Home Theater Projects
I will be posting details, progress reports, pictures, etc regarding my system builds, media server, and home theater setup on this page. Check back for updates as things move forward. Thanks!
To start things off, here is my current setup with specs and pics.
 Media Server Case |
 Inside of Case |
 Staggered Drives |
|
Specs on this beast:
Case: Norco 4020
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 Watt
Mobo: Asus P5Q Premium
CPU: Intel Core2Quad 2.6GHz
RAM: 12GB DDR2-800
System HDD: 2x 1TB WD Black Series
Raid Controller: Areca ARC-1260
Storage HDD: 6x 2TB WD Green Series
NIC: 1x Intel Pro/1000 PT Quad Port Server Adapter
……..1x Intel Pro/1000 ET Quad Port Server Adapter
This all gets fed into a Dell PowerConnect 2824 Gigabit Switch and out to the rest of the network. The machine is running ESXi 4.0 as its primary OS with the Areca drivers hacked into it. Under ESXi, one of the virtual machines is just a basic Ubuntu Server running LVM to handle the chunks I had to break the storage array into. The storage array is in RAID 6, split up into 2TB volumes and added to ESXi as individual LUNS of a single datastore. Then there are 2TB virtual disks on that datastore which are assigned to the media server virtual machine and combined back together with LVM. This is a very sub-optimal configuration, but was necessary due to limitations of the Raw Device Mapping in ESXi. When a better job comes along and I can afford to be running yet another physical server, the ESX Host server will be rebuilt in a new case and the media/storage server will be rebuilt in this Norco case to properly utilize the RAID6 array’s redundancy and fault tolerance.
This current configuration leaves me with approximately 7TB of storage space to house all my media. This media server VM houses all my backed up Blu-Ray and DVD movies, TV shows, music, pictures, etc and streams them across my network to the PS3 via the MediaTomb UPNP server. There are definitely plans for the future to get a nice small HTPC built up running XBMC to interface with the media server instead of using the PS3′s ugly XMB interface. We all like pretty things, right? So what do you think of my setup? How does it compare with your home theater setup? Drop me a line in the comments section to let me know what you have to say and check back for updates in the future as things progress.
Coffee makes the world go ’round…
Posted November 30, 2009 by vidkun
December 3rd, 2009 at 16:39
Looks sharp. I was looking at the Norco but decided I wanted a pedistal case instead, so I went with the Chenbro SR109 which gives me 1 O/S drive and potential for 15 storage drives. Right now I have all but 2 bays filled at about 16TB. Most of my drives are 1TB WD GP drives with a few 1.5TB and 2TB drives. If/when I run out of space I will probably slowly replace the 1TB drives with the 2TB drives (I just picked up a few of the WD GP 2TB drives for $139, lowest price I have seen on these). I am running WHS and so far am very happy with it (was running WHS on my HP EX470 for about a year before I built Shawshank). My house is a mix of HTPCs (2) and media players (PCH C-200, Xtreamer, Myka, HD200, etc…). My HTPCs though are my main players, using WMC + MediaBrowser as the main UI. I do a lot of messing around with XBMC, I am hoping they get DXVA for Windows and a centralized db up soon which would make it more practical for my setup.
It is definitely time to ditch the PS3 and go the HTPC route
Cheers
vidkun Says:Damian
December 9th, 2009 at 12:11
Time and money. They always seem to hold you back. That’s why I haven’t built up the HTCP yet. I run mostly Linux on my network, but do have a few windows based virtual machines running for certain required functions. Though when I build the HTPC, it will probably run Win 7 for best codec support and occasional blu-ray play back from disc. I still like XBMC for the frontend though. Have you found anything you like better yet?
Another hold up is the case for HTPC. I want something decent, but cheap. I can’t justify $200+ for an HTPC case. What cases do you use/like for HTPC’s?
Again price comes about. I went with the Norco because it allowed for 20 bays for storage alone (there are 2 internal bays for OS drives) and the price was one of the cheapest I could find. It also got a lot of great reviews over on the AVS Forums.
DamianP Says:December 10th, 2009 at 12:36
Right now W7/WMC + MediaBrowser was been my UI of choice. It has been the most flexible for me to arrange all my content and has been very easy for my wife to operate all with only using my Harmony remotes. I still mess around with XBMC/Boxee/SageTV/MediaPortal on my desktop PC, so it is not set in stone that I may switch down the road. I will wait until the next release of MediaBrowser under the new paid model to determine if I stick with it our look elsewhere.
My HTPC cases are two different extremes. In my bedroom I just went with a generic HEC mATX case, basically cheap and desktop pc looking. For my Family Room I went with the Antec Fusion Black. Right now they both work well. When I eventually replace I would probably like to go with something smaller. Hopefully with Clarkdale, Pinetrail, etc… we should have a lot of good choices down the road.