Blu Ray 1:1 streaming (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

So I would say that I have clients set up already, the part I need help with would be the HTPC/NAS setup. I have had people suggest splitting the NAS and Server and then some people recommend just building a single unit. I am not sure what the benefits are for each. I guess if I separated them, then I could do 2 different rack mount chassis and actually build each to be specific.

DIY RAID is cheaper, more configurable, and requires more work on your part.
NAS RAID is more expensive, but is simpler and easier.
Chose your according your interests and goals.

I'll give two examples:
1) my config. I built a Win10 PC in a case that holds up to 8 drives. I've got 3x5TB drives in a 2-data, 1-parity arrangement. That is, 10TB storage with redundancy against a single disk failure. SnapRaid is $0, DrivePool is $30, and it took a weekend to figure out the software configraution. I can upgrade drives as I want. I can go to six or eight drives if I want. I can choose my degree of redundancy as I feel. I can use disks of any size. The files are stored in normal Windows NTFS format so Im not at risk of a NAS or RAID-unique hardware failure. I can put these drives into any Windows PC and read the files. And even if two drives fail, I'll have the remaining data accessible. But it's all in a Windows system. I think I could make the drives network shareable, but i haven't figured that out. But Emby, like Plex and Kodi, has intranet and internet sharing that works for me. And of course adding storage means pulling the PC from the rack, and doing open-heart surgery on a computer, fighting with cable routing, updating the windows software configuration, etc.

2) my friend's: he had his media on a Synology NAS. He bought four drives, plugged them, and was done. It connects to the network and any device can see it in the home. It is easily configured to be visible outside the home too. But the box costs like $400. And is limited to four drives. And they must be the same size (it won't use storage of drives larger than the smallest) so he can't add storage incrementally. And, I think, he's at whatever risk of the Synology hardware dying, which might mean buying a replacement NAS to recover in that case. This also means he has an iMac, nothing DIY or fiddly, to download shows from the TiVo to the NAS, and has a blu-ray drive on the iMac to rip and then transfer to the NAS.

 

[dorito777]

Ok, well I am definitely more interested in the customization and hardcore nature.

Some questions I am trying to understand based on a decision to go down the road of a 1080p specific build. How would all of this connect and what hardware am I supposed to be aiming for in each chassis? I will have 2 chassis's (3U for the NAS and 4U for the HTPC - so there is room for cooling and/or GPU upgrades if necessary).

In the NAS, I was working towards a crazy CPU with a lot of RAM and a MoBo that can handle them. With it only being a NAS now with FreeNAS to maintain it, what do I actually need? How much ECC RAM? What type of CPU if Plex and all the transcoding stuff is being done on the HTPC. Are there still components or specs I should be aiming for to make sure the NAS does not limit my playback at all? Probably want IPMI as well so my gaming PC can maintain all of this.

In the HTPC, obviously I don't need to worry about a ton of SATA ports now. I am going to go for the Intel Core i7-7820X because it ranks super high in PassMark and is still affordable. So I would need a MoBo to handle this and hopefully still have IPMI as well? Is this where I should be throwing a ton of RAM? I would put the OS on a solid SSD, but what OS is ideal for this? Does it even matter? And how would we connect it all together? Ethernet for everything? HDMI 2.0 to the home theater? How would it pull it up with a UI?

 

[dorito777]

I found this posted a few days ago and the build seems pretty solid.

Could I replace the CPU with the Intel Core i7-7820X and a GTX 1080 with more RAM (32 or 64GB)? I am wondering if these upgrades will give me a perfect machine or if they are actually going to ruin the setup by being A) too loud B) too big for the case or C) too much power that it actually hinders the performance or D) all of the above.

The 2 chassis' I am looking at are:

• iStarUSA D-380HN Black Aluminum 3U Rackmount Compact 8x 3.5" Bay Trayless Hotswap microATX Chassis
  
• iStarUSA DN-400 Black Material of Front Bezel: Aluminum Material of Handle: Aluminum Material of Main Chassis: SGCC 1.0mm 4U Rackmount 5.25" 4-Bay Compact microATX Chassis 4 External 5.25" Drive Bays
  

The 3U would be for the NAS and will include 8 HDDs. The 4U would be the HTPC. Would I connect the NAS to the HTPC through a specific kind of cable or just make it network shareable?

 

[dorito777]

I am having trouble finding a viable NAS-only build. I would do the QNAP, but I was hoping to build it myself to leverage ZFS and FreeNAS. But everything I have seen combines the Plex transcoding into the NAS. I want just a basic build...but also want the connection aggregation that he was talking about. Finding a build that matches that description has been a hard part for me. I really like the chassis I picked, but aside from that, nothing else.

I understand my hardware is a bit overkill. I was just hoping to leverage some of the recommendations I have seen so far. One being the 7700k CPU. In order to do that, I need a MoBo and RAM that matches it. I wanted the GTX 1080 because I like the option of being able to do 4k gaming direct to my home theater. I don't game on the PC often, but why not spend a few hundred more and have the option? I am just having trouble matching hardware to ensure it all works well together. Right now I have this for a current HTPC build.

• CPU Intel Core i7-7700K
• CPU Cooler Cryorig C7 CR-C7A
• Motherboard GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 7
• Memory Corsair LPX 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4
• Storage Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD
• Video Card Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1080 GAMING-8GD
• Case Silverstone GD08B HTPC Case
• PSU (Power Supply) Corsair RM750 750 Watt
• Optical Drive LG Blu-ray
• OS (Operating System) Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

I THINK that would work for what I want, but then I still need to figure out the NAS build to be ONLY NAS. I have not seen any builds like that aimed at FreeNAS and ZFS. The switch I have is the TP-Link 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Rackmount Switch. Does that support the connectivity aggregation? I would assume so, but just curious.

 

[Dave Upton]

I found this posted a few days ago and the build seems pretty solid.

Could I replace the CPU with the Intel Core i7-7820X and a GTX 1080 with more RAM (32 or 64GB)? I am wondering if these upgrades will give me a perfect machine or if they are actually going to ruin the setup by being A) too loud B) too big for the case or C) too much power that it actually hinders the performance or D) all of the above.

The 2 chassis' I am looking at are:

• iStarUSA D-380HN Black Aluminum 3U Rackmount Compact 8x 3.5" Bay Trayless Hotswap microATX Chassis
  
• iStarUSA DN-400 Black Material of Front Bezel: Aluminum Material of Handle: Aluminum Material of Main Chassis: SGCC 1.0mm 4U Rackmount 5.25" 4-Bay Compact microATX Chassis 4 External 5.25" Drive Bays

The 3U would be for the NAS and will include 8 HDDs. The 4U would be the HTPC. Would I connect the NAS to the HTPC through a specific kind of cable or just make it network shareable?

If you want your server to perform well as a NAS, anything will suffice CPU wise - but for Plex transcoding you should have a few more threads. I would go Xeon as I recommended above and below, as it's a server grade chip and is meant for a higher duty cycle. With what you'll be doing you can get away with 8GB of memory, but 16GB is affordable so that's what i'm recommending.

Now, you are free to use what I recommend below or not, but I'm not making any further hardware recommendations for the NAS prtion to you past this, as I've already clearly posted this higher up in this thread. I spec out servers for a living, and were I in your shoes building a future-proof FreeNAS/Plex server at the most affordable price possible, the below is what I would use. This will work with any mATX or larger case/enclosure and the drives of your choice. It also has IPMI and all the features you need.

SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O microATX Motherboard $215
Intel Xeon E3-1220 v3 Quad-Core Processor 3.1GHz CPU $235
Crucial 16GB ECC UDIMM Kit Memory $180

Regarding what you refer to as connectivity aggregation, no unmanaged switch can do that. I wouldn't worry, as it isn't necessary, gigabit is plenty fast for media streaming in the home.

Finally, don't overthink the ZFS/FreeNAS requirements, they aren't complicated. The hardware I suggested will easily support FreeNAS (just install from ISO/USB), and then Plex server can be installed on top.

 

[Dave Upton]

I am having trouble finding a viable NAS-only build. I would do the QNAP, but I was hoping to build it myself to leverage ZFS and FreeNAS. But everything I have seen combines the Plex transcoding into the NAS. I want just a basic build...but also want the connection aggregation that he was talking about. Finding a build that matches that description has been a hard part for me. I really like the chassis I picked, but aside from that, nothing else.

I understand my hardware is a bit overkill. I was just hoping to leverage some of the recommendations I have seen so far. One being the 7700k CPU. In order to do that, I need a MoBo and RAM that matches it. I wanted the GTX 1080 because I like the option of being able to do 4k gaming direct to my home theater. I don't game on the PC often, but why not spend a few hundred more and have the option? I am just having trouble matching hardware to ensure it all works well together. Right now I have this for a current HTPC build.

• CPU Intel Core i7-7700K
• CPU Cooler Cryorig C7 CR-C7A
• Motherboard GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 7
• Memory Corsair LPX 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4
• Storage Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD
• Video Card Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1080 GAMING-8GD
• Case Silverstone GD08B HTPC Case
• PSU (Power Supply) Corsair RM750 750 Watt
• Optical Drive LG Blu-ray
• OS (Operating System) Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

I THINK that would work for what I want, but then I still need to figure out the NAS build to be ONLY NAS. I have not seen any builds like that aimed at FreeNAS and ZFS. The switch I have is the TP-Link 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Rackmount Switch. Does that support the connectivity aggregation? I would assume so, but just curious.

Your HTPC specs look fine - though I personally prefer the Fractal Design HTPC case, as an optical drive on a HTPC is sort of redundant when you're planning to do all your playback off the network. The Fractal Design Node 202 is slightly nicer looking and comes with PSU, though you can buy without and then get the Corsair, I run the Corsair 550W PSU, but it has to be the right size (SFX): https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16811352059

CPU cooler wise, I really like the Noctua L9i: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608029

You really don't need 64GB of memory on a HTPC, 16 is more than enough for gaming and the rest would be wasted money.

 

[dorito777]

Ok, that is definitely a firehose of information. I did not mean to frustrate you, I was just confused on the overall design. I was under the impression that separating the NAS and HTPC functionality out would allow me to run the Plex Media Server on the HTPC and not the NAS. That is what confused me. I thought the NAS would be storage only and only focus on the ZFS and FreeNAS portions. The HTPC is where I would spend all of the money and focus on serious throughput and functionality for Plex to transcode and also be able to handle 4k gaming if I ever wanted to go down that route.

I have only used Plex on a QNAP NAS so far, so I am not that familiar with it. Based on your recommendations, are you saying that Plex has to or SHOULD be run on the NAS? Does that mean the HTPC would be the client of the Plex Media Server and would push the movies to the home theater? I have an NVIDIA Shield and I was also under the impression that it was the best client out there right now. I guess I am confused why I would even need a HTPC if I am going with a hardcore NAS build and using Shield as the client.

Again, I was not trying to be a pain in the butt, I am honestly just trying to understand how to match my goals, futureproof, etc. So if I am understanding it all correctly, you would recommend a solid NAS build using something like what you linked above, and running FreeNAS and Plex on that. Would the HTPC only be used for 4k gaming at that point and be unnecessary? Or if I built the HTPC I linked above, would that be a better client for the home theater than the shield in terms of passing the lossless data to the home theater?

Also, the optical drive I was going for was meant for the ripping of the blu rays. Just to have a singular case solution for the HTPC.

 

[Dave Upton]

Ok, that is definitely a firehose of information. I did not mean to frustrate you, I was just confused on the overall design. I was under the impression that separating the NAS and HTPC functionality out would allow me to run the Plex Media Server on the HTPC and not the NAS. That is what confused me. I thought the NAS would be storage only and only focus on the ZFS and FreeNAS portions. The HTPC is where I would spend all of the money and focus on serious throughput and functionality for Plex to transcode and also be able to handle 4k gaming if I ever wanted to go down that route.

I have only used Plex on a QNAP NAS so far, so I am not that familiar with it. Based on your recommendations, are you saying that Plex has to or SHOULD be run on the NAS? Does that mean the HTPC would be the client of the Plex Media Server and would push the movies to the home theater? I have an NVIDIA Shield and I was also under the impression that it was the best client out there right now. I guess I am confused why I would even need a HTPC if I am going with a hardcore NAS build and using Shield as the client.

Again, I was not trying to be a pain in the butt, I am honestly just trying to understand how to match my goals, futureproof, etc. So if I am understanding it all correctly, you would recommend a solid NAS build using something like what you linked above, and running FreeNAS and Plex on that. Would the HTPC only be used for 4k gaming at that point and be unnecessary? Or if I built the HTPC I linked above, would that be a better client for the home theater than the shield in terms of passing the lossless data to the home theater?

Also, the optical drive I was going for was meant for the ripping of the blu rays. Just to have a singular case solution for the HTPC.

In an absolute sense, there is no real reason you have to run Plex on a separate machine from the NAS. Since your NAS is server grade hardware (more reliable, always running), it makes a lot of sense to run Plex there also, since it will save you power, and you have plenty of free CPU resources to handle transcoding.

The HTPC is not necessary if you have a shield, as the shield will run Kodi/Plex just fine and let you stream from your server over the network. Keep in mind that Plex transcoding while demanding, isn't that horribly intensive, so the Xeon based CPU I suggested above could easily handle multiple streams (3 1080p 10Mbps streams, or 4-5 720p streams simultaneously), and most of the streaming you do won't require any transcoding, so this should comfortably fill all your needs.

If you want to game/rip Blu-rays and also use the HTPC as an endpoint for Kodi, go right ahead, i'm just saying that it shouldn't also be your Plex server, since you are going to be building a server no matter what, you might as well consolidate all your functions of NAS/Plex Server into that one purpose-built box. Plex also indexes and updates the library much faster when the storage is local.

 

[dorito777]

Ok that definitely makes more sense. I have a gaming PC right now that I could use to rip the blu rays and just move them to the NAS over the LAN. So I will probably do exactly as you suggested and go for that type of setup. So in essence, the HTPC is mainly used as a client for a media server and primarily for gaming in 4k. That makes perfect sense.

I really appreciate the feedback. I feel like I have a better grasp on the situation now and a solid plan to move forward.

 

[dorito777]

So we decided to use your parts list as a starting point and try and put together one of our own to match the chassis we really liked. We wanted to follow in your example as close as possible, but we ended up going with a higher passmark rated CPU. We wanted to know if our parts list makes sense or if we messed something up. Is all of this compatible and does it make sense? I recognize it might be overkill for what we are doing with it, but we wanted to ensure it had plenty of wiggle room. Here is what we put together:

• Chassis - iStarUSA D-380HN
• Motherboard - SUPERMICRO X10SRM-TF Micro ATX
• CPU - Intel Xeon E5-2630 V4
• RAM - Crucial CT16G4RFD4213 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 2133 Server Memory (x2 - 32GB)
• PSU - SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM3 Active PFC F3) 850W
• HDD's - WD Red 8TB (x8)

For the CPU, this has a passmark of 14k, which should be able to handle as many 1080p streams as we can ever request, just for the wiggle room. The RAM is ECC and Registered, which I THINK matches the FreeNAS recommendations and fits this particular Motherboard. The PSU is just a high rated PSU that should fit this chassis and have more than enough wattage for the components.

The HDD's we are still shopping. We know the Red's are good choices, but we are also looking at the HGST Deskstars and Seagates. We are trying to find a good deal for 8 of them and will probably be shopping around for that one.

Does this all make sense? I understand it is probably overkill, but I would rather get a little overkill just to be sure. My concern at this point, aside from whether we picked our components correctly, would be the noise and heating using this chassis. There isn't much in terms of reviews, but it does seem like it is well built. I guess we can always swap the chassis out if it doesn't work out or replace the fans with something quieter.

The only piece I think we are missing now is our boot drive...whether we get an SSD for the M.2 port or go for just the Flash boot device. I am not sure what the benefits of either are, since we haven't really touched on that topic. And I guess what our ZFS/FreeNAS config will look like...

 

[Dave Upton]

So we decided to use your parts list as a starting point and try and put together one of our own to match the chassis we really liked. We wanted to follow in your example as close as possible, but we ended up going with a higher passmark rated CPU. We wanted to know if our parts list makes sense or if we messed something up. Is all of this compatible and does it make sense? I recognize it might be overkill for what we are doing with it, but we wanted to ensure it had plenty of wiggle room. Here is what we put together:

• Chassis - iStarUSA D-380HN
• Motherboard - SUPERMICRO X10SRM-TF Micro ATX
• CPU - Intel Xeon E5-2630 V4
• RAM - Crucial CT16G4RFD4213 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 2133 Server Memory (x2 - 32GB)
• PSU - SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM3 Active PFC F3) 850W
• HDD's - WD Red 8TB (x8)

For the CPU, this has a passmark of 14k, which should be able to handle as many 1080p streams as we can ever request, just for the wiggle room. The RAM is ECC and Registered, which I THINK matches the FreeNAS recommendations and fits this particular Motherboard. The PSU is just a high rated PSU that should fit this chassis and have more than enough wattage for the components.

The HDD's we are still shopping. We know the Red's are good choices, but we are also looking at the HGST Deskstars and Seagates. We are trying to find a good deal for 8 of them and will probably be shopping around for that one.

Does this all make sense? I understand it is probably overkill, but I would rather get a little overkill just to be sure. My concern at this point, aside from whether we picked our components correctly, would be the noise and heating using this chassis. There isn't much in terms of reviews, but it does seem like it is well built. I guess we can always swap the chassis out if it doesn't work out or replace the fans with something quieter.

The only piece I think we are missing now is our boot drive...whether we get an SSD for the M.2 port or go for just the Flash boot device. I am not sure what the benefits of either are, since we haven't really touched on that topic. And I guess what our ZFS/FreeNAS config will look like...

Looks like a solid build, You should be all set, just make sure the ECC ram is UDIMM (not RDIMM), or your motherboard might not like it.

For boot, anything is fine really, if you use an SSD or M.2 drive it can act as a cache and improve performance. Here's a really good FreeNAS guide: https://www.tecmint.com/installation-of-freenas/

 

[jcroy]

Also, the optical drive I was going for was meant for the ripping of the blu rays. Just to have a singular case solution for the HTPC.

(This may be a superfluous tangent, though I'll mention it anyways).

If you're into ripping/cracking dvd + bluray discs and data integrity is your main objective, there is an unfortunate hidden-in-plain-sight problem with LG manufactured dvd/bluray drives. Almost all LG optical drives have a "jamless play" feature, which is really annoying if you're not familiar with it or have not encountered it previously. (At least the LG drives using the Renesas and Mediatek chipsets since around 2008 or so).

If you're playing dvd or bluray discs which have some significant damage and/or were poorly manufactured, the LG drive's "jamless play" function will just return back data which is "all zeros" or garbage data when it fails to read sectors which are not immediately readable. To add insult to injury, the LG drive will not even return back a "read error" to the computer when it encounters these "unreadable" bad sectors. (Most other optical drives will just stop in its tracks and return back a "read error" in the same situation).

As far as I can figure out, this annoying fatal "jamless play" reading behavior of LG optical drives appears to be a deliberate engineering design decision.


Also unfortunately there appears to only be two companies left which still actively manufacture computer bluray drives: LG and Pioneer. Most third party bluray drives have currently been mostly rebadged LG drives, such as companies like Asus, Vinpower, etc .... where they just paste their own brand name onto the front panel of an underlying LG manufactured drive.

Though fortunately, Pioneer manufactured bluray drives don't appear to have this fatal "jamless play" problem, where a Pioneer drive will return back a "read error" whenever it encounters any unreadable "bad sectors".

Most previous companies which manufactured bluray drives over the past decade or so, have largely exited the market such as: LiteOn, Samsung, Sony, etc ... (ie. Samsung TSST filed for bankruptcy last year).

 

[dorito777]

I think the Motherboard I selected handles RDIMM. I think that is why I picked it. I was having trouble finding Crucial ECC UDIMMs (I really like that brand, for obvious reasons). But RDIMMs were easy to find at a reasonable price, so I adjusted the MoBo to be able to handle that as well as an LGA 2011v3 socket. That is what guided me to that motherboard. It is out of stock for now, but I will start hunting for it.

Ironically, someone on another forum suggested to forgo ZFS altogether and use something called "unRAID." I guess I still have some research and questioning to do...but the build should still be solid.

 

[dorito777]

Nevermind on the unRAID thing. I did some research and it doesn't seem to be what I want out of the system. I am considering a few changes. For one, I had a dual socket CPU on a single core MoBo. I changed to a single socket CPU. I am also looking into changing to a 4U chassis that has 120mm fans and 12 hot swappable bays. This would allow me to do 2 vdevs of 6 bays each and should make it cooler and less noisy (more space and larger fans)

So new list would be:

• Chassis - iStarUSA D410-DE12RD-55R8P
• Motherboard - SUPERMICRO X10SRM-TF Micro ATX
• CPU - Intel Xeon E5-1650 V4
• RAM - Crucial CT16G4RFD4213 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 2133 Server Memory RDIMM (x2 - 32GB)
• PSU - SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM3 Active PFC F3) 850W
• HDD's - WD Red 8TB or HGST DeskStars 8TB (x8)

I may go with 4TB initially to save a little cash, as the HDDs alone would be over $2000.

 

[DaveF]

I'm playing catchup from the past few days. I've got a few comments, though they're mostly "overtaken by events"

A taxonomy of Home Media system is:

• Storage
• Server
• Clients

This can be wholly disaggregated or aggregated. My HTPC is aggregated: it's the RAID storage with all media; it runs the media management server software; it runs the media playback client software and is directly connected to the projector. (And note this is done with the middle i5, 8GB RAM, and integrated graphics.)

You could disggregate:

• NAS with lots of storage and minimum CPU and RAM to manage data
• Server that runs e.g. Plex server, has a blue-ray player for ripping, and of course accesses the NAS to add media and serve media to the network
• Client(s) that all run e.g. Plex apps and get media streamed off the NAS by the Server, possibly realtime transcoded, complete with pretty UI and metadata thanks to the Server software

Or use some other arrangement of hardware and software, such as making the NAS and server one computer and having clients for all playback.

The particular choice depends on your goals and expected usage.

 

[dorito777]

Yea I think that was what was hindering me in my decisions and questions. There are so many ways to skin a cat and it isn't very clear what is the best way. Everyone has their perspective and finding a happy medium between them all was proving quite challenging.

I have a gaming PC on the network, so I think I will just throw the blu-ray drive in there and use that to rip the discs and move them to an aggregated NAS/Server. Right now I am just trying to decide on a FreeNAS/ZFS configuration, as I am unfamiliar with that. That will determine the chassis and HDDs I choose. For example, if I do 4TB drives, and select 3 vdevs of 5 drives each, I would go with a 15 bay NAS chassis....if I can add vdevs after to the pool (do 10 drives now and add 5 later when I need it). I am not sure if that is possible or ideal for my goals. Or if 2 6-drive vdevs is better, then I could do 12 bay NAS. Finding something that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional for a chassis has been hard. iStarUSA has really nice looking chassis's but I have seen some reviews on quality of the construction, which is frustrating. That is why I am still doing research and shopping around and asking questions.

 

[RobertR]

4K/HDR can be played back on a PC with the latest gen Intel processor, or with any machine using a dedicated graphics card (GTX 1060 or higher)

I've also read that the GTX 1050 can do this.

 

[DaveF]

Yea I think that was what was hindering me in my decisions and questions. There are so many ways to skin a cat and it isn't very clear what is the best way. Everyone has their perspective and finding a happy medium between them all was proving quite challenging.

I have a gaming PC on the network, so I think I will just throw the blu-ray drive in there and use that to rip the discs and move them to an aggregated NAS/Server. Right now I am just trying to decide on a FreeNAS/ZFS configuration, as I am unfamiliar with that. That will determine the chassis and HDDs I choose. For example, if I do 4TB drives, and select 3 vdevs of 5 drives each, I would go with a 15 bay NAS chassis....if I can add vdevs after to the pool (do 10 drives now and add 5 later when I need it). I am not sure if that is possible or ideal for my goals. Or if 2 6-drive vdevs is better, then I could do 12 bay NAS. Finding something that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional for a chassis has been hard. iStarUSA has really nice looking chassis's but I have seen some reviews on quality of the construction, which is frustrating. That is why I am still doing research and shopping around and asking questions.

I understand it took me a bit to figure out what I needed and wanted. (And my first go-round in 2012 I gave up without building the system, when I realized my goals were just not possible.)

At risk of asking the obvious: have you estimated your immediate storage need and estimated your likely near term growth? For me, I assumed 9GB for every DVD and 50GB for every blu-ray, and allowed for about 10% growth in the first year before I'd have to add capacity.

 

[jcroy]

I understand it took me a bit to figure out what I needed and wanted. (And my first go-round in 2012 I gave up without building the system, when I realized my goals were just not possible.)

(As an aside).

My first go-around was around the same time period (circa 2012).

At the time, I ended up using a basic WDTV box with 4TB external hard drive connected to my large screen tv. (The WDTV box could play both vob and m2ts files, as well as dvd isos). It was good enough for my purposes at the time.

In those days around 2012, I was watching a lot of 80s era tv shows which were released on double-sided dvd18 flipper discs by Universal, which had extremely annoying problems on my standalone dvd/bluray players. The only way to watch these discs smoothly without any trip ups, was to rip to isos to the 4TB external hard drive and watch the iso rips through the WDTV box.

 

[DaveF]

I wanted a whole-house DVR and a movie server. Those two goals were incompatible in 2012 as they needed different client hardware. I finally concluded I couldn't get it both done, and fortunately the TiVo Roamio was released which solved my main goal of a whole-house DVR system.