Store media on ReadyNAS or on HTPC?

[enklined]

Curious what others think. Basically, I've owned my ReadyNAS Duo with 2x500GB drives for a few years. Today, my HTPC build came in from NewEgg.

My original plan was to pop 2x2TB drives into the NAS, then use the "old" 2x500GB drives in the HTPC Hackintosh (1 for Mac, 1 for Windows). Then simply use the Hackintosh to run Plex, SABnzbd, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard and have it store the files on the NAS. When I'd want to watch something, Plex would pull from the NAS over Gigabit ethernet connection and play it.

However, I'm thinking it may be easier and more efficient to simply pop the 2x2TB's into the HTPC instead, and please the 500's in the NAS. The issue here is, I wouldn't want Windows to consume (via NTFS patitioning) the entire 2TB - I'd want something along the lines of having 1 2TB drive with OSX, Apps, Movie Storage, etc, and the other 2TB drive to take maybe 100GB for Windows, and the rest able to be usable storage to OSX for TV Shows, Music, etc. However, this seems like it may be a pain to setup.

Thoughts?

 

[Stork]

Since I don't like a computer noise, I'd recommend the HTPC have a min size, quiet hard drive and pull the media from the NAS. I do that now, and the NAS feeds it via .11n since the NAS and HTPC are in different parts of the house. This also permits multiple HTPCs since I have HDTVs in several rooms of the house.

Try the NAS for media storage. If it doesn't work out...well, it's a hobby, right?

 

[enklined]

Haha, right!

This is exactly what I decided to do. However, I only have one Gigabit Wireless N router, so i had to move the NAS into the living room as well.

Ideally I would have the NAS and the router in my office upstairs, and stream to the HTPC either by .11N or, preferably, by wired gigabit ethernet. The issue is the way my house was constructed - the living room doesn't have a floor above it, and has vaulted ceilings, so it doesn't have an attic like the second floor does. I have yet to figure out how I could run an ethernet cable from my office to the HTPC.

Option B would be to purchase a wireless N adapter (sounds like they are becoming fairly cheap these days) and stream to the HTPC from that; but with my MBP I get pretty poor performance on N when I'm downstairs and the router was upstairs, so I'm not confident in that connection. Further, the HTPC acts as the downloading/processing center for SABnzbd+, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard, so once its downloaded content, it processes it and pushes it to the NAS - this would definitely be more efficient over gigabit than over wireless N. Though, since this is all done "hands off", I'm not sure why I should be concerned with network speed. If it takes an hour longer per day to process the media and push it to the NAS, why do I care? The issue would only be in the connections ability to handle large HD content, such as 1080P or 720P .mkv files. I suppose this would be easy to test with my MBP before I went ahead and purchased a wireless N adapter and reconfigured my setup again.

Option C would be ethernet over powerline (a la Powerline AV). This technology seems to be improving by leaps and bounds every time I look into it, so this may be a very viable, albeit pricey, solution.

 

[Stork]

I have several D-Link DAP-1522's in my house's major TV areas including one in my audio tower. This allows me to have my main desktop, router and NASs in my "Room of Ill Compute" (den) with wireless sharing of my NASs w/o wires.

The beauty of the 1522 is that has 5 Ethernet ports which allows all my Ethernet equipped AV equipment connectivity to the local net and the Internet, if needed.

 

[samisnake]

thought about using a homeplug, op?

 

[ethree]

Haha, right!
Further, the HTPC acts as the downloading/processing center for SABnzbd+, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard, so once its downloaded content, it processes it and pushes it to the NAS - this would definitely be more efficient over gigabit than over wireless N. Though, since this is all done "hands off", I'm not sure why I should be concerned with network speed. If it takes an hour longer per day to process the media and push it to the NAS, why do I care?

Why not have the NAS run SABnzbd+, SickBeard, and Couch Potato? I believe people have had success with this even on the ReadyNAS DUO on the SABnzdb+ forums. You should save power and keep extra heat out of your HTPC.

 

[enklined]

thought about using a homeplug, op?

Yes, looked into it - very cool tech, but ended up just setting up the NAS in my media center in the living room with the 2x2TBs to storage my content. Then HTPC has 2x500GB drives, one for Mac OSX and one for Windows (and Ubuntu eventually). Almost never use windows, though. Essentially only there to play Blu-Ray when needed, and possibly for gaming in the future.

Haha, right!
Further, the HTPC acts as the downloading/processing center for SABnzbd+, Couch Potato, and Sick Beard, so once its downloaded content, it processes it and pushes it to the NAS - this would definitely be more efficient over gigabit than over wireless N. Though, since this is all done "hands off", I'm not sure why I should be concerned with network speed. If it takes an hour longer per day to process the media and push it to the NAS, why do I care?

Why not have the NAS run SABnzbd+, SickBeard, and Couch Potato? I believe people have had success with this even on the ReadyNAS DUO on the SABnzdb+ forums. You should save power and keep extra heat out of your HTPC.

I purchased the add-ons for SABnzbd+, CP, and SB through the ReadyNAS forums from the dev before I had my HTPC - they SUCK on the Duo. Max download rate was 500KBps - I achieve nearly 4 times that on my HTPC. The Duo just doesn't have enough umpfh in that little Sparc processor.