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HTPC out of storage

2K views 36 replies 18 participants last post by  pittsoccer33 
#1 ·
can I add a external USB 1tb drive or will it to be too slow over usb 2.0
 
#4 ·
Other than the interface difference, there should be no difference in drive lifespan. IMO, the biggest problem with external drive is vibration. A good enclosure with proper vibration absorption goes a long way to prolong the life of a external drive.


You are right, the USB port will be much easier to use than eSATA port connections. But have you considered the possibility of a networked storage?
 
#29 ·
Other than the interface difference, there should be no difference in drive lifespan. IMO, the biggest problem with external drive is vibration. A good enclosure with proper vibration absorption goes a long way to prolong the life of a external drive.
Cutting a piece of this and resting your external drive(s) on it goes a long way to help with that ;)


http://www.homedepot.com/p/Norsk-St...Flooring-Recyclamat-4-Pieces-240247/204318886


I use it underneath my entire TV stand (stops vibration transmitted from speakers/sub), as well as underneath my PVR extender drive (which is an external enclosure drive lying flat on the ground behind everything). I also have a piece under my NAS box in the room it is in as it makes it more quiet :)

I'm not sure that external drives are "old-fashioned", they still have their purposes. But, they are a bit ghetto to be using as permanently connected/used storage. I mean in that case why wasn't a bigger HTPC case used or a server/NAS built (in the cases of multiple drives).


Externals are also clumsy and cumbersome IMO and can be knocked over when running much easier than other solutions, which results in disaster of course. Lying them flat instead of on edge is a good way to prevent that, however. Still it can happen...I have a buddy that uses external drives for backup (which is a good use of them) but has knocked over two of them and destroyed the drives and data in doing so. First time was years ago, he didn't even realise that knocking over a drive when running was fatal--called me up asking why it stopped working LOL. So he learned his lesson then in being more careful. However it didn't stop an accident from occurring and another of his drives being knocked over, again in operation, just recently.
 
#6 ·
You attach a media server to your home LAN and your PCs and other media devices can all access the contents via your home networking. For large BD ripping, a wired connection is preferred. Otherwise, wifi would be fine. As for media server, you have many choices. Most of modern routers actually contain this feature already via its own USB port.


An external drive just seems so old fashioned these days.
 
#8 ·
Unless you like to roll the dice you are only really getting 6TB because you will have to mirror to get any drive fault tolerance.

That, and the price...

Getting a diskless 4 bay (or more) Synology and buying drives would be less expensive and offer better RAID options. I'm not familiar with WD's cloud tools but I'd be shocked if it surpasses Synology's offerings through their DSM OS and packages.

In any event, to the OP, you can play natively ripped blu rays fine over USB2.
 
#11 ·
USB2 spec is good enough for single user, single stream, but these days it's not that hard nor that much of a premium$ to move to USB3 peripherals. When you are moving big files, USB2 does seem to take forever, but OK one doesn't do that often. Even if your htpc doesn't have USB3 ports I would nevertheless invest in a USB3 enclosure now so a couple of years down the road it's ready for your new htpc box.
 
#14 · (Edited)
To make a proper suggestion, there is a great deal more information needed.

You say you want a minimum of 6 TB of data after mirroring the drives and that web access is not actually necessary. That tells me that you want some level of redundancy in your system to help mitigate the chances of having to re-rip your collection. The level of redundancy and how you want to get there will go a long way towards determining the answer.

Is 6TB your target? Or is it simply the minimum acceptable storage level?
Do you want a clear and easy path for future expansion?
What can your current PC support? Can you connect via e-SATA? USB 3.0? Do you have an empty expansion slot if not?
How do you feel about adding a program to your PC that will act as your RAID?
Or, do you want the enclosure to handle the RAID for you?
How many media streams need to be available at the same time?

Then of course, there's the big one, what doe your budget look like?

There are numerous options out there that can beat that 12 TB WD Cloud and do it for a fraction of the price. Even those that come close to the same cost will give you greater flexibility and an easier path towards future expansion.
 
#15 ·
I have a 5 year old HTPC with USB2 ports. I recently tested watching an uncompressed blu-ray rip with HD sound using a 10 year old usb hard drive. It worked flawlessly. I just did the one test because I wanted to know if external USB drives were okay for media storage. I didn't end up going that way so I can't speak with much authority, but based on my limited sample of 1 I wouldn't have any reservations about putting my movies on a USB hard drive.
 
#18 ·
I have all my media on external drives right now. no issues as far as playing back media. I started buying one a year back around 2007. so far no failures


 
#19 ·
It's great everyone can run 1080p on their USB2 hooked up to their Amiga or whatever but let's be honest if you're starting from scratch today is that what you're really going to recommend? :) :)

If you built your HTPC, it's pretty easy to build yourself a fileserver. You just need a case big enough to hold a decent number of drives (six is usually good number), a motherboard with enough SATA ports, a Celeron processor, a 300W power supply and a small SSD to put your OS on.

If you want something small that'll hold up to 6 x 3.5" HDD and a SSD:

Fractal Design Node 304 or Lian-Li PC-Q25
ASUS H87I-PLUS
Celeron G1840
4GB RAM
120GB SSD (depending on O/S)
Seasonic 300W ATX power supply

There are many options for O/S from WHS2011 to Amahi to FreeNAS and more.

If you don't care about small, a microATX tower by Fractal Design and a ASUS or Gigabyte micro-ATX motherboard with the same RAM, CPU, etc. will work also.

If you don't want to DIY the Synology and QNAP suggestions are good ones.
 
#20 ·
It's great everyone can run 1080p on their USB2 hooked up to their Amiga or whatever but let's be honest if you're starting from scratch today is that what you're really going to recommend? :) :)

If you built your HTPC, it's pretty easy to build yourself a fileserver. You just need a case big enough to hold a decent number of drives (six is usually good number), a motherboard with enough SATA ports, a Celeron processor, a 300W power supply and a small SSD to put your OS on.

If you want something small that'll hold up to 6 x 3.5" HDD and a SSD:

Fractal Design Node 304 or Lian-Li PC-Q25
ASUS H87I-PLUS
Celeron G1840
4GB RAM
120GB SSD (depending on O/S)
Seasonic 300W ATX power supply

There are many options for O/S from WHS2011 to Amahi to FreeNAS and more.

If you don't care about small, a microATX tower by Fractal Design and a ASUS or Gigabyte micro-ATX motherboard with the same RAM, CPU, etc. will work also.

If you don't want to DIY the Synology and QNAP suggestions are good ones.
I'm almost at this point now, where I'm about to build a 'real' htpc. but I can tell you that I ended up with 8external drives because every time I've run out of storage, it's pretty hard to justify spending 800bux to build a new computer(that will STILL need be to spend 100-150 on a new HDD) vs simply buying another external drive for 100-150bux.


I'm just saying, I think you need more of a reason than 'I'm out of drive bays' to justify building a whole new system. maybe it's worth the money to transplant his current system into a new case, and add another HDD while he's at it. but adding external drives is always the cheapest option
 
#24 ·
I've been thinking more about this recently too - I'm about out of physical space between my case and 4 bay external enclosure.

I wish you could take a PC case and buy a very dumb "motherboard" that all your sata drives will attach to, along with a low watt power supply. From there the board connects via USB 3.0 or esata out. A DIY external enclosure.

I just cant justify another PC running 24/7. I don't know or care to know enough about networking and raid to have a pleasant experience getting it to work.
 
#25 ·
I wish you could take a PC case and buy a very dumb "motherboard" that all your sata drives will attach to, along with a low watt power supply. From there the board connects via USB 3.0 or esata out. A DIY external enclosure.
There is such a beast... :) It's called a SAS expander. Albeit it connects to a SAS card, which really are not that expensive. A Dell 6gbps card that supports expanders can be had for $75. The expanders themselves are pretty cheap, atleast the 3gbps ones (no particular need for 6gbps expanders for media storage). You could get em for about $20.

I used to run SATA port multipliers, years back, that connected to eSATA ports, and while it worked just fine, SAS has more bandwidth, and an easier topology.
 
#33 ·
In my humble opinion,
best way is always one file server based on Gigabit Lan PC SERVER (separate from HTPC) .

Difference to NAS or similars, like Qnap or Synology sistems, is the minor cost and more flexibility.
You need one large case, MOBO with Gigabit Lan integrated, 6 or more SATA port, CPU multicore with video integrated, 4GB RAM, UBUNTU x64 server (free) or Windows 7 pro x64 and your HardDisk set for the storage, one SSD for the OS.

bye
 
#37 ·
I have 10TB worth of hard drives in a USB 2.0 Mediasonic Probox external enclosure. I never have trouble with anything, unless I'm trying to copy and move several large files at once while also trying to watch something. I've had movies going to the PC it's connected to and another one across the network without issue.
 
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