I can use it to show media on the TV or with the TV off (plasma so like to have it turned off rather than a static display with music tracks shown) it can do audio. I can use xbmc and iTunes remote controls from my phone or tablet, and also mobile mouse from phone or tablet.

I just couldn't get airplay (just for audio) to work through XBMC without occasional stutters (whereas I can stream hi def video over the gigabit network smoothly so it isn't the network).

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

Dependant on which NAS you opt for, set up ISCSI targets as storage nodes for your Virtual Machines. All the other stuff you mention is nice and easy.

Take a look at freenas - their current product offering is very good, easy to use provided that you have a bit of IT know how, and exceptionally powerful.

STi8

I run a HP micro server running Openmediavault then network it to my WDTVLIVE via a home plug. Works a treat and was exceptional value.