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Someone please help me build a DLNA ready home server/NAS

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ok first of all, im a long time lurker first time poster, so hello! lol now onto business

here's my current setup:

Win7 PC with dedicated 300gb hard disc
Western Digital My Book 1TB external drive(USB)

i currently use Serviio software to stream movies/pictures/music to the DLNA input on my television, via my wireless home network. i also use the external drive to back up my PC.

the problem:

the 1TB is full, and im not stopping any time soon. i would rather not daisy-chain a 2TB usb drive on top. i would prefer something to allow for redundancy

here's what i would like to have:

a stand alone box with 4-6 2TB hard drives
DLNA streaming to multiple devices in my house(not all at once, maybe 2 at a time if possible)
wireless backup of my PC(as in, pc not connected to anything. ethernet from server to router is okay)
would like to be able to access files over the internet, not mandatory
MUST be DIY
a small price tag, or several small price tags layed out over multiple payments(hence the DIY)


im hoping i can use a simple Atom based pc or some el cheapo 5 year old P4 machine from craigslist for $100, along with RAID software or a RAID controller to carry all this out. i think a RAID 5 or 6 setup would be best suited to my needs. im just new to the game of NAS and dont really know where to start.

so, aside from the cost of the hard disks themselves, how could i build a low budget DLNA server/NAS for my home?

any help would be greatly appreciated

More about : build dlna ready home server nas

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technically youve got it all figured out already... but its not a nas youre making its a file server.

If you are going raid5 buy a good (3ware) card... yes I know they are 300 bucks but you will want the speed to be able to stream movies to more than 1 device.

With the use of a good card like that you can pretty much hook it up to any pc with a pci-express slot and youre good to go (with the right OS of course). Cant be an old p4 because of the lack of pci-e slots. You may also want to grab something like this

http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=128

for easy replacement (and notification) of any failed drives. Get a case with 4 5.25" bays though so you have 1 for the cd drive. They also make a 5 in 3 version if you want to have a spare drive ready to swap instantly... that's what I did.

This gives you the abilities of a normal computer but with the added storage of a huge raid stuck in the middle of it. You can back up via ethernet to a standalone nas or esata or usb or whatever you want. You have remote access (even remote desktop) And its definitely DIY since its building a pc and adding a raid card and an enclosure to it.

The price tag is going to get sort of steep at times but thats because of the requirement to stream videos to 1 or more devices. I got a highpoint card for my file server... it was 140 bucks but its speed is not that great. Its fine because I just use it to have a redundant array of disks to save my mp3 collection onto and then another external stand alone drive to have a second backup on... but if you want the performance you need the higher end cards.

As stated above, you're talking more file server than NAS. I prefer the latter as it's more "invisible" and requires far less attention.

High Performance Users - 5 years warranty
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/storage/high-perfo...

Advanced Home Users - 3 year warranty
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/storage/work-and-p...

Will handle DLNA , iTunes server, mobile devices, I really like the auto expandable X-RAID... limit in streaming is < 10 streams on the 4000 series.

i was looking at the diskless Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ late last night. they run around $300 for the box itself then i can add 2tb barracudas at $90/ea whenever i want.

any opinions on why this would be better or worse than building a system, aside from the four bay limit?
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Let me the cheapskate of the bunch; You can build a decent home server out of stuff you may have lying around, like an old pc, as long as it has sata ports and can support 1TB or 2TB drives. The more stata ports the better. You can also buy a cheap motherboard with lots of ports (about $60), an e3300 ($50), 2GB ram ($30) throw it in a $40 case with a good power supply ($65) and then add 4 large harddrives. (Samsung F4's/2Tb@80=$320) is about as cheap as you can go. You can get the next version of Windows Home Server free for now if you join Microsoft connect and download the beta. This may be the final beta and its been running stable for me without even a reboot for 4 months straight. I hoping to get a nice discount when MS finally releases this version of WHS too, they usually do give the beta testers a nice price break. :-)

ps - I made mine out of an old pentium D i had, just added those f4's I mentioned and off and running. :-)

i don't have any old pc stuff laying around. i am not much of a tinkerer these days, however, i have built many computers in the past and am capable of building my own if that would be the best route

popatim said:
Let me the cheapskate of the bunch; You can build a decent home server out of stuff you may have lying around, like an old pc, as long as it has sata ports and can support 1TB or 2TB drives. The more stata ports the better. You can also buy a cheap motherboard with lots of ports (about $60), an e3300 ($50), 2GB ram ($30) throw it in a $40 case with a good power supply ($65) and then add 4 large harddrives. (Samsung F4's/2Tb@80=$320) is about as cheap as you can go. You can get the next version of Windows Home Server free for now if you join Microsoft connect and download the beta. This may be the final beta and its been running stable for me without even a reboot for 4 months straight. I hoping to get a nice discount when MS finally releases this version of WHS too, they usually do give the beta testers a nice price break. :-)

ps - I made mine out of an old pentium D i had, just added those f4's I mentioned and off and running. :-)



That's kinda like what I did only with a socket 775 board and an old e2160 dual core IIRC. Only problem I see with that suggestion is it doesnt fulfill the requirement of a raid5 or 6 for redundancy.

I can't find a response that addresses your quest for a DLNA server. If you are adept with adding components to Linux I suggest ushare (which you can get at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ushare/). You will have to rebuild with DLNA support. I don't know why that isn't the default...

cmross13 said:
ok first of all, im a long time lurker first time poster, so hello! lol now onto business

here's my current setup:

Win7 PC with dedicated 300gb hard disc
Western Digital My Book 1TB external drive(USB)

i currently use Serviio software to stream movies/pictures/music to the DLNA input on my television, via my wireless home network. i also use the external drive to back up my PC.

the problem:

the 1TB is full, and im not stopping any time soon. i would rather not daisy-chain a 2TB usb drive on top. i would prefer something to allow for redundancy

here's what i would like to have:

a stand alone box with 4-6 2TB hard drives
DLNA streaming to multiple devices in my house(not all at once, maybe 2 at a time if possible)
wireless backup of my PC(as in, pc not connected to anything. ethernet from server to router is okay)
would like to be able to access files over the internet, not mandatory
MUST be DIY
a small price tag, or several small price tags layed out over multiple payments(hence the DIY)


im hoping i can use a simple Atom based pc or some el cheapo 5 year old P4 machine from craigslist for $100, along with RAID software or a RAID controller to carry all this out. i think a RAID 5 or 6 setup would be best suited to my needs. im just new to the game of NAS and dont really know where to start.

so, aside from the cost of the hard disks themselves, how could i build a low budget DLNA server/NAS for my home?

any help would be greatly appreciated

HP Micro Servers a very good value and a good size.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/au/en/sm/WF06b/15351-153...

Its got 4 hdd bays + room for an extra system drive.

You could get one then buy 4x 2TB/3TB Hdds, some extra ram say 2GB, just install Linux, FreeBSD or Windows and run a DLNA server.

Iv just set one up and its very impressive and very good value, the AMD CPU has a bit of grunt, iv had it transcode 2 HD videos streams to the PS3 and sony bravia tv at the same time.

I'm thinking of doing something similar to what you fellas are talking about but I've not yet done the research.

Basically I want the same things as mentioned above. I don't need anything super fancy and definitely want to keep the price down. I have a simple network at home and would like a network accessible unit to put my movies so I can watch them on my Samsung. The problem I anticipate with creating a box like this is 1) Samsung TVs won't decode all file types. I use Serviio to have my PC transcode the files to the TV 2) doing this with large movies chokes my network and the movies end up having to buffer.

If I could have a set of networked drives, running Serviio to avoid the transcoding issue, and somehow connected in a way that it doesn't have to buffer... that'd be neat.

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