What is a cost effective way to set up a media server?

What I'm wanting to do:

I would like to have a hard drive designated to share my media over my wifi. I have room mates that might want/need some media that I have on my hard drive at any given time so I want to make it freely available to them.

I want to note that I want this only accessible to the people in my apartment, not to the outside world.

What I've looked into thus far:

Not knowing much about networking or what I should be looking for, I briefly google some terms that seem like they would have something to do with what I'm wanting to do.

I stumbled across:

My Computer Information:

I currently have a Dell XPS laptop running Windows 7 with a Linsys router (I would have to check the box for a model number). I currently have an external hard drive, but I can also pick up a 3.5 sata if necessary for the project.

My Question:

What do I need to do to make this happen? I would like to know what my options are to set up something like this, approximate costs, and ultimately the best way to go about this.

If you have set up something like this, can you tell me if you ran into any issues?

Any and all help and explanations are appreciated. If you prefer to direct me to articles, I have no problem reading and learning.

Quick-Qs

Posted 2013-03-05T17:53:32.797

Reputation: 51

1Shopping recommendations are off topic as per the [faq]. Also, your question is a little to broad in its current state. – Dennis – 2013-03-05T18:02:47.143

NAS – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2013-03-05T18:13:49.393

@Dennis I'm not looking for specific products, I'm looking for what type of hardware I would need. Once I know the hardware, I guess I can read reviews on Amazon or on tech review sites :) – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:15:32.880

1Specific products or not, cost effective way and approximate costs are clear indicators of a shopping recommendation. – Dennis – 2013-03-05T18:17:10.507

To clear it up, I'm not asking for what products to buy. I'm asking what way is cheaper and better to do such a task (which is why I posted the links -- is option A a better way than option B). Also what are the downsides of doing it the cheaper way. If my Amazon link is the issue, I can remove it and place a google link instead. – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:18:38.257

I would actually close this as Not Constructive. There's a boatload of home media server articles out there and you say you have no problem reading. Feel free to post when you have a more specific problem we can solve, rather than handing out sample designs for you. – Tanner Faulkner – 2013-03-05T18:28:32.387

Some links to get you started: http://lifehacker.com/5936546/how-i-built-the-media-center-of-my-dreams-for-under-500 http://www.havetheknowhow.com/ http://www.pcworld.com/article/188532/article.html http://hothardware.com/cs/blogs/ta/archive/2009/02/22/high-capacity-low-cost-300-budget-media-server.aspx http://producerism.com/blog/building-the-perfect-htpc-media-server/ http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/362299-31-building-home-media-server (Haven't actually read through these but they don't look awful so...)

– Tanner Faulkner – 2013-03-05T18:30:42.837

@Tanner Thanks for the links, I'll begin reading them. Also, 3 other members have left helpful responses as they are helping me understand the typical setup for this situation...no need to be high and mighty because you understand a topic that is slightly over my head.. – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:33:28.003

Also if you manage to grab 20 rep, hop on over to Root Access so we can discuss at length without worrying about the rules which guide questions. http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/118/root-access

– Tanner Faulkner – 2013-03-05T18:35:10.270

Answers

It sounds like what you're looking for is a NAS.

Personally, I recommend a full-computer based NAS, but then I must admit I'm biased against a lot of consumer-grade commercial NAS boxes, like the one you linked, because the commercial things are often very limited in functionality.

For a computer-based solution, there are several NAS Linux or FreeBSD based distros that will do a good job making use of the supplied hardware.

NAS4Free, FreeNAS, Open Media Vault and some others.

These let you share storage using a huge number of protocols to a very large number of devices.

killermist

Posted 2013-03-05T17:53:32.797

Reputation: 1 886

I'm not too familiar with Linux, so I'm unsure about setting up my own NAS. What types of functionality is typically limited by consumer-grade NAS boxes? – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:27:36.670

Consumer-grade NAS boxes most often just do SMB (windows shares), maybe FTP, and probably not much else. They also are often annoying to administer (from what few units I've misguidedly tried). If you follow the link for NAS4Free, it will show you all the different features of it, including the giant library of protocols it supports. NAS distros are also generally WebGUI administrated pretty cleanly. – killermist – 2013-03-05T18:33:42.293

Nice, it looks like it supports Xbox 360 streaming as well. I'll look into it. It looks like I would have to build a custom computer with 4-6gb ram though. Which may run me relatively close to what commercial NAS boxes are at. – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:47:14.617

Maybe. But, then you'd also have something with far more functionality that a crappy consumer-grade NAS box. A real computer as a NAS is VASTLY more capable than some mass-market trash. And if you decide later to do something else with it, you can. A consumer-grade NAS CAN NOT be retasked later if you change your mind. – killermist – 2013-03-05T18:50:01.213

Good question.

It depend's on several things, the ease of setting up a simple media sharing.

Media Sharing is different then running a Media Server. A media server is a piece of software, that run's and allows people to play, stream videos etc.

Media Sharing mean's sharing specific folders, to specific people over the network. It can also be done over the internet. But it's far more secure if the people your sharing with are on the same network.

Now there are two issues that I can think of.

Did you mean the people are on your wifi router using it for internet access? If so, then sharing folder's to allow them view and stream them is far easier.
Are they somewhere in the area but not connecting via your wifi router, then it's still doable to share media.

I think the easiest solution is for you to share the folder's on your network, and try to configure your router to make sure these folder's are accessible to people on the network.

I myself use this old networking utility called Network Magic. Basically it's a freeware, that makes it easy to share folder's across your network.

It's really easy to use, and will help you with other network security setup's as well.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Network_Magic_Basic_d5305.html

I myself use a tool called AirPlayIt which allow's me to stream to my ipad or ipod touch over the network. It's free, and really easy to work with.

However, if you want an actual media server, you might try something like XBMC, which is a piece of free software that set's up your pc as a full fledged media server, entertainment machine, that allows the user to view streaming content.

Good luck

crosenblum

Posted 2013-03-05T17:53:32.797

Reputation: 245

Interesting! Thank, I originally meant the first option you put on there. But what if they aren't on my wifi router (I didn't even think of sharing media with family members that live relatively close)? Also in my original post, I forgot to mention that I would also like to be able to access the media from my Xbox 360 if possible. – Quick-Qs – 2013-03-05T18:24:55.583

Well you'd have to look for some xbox360 addon, which I am sadly unfamiliar with to suggest anything. But if it were me I'd create a folder in your pc, store everything there, and use xbox to remotely access that shared folder, then use some tool to share the folder to others. Perhaps thru dropbox or plex, or xbmc. Takes some digging to find the best way forward. Good luck. – crosenblum – 2013-03-12T05:41:15.273